Expert: Sharon Crandall - 1/30/2008

Question
Sharon,
I am a divorced mother of two who has since been remarried and now have a 6 month old daughter with my new husband. My new husband has been in the picture since my children were 2 and 3 years old. Now 7 & 8. My divorce from my 1st husband was and is anything but pleasant. He manipulates, blames, takes no responsibility for our divorce....worst of all he has involved the kids in his feelings since it happened and continues to do so even now. He is one of those people who things he's entitled to something...I don't know what...but something.

Things my ex would do would be cry in front of the children...on  a regular basis for the 1st year when they were 2 & 3 until they were 4 & 5. He tells them he has no money because he has to give his money to me (child support) He tells the kids he doesn't like my new husband when my new husband has never been anything but nice to him. He displays road rage in front of the kids, has a short fuse on his temper...I could go on and on.

My daughter (7) really seems to take it all in stride. She is always in a good mood, has tons of friends and is a very outgoing, caring, friendly person eager to help around the house, gets invited to all the birthday parties, I get calls for play dates,  or whatever. She cries easily and still wets her bed...but I take what I can get and any bad things are far outweighed by all the good things about her.

My son on the other hand has been recently diagnosed with ADD. We have him on a low dose of medication and can see somewhat of a difference in certain behaviors. However my concern now is that for 2 years now, he has had a problem at school, at home, pretty much in every aspect of his life and he is the spitting image of his father.

In 1st grade, he had a boy in his class that was always bothering him, saying things, doing annoying things, etc, etc. My sons problem is that he cannot ignore these kids and blows up and loses his temper. (like his father) This year in 2nd grade it's a new kid, and my son has become a big disruption in his class because he loses his temper at the kids and can't ignore them and sadly, he gets no birthday invitations, I get no calls for play dates, nothing. He has visited the school principal and counselor on numberous occassions.

At home, he is mean to his sister, if they argue he is the one who turns the conversation into mean things and when confronted by us...it's always his sister fault. He doesn't understand there is a nice way to get your point across and not so nice way. He wants nothing to do with it, his explaination shows he feels justified because his sister did this or his sister did that. When asked questions, there is always a "But"...always. Nothing is ever his fault...when things don't go his way he storms off into his room yelling, slamming doors, etc.

He is such a bright kid..but he has soo much anger, frustration, and just thinks that everyone else is at fault when he blows up because he can't be the boss at a certain game...or his sister wants to play with this particular car and he only wants her to play with that car. I don't have enough room to describe him in full detail...but everything seems to be going wrong for him and we have been very patient and careful how we confront him on issues because we don't want to be singleing him out or attacking him...but he basically is just a selfish controlling , it's everybodies elses fault, self centered, angry kid and we can't seem to make things better.

Answer
Dear Jessica,

First of all, he is not a self-centered, selfish, and controlling kid.  He is angry for sure and is justified in being angry.  He is with an abusive father and is not being protected from it, he sees a new baby get all the love and attention who has a father and mother, both to love her, and then he can't do anything about his horrible situation.  While you are not so worried about your daughter I am. Wetting the bed means she is afraid of her father or some adult man and is demonstrating what she is afraid to express openly. She has taken the "good child" role to survive and your son has been able to at least openly express his anger.  She will have terrible problems as an adult over all this.

Their father has no business having unsupervised visits and that should be your first priority.  Then, the next thing is to have one night a week that you take your son out and be alone together to have just your time with him and the same with your daughter, so they feel like they are not playing second fiddle to your new baby.  

this time should be spent in telling them all their good points and nothing to be said about their faults or things they are doing wrong in any way.  Just fun time together where they get love and praise for who they are.  Ask questions like what they want to do when they grow up, etc. and praise them for any and every good quality you can think of.  

Medication for your son is like putting a Band-Aid on a six inch gaping wound, and in fact only masks the problem and the problem keeps building up in his brain.

Your children are old enough to testify of their father's abusive behavior and a good counselor will know that bed-wetting is a sign of fear of a male.  

You need a great therapist.  I could help in helping you understand personality traits and communication skills which might help a lot, but probably needs more counseling.  I would get someone who doesn't believe in medication--only as a very last resort.

Now, one thing you can do is to sit down with your son and tell him how much you love him and tell him that you can understand why he is angry and doing the things he does but that you want to  help him be happy so he doesn't want to be so angry.  Then ask him if he would like to be happy.  Then ask him what HE THINKS NEEDS TO BE DONE in order for him to be happy.  See if you can get him to open up. He probably has the solution if you can get him to open up.  If he opens up you must never use the information to get back at him or get angry with him or make him feel bad in any way or he will never open up to you again.

Another thing I would do is play board games once a week with your older children and make the rules that it is for fun and doesn't matter who wins but that it is important to learn just to have fun together.  I can't go into all the detail necessary to help you here but I would like you to think about this and then write me at personalityconsultant1@yahoo.com and remind me of your situation and see if i can help you with the next step and then set up some coaching with you, if you are able.  If not, then I will help with what I can in these few letter interactions.

Sharon Crandall
Life is 4 Living Coach/Consultant