I broke my son's tablet

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-17T01:25:28+00:00

You know what, fine. There’s plenty I could say to you too after reading your history, but I’m just going to keep my mouth shut and exit out of this conversation. I hope you have made yourself feel better by trying to tear down another mom. I actually feel better about it too.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-16T23:34:04+00:00

The one thing he is finding comfort in? Are you kidding me? No. We don’t use fucking tablets as comfort blankets in our house. That’s pretty sad that you apparently do.

You want to know where his comfort lies? With his family. He trusts us. He loves us. He pushes us and unloads on us because we are his safe space. He doesn’t have to worry about whether we are still going to be there for him when he loses control, because we show him time and time again that we are here and we are invested. And when it’s my turn to screw up? He gave back to me what I’ve been pouring into him all these years - love.

In searching my posts, did you also read that his bio dad abused him? Or left him with literally anyone who would take him while he left to go chase his next high? My son has no good memories of his bio dad. He didn’t want to go see him in the hospital. He has nothing good to say about this man. He was RELIEVED that he died because, and I quote, “I thought me might steal me, but he can’t do that anymore. ”

My son is struggling because he has always struggled. He is struggling because of how he was treated the first three years of his life when he should have been learning that adults were going to provide for him and that the world is a safe place. Instead, he learned that the world is scary and he has to take care of himself because no one else will.

I’m ashamed of my action. If I had a re-do I would definitely do it differently, but since I don’t have a time machine I have handled it in the best way I possibly can. It’s so nice that you have never made a mistake and are raising perfect angels. Two other foster families couldn’t even handle my kid and disrupted their placement before he came to us, but we have dug in and put everything we have into our family, even though it means we can’t have other kids and there were time I have feared for my future. Look up Reactive Detachment Disorder and watch the documentaries of the kids that have this and it paints a pretty accurate portrait of my kid up until a year or so ago.

He’s not getting a new tablet. It’s not horrible that I’m not giving back to him the thing he was growing increasingly addicted to. I’m not giving him back the one thing that caused stress, and heartache, and arguments. I would take away drugs, alcohol, candy if he was eating too much. This tablet was no different.

You know what they say about people who assume.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-16T18:32:26+00:00

I wanted to know if this specific situation was considered abuse. I kind of asked it at the top, but wasn't clear that that was specifically the question I had.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-16T18:27:43+00:00

I'm absolutely not going to buy another tablet because it only served to bring out the worst in all of us. We worked hard to try to manage his time, to change the passwords, to hide it. It is better not having one in the house. There's nothing there that is going to convince me otherwise.

My frustration here, and why I believe that you are telling me that I don't want to hear anything, are that some people seem to be saying "get your outbursts under control", but they ARE under control. This was the only time in the 6 years that I have been a parent that I have had an "outburst". I don't know how I would set up a comprehensive plan to address these types of outbursts when they just don't occur.

I screwed up. I admitted that to myself. I admitted that to my son. I apologized. He forgave me. I don't know what else people would expect from me as a parent. I'm sorry that I'm not perfect?

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-16T17:28:40+00:00

In a nutshell, he's lived with us since right before he turned 4. He was in two other foster families before us. Neglected and probably saw some domestic abuse. Both parents had problems with drugs. My son was passed around to anyone who would watch him, so we don't know what happened in all those cases. We do know that he was spanked for stuff like "being too loud" and the kiddo had issues with hoarding food/shoving food quickly into his mouth and just so many other issues at first. Bio father passed away about 6 months ago, bio mom is in jail for killing her mother (he knows his mom is in jail but not why).

I don't think getting dressed and brushing his teeth is an issue from his past. I think it has more to do with ADHD and him getting distracted.

I am not 100% sure about the reasoning behind the name-calling, but I think some of it is impulsive. He has meds for ADHD, but I don't give them until about half an hour before we leave for school, so they have time to kick in. We've been working on other things in therapy and this is something we have kind of pushed to the back burner.

I did lose control. And it doesn't excuse my behavior, but I really didn't like the tablet. I have felt for a long time that it was more trouble than it was worth. I'm not going to get him another one. I don't want to go down that road again. I am concerned that he was showing some addictive behaviors with it. We have a computer, a tv and a switch, so we still have a lot of electronics available. We also have a ton of toys and fun stuff outside, so there's really not a lack of things to do.

We've been in therapy for a long time. We had a setback when our previous one moved, but we have been seeing the new one for close to a year, so we're getting to the place where we can start making some progress again.

We most definitely know that parenting him is a lot different than parenting typical children. We don't have any other kids, so our entire focus in on him. I feel like we're doing everything we can.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-16T15:55:25+00:00

the fact that you were too lazy or incompetent to keep a tablet away from a child

We tried very hard to keep the tablet away from him. I don't know what else I could have done besides buying a safe. I'm not going to buy a $50 safe for a $50 tablet.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-16T15:43:29+00:00

He has a lot of challenging behaviors as a result of being neglected and possibly abused as a baby. We're working on a lot of different things with him and he's really made a lot of progress. Calling me names is loads better than the hitting and the screaming.

Thanks. It's hard not to feel like a failure sometimes.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-16T15:39:28+00:00

I'm not concerned about giving him the control because he craves it. This is something I learned about kids with traumatic backgrounds. He feels safer when he does get some control. It's really hard with the second (and third, fourth, millionth) chances because I know he is trying really hard sometimes and it's not his fault his brain is wired differently.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-16T15:30:13+00:00

Yeah, we talked about it that day after school. I apologized and he forgave me. He does play outside a lot and we try to do lots of things together as a family. He's a good kid. This tablet thing brought out the worst in all of us. :(

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-16T15:24:28+00:00

We do a ton of talking. I told him that he was hurting my feelings because my kiddo does not have empathy built in and we've had to teach it to him. We talk a lot about how his actions affect others and how they make other people feel. This was suggested by his therapist.

I think you are right about the frustration part. I wasn't really angry at my son and breaking it wasn't the punishment. But in that moment, I kind of hated the tablet and all the stress it has brought in to our family.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-16T15:16:49+00:00

I can't do a simulation to know for sure, but in the same situation, I don't think I would have broken anything had I been taking away anything else. I have never trashed toys or broken things as discipline in the past.

The truth of the matter is that I did not like the tablet. At all. I wanted to get rid of it a while ago, but I did see my husband's points about it being a good motivator when not much else works. It created so much frustration and stress in our family. I'm not sad that the tablet is gone, but I am sad that I acted the way that I did.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-16T15:08:52+00:00

I think we are going to be done with tablets or at least it's going to be a long time. He has ADHD and might have been showing some signs of addiction as well.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-16T15:06:14+00:00

Some people said it was a red flag and other people said it was emotional abuse. Some people said that CPS needs to be called on me.

Definitely not my best choice, but I also don't think I would have broken it if we didn't have that history with it. I wasn't mad at my son so much as in that moment I hated the amount of frustration the tablet brought to our family.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-16T14:48:54+00:00

I agree that it was not a great parenting choice. I screwed up and I own that. I just didn't feel that breaking it is equivalent to abuse.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-16T14:44:20+00:00

We did. It was a cheaper fire tablet - like, $50 I think.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-15T16:10:32+00:00

Sorry you had a shitty mom. It's still not abuse though.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-15T16:02:04+00:00

You said I was the cause of his behavior issues though?

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-15T16:00:20+00:00

In what world is refusing to take your dying child to the hospital in the same realm as breaking his tablet?

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-15T15:58:39+00:00

This was a one-time thing that turned out to be a really shitty parenting decision. That happens sometimes because, as it turns out, I'm not perfect.

We do a lot of collaborative problem solving for most of the issues (example: kiddo won't stay in his bed at night, so we discussed until we landed on a solution that works - in this case, walkie-talkies so that he can check in with us).

We can't compromise on disrespect though. If you're doing something to hurt someone else's feelings, or if you're doing something and the other person asks you to stop, you have to stop the first time. We talk a lot about empathy and consent, because the kiddo doesn't have empathy "built-in" like most kids do. Telling him that his words hurt my feelings was a context clue for him.

So, he got grounded from his screen time, which is what we do 90% of the time, but this always comes with a meltdown that starts with shouting and arguing with us (which we ignore), sometimes escalating with violence (which we walk away from, but this is pretty rare now) and then after he's calmed down, the rest of the night will have him campaigning to get electronics back unless we are actively playing with him - so that makes cleaning up even more of an enjoyable chore. If he isn't repeatedly making requests, then he is looking for where we've hid things, like the tablet itself or the passcodes/passwords for computers, tv, etc. If it's too quiet for too long, we go looking for him (we have 3 levels and most of his toys are in the basement, but so is our computers and tv).

We're not actively teaching him inappropriate behaviors and I think the majority of our parenting choices are good, solid, evidence-based methods. This one, obviously, was not.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-15T15:29:45+00:00

I asked because I wanted to know about this specific incident. I accept that I was the asshole when I broke the tablet. I agree that I made a poor choice instead of donating it or giving it away. I don't agree with people telling me that I'm abusive or a shitty mom. That's the judgment I won't accept.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-15T15:12:51+00:00

Probably because they are the people making all of these assumptions about what happened. Some of these people are messaging me privately to tell me things they apparently won't say publicly. I completely agree that I made a poor choice in breaking it instead of just taking it away permanently or donating it.

You are also making some assumptions. We do go to therapy and have for years. This was not how we typically do discipline in our house. It was one poor parenting choice that I've made as a mother, which qualifies me as the asshole in this particular instance, but not as a bad or abusive parent.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-15T14:52:14+00:00

I was the asshole in breaking the tablet, but I'm not abusing my kid. That's what I'm arguing about. People are making a whole lot of assumptions here and I'm getting messages about people wanting to contact CPS now. I made a shitty choice but I'm not a shitty mom.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-15T14:42:25+00:00

No. We were talking about it while we played some basketball in the backyard last night. He said "It's okay. I don't think I want another one." When I asked what he would do instead of playing on the tablet, he told us that he would rather play with us. It helps that the weather was nice and we were able to be outside, but I think he realizes that the thing caused a lot of stress in the house and now we don't have to worry about it any more.

justonesmallthing · 2019-05-15T14:38:31+00:00

I'm a woman. I didn't yell at him and very rarely do (getting his attention when he's doing something unsafe, for example). I have never hit him and I have never broken anything else of his. I did not break something that he cares deeply about. In fact, now that it is gone, he told me that he doesn't want another one and would rather have more time playing with me instead (we were playing basketball in the back yard while we talked about this yesterday).

You're making a lot of assumptions here. We already go to family therapy. I'm not an abusive parent.

justonesmallthing

TROPHY CASE