11 yo son emulating father’s behavior

[sammiejo]

My 11 yo son is the oldest of 3 kids. He has been manipulated and shamed by my husband since he was at least 4, and has by far been the biggest recipient of the three kids. Now I am starting to see him mimic some of my husband's toxic patterns. Maybe not with the intent to manipulate, but my son's emotional responses.

Today my son got in a fight with his sister, stomped out of the room and yelled back to her that he was never playing with her again.

When I went to talk to him he kept talking over me and getting angrier. I told him if he did not listen to me he would lose his device until he could let me speak without interrupting me.

He got so angry, he threw things and said I hated him.  He yelled at me and told me to leave and that I was just making things worse.

I sat in his room and let him calm down, and we were eventually able to have a calm conversation and come to a peaceful solution.

Here are my questions for anyone that has any thoughts, suggestions or a similar story.

His dad doesn't discipline him, he punishes him. When my son is punished he feels like he deserves it. When he is disciplined he really acts out in anger. Why is this?

I am filing for divorce next week. How do I present these and other behaviors that are a result of them living in a toxic environment in a way that will be heard and believed? This will be very important when it comes to custody arrangements.

[Penny Lane]

Hi and welcome!

This is very hard stuff. And you did a GREAT job helping your son through the process of calming himself down and finding a resolution. Great job!

I have a couple thoughts before I get to your question. I am a stepmom to two kids whose mom is the PD. My husband and I have worked with the kids for years on these exact issues - teaching them emotional coping skills both for dealing with their mom and also for not behaving like their mom.

The first is, there are two books that I think will help you a lot, especially as you navigate the tough post-divorce time with your kids. One is Parenting with Love and Logic. The other is How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. On their surface they are very different but what I like about both of them is that they focus on enabling kids to develop skills for themselves rather than telling them what to do. When you're coparenting with a PD in another house, it's going to be on the kids to do stuff for themselves and this creates a framework to help teach it to them.

The other thing is that it's been very hard for us and particularly my husband when DSS12 starts acting like his mom. But we got a very good piece of advice which is that preteens and teens are SUPPOSED to act like that. The best thing you can do is to try to avoid getting triggered and address it like you would any other bad behavior. I won't say that they're not picking up bad behavior from the PD parent - they definitely are. It's just that normal parenting interventions to teens often work just fine.

To your question: Unfortunately, what I've found with court is that a lot of the intangible things are very hard to prove. And even if you do show that the kids are struggling, it's easy for the other parent to turn things around and say "well that's because you did XYZ." If I were you, I would focus on what you can quantify. It can be very tricky to prove emotional abuse. But you might be able to get away with simply proving that you're the more involved parent and for that reason alone the kids should spend more time with you. For example:

How much time do the kids spend with each parent in a normal week?
Who takes the kids to doctors appointments?
Who communicates with teachers?
Do they have a morning routine, a bedtime routine, a homework routine? Who does that stuff with them?
Who knows their clothing sizes and makes sure they have seasonally appropriate clothes?

My point is that assuming you do a lot of this stuff and your husband doesn't, you might be able to make a case that you are the primary parent and the kids should spend the majority of the time at your house.

If you do go the route of trying to prove he's damaging the kids, look for more tangibles:

Have you seen your husband being verbally abusive toward the kids? Can you write it down in a journal and date it?
Same with the punishment. It's not enough to prove that your style is better. Is his objectively bad, like not within the range of reasonable parenting styles? Journal that, too.
Any time you've raised this concern to doctors, taken the kids to a counselor, etc - get ALL the notes and files, there might be something in there to help. Same with notes form teachers.

I can't promise that will help - courts seem to be trending toward 50/50 almost no matter what unless you come to an agreement otherwise. But this varies greatly by state (some even still assume the kid will spend more time with mom or that mom should have decision making power) so definitely talk to your attorney about what your best strategy is here and how you can document it.

The other thing is that you might have something your ex wants, that he would trade for more parenting time in a settlement. From what I've seen on this board, that's money. As you go through this and strategize, think about offering him settlements where you get more parenting time/decision making power than what the law entitles you to and he gets (to keep) more income or assets than he'd be entitled to. Don't make yourself destitute, but if you can afford it that settlement might be the easiest way out. Then you don't have to prove that his behavior is affecting the kids - you can spend more energy on mitigating it.

Good luck, and I hope you'll come back and let us know how things are going post-filing.

[sammiejo]

Penny Lane thank you so much for that reply. It was thorough and thoughtful, and it helped to bring me a little bit back to my center. I've been thinking a lot about my son's behavior since my post. I realized that it's not so much my son acting like his father, but my husband acting like an adolescent which is very similar to what you said. I am working on building a stronger relationship with all of my kids. I can already see positive changes in their behavior. I also agree that it will be important to help them learn to advocate for themselves. I also really appreciate the book recommendations. I am a huge reader and will be getting both of those. Thank you again. It sounds like you are a great step mom and that you are doing a great job managing a difficult situation.