Dress for success. Unless you're BM.
Great story from SS13's aide at school!
Last week we dressed him in a nice Eddie Bauer type short sleeved plaid shirt with coordinating dockers. He took a shower in the morning before he got dressed and brushed his teeth. (I know, shocking that a child should have to go through such torturous rigors) He looked great, like a regular kid, a sixth or seventh grade girl might easily develop a crush on him if she saw his picture.
The aide told DH this morning that 1/2 way through the day so many people were coming up to SS13 telling him how great he looked that he started asking to take his shirt off to stop all the attention!
Normally he goes to school from his mom's house. He's a hulking boy of 13, probably about 5'6 or more and on the cusp of puberty and just big in a class full of 6th graders. But BM always dresses him in flimsy trashy baby clothes -- always flimsy jersey gym shorts or elastic running pants and crappy old T shirts. Everything has holes, is torn, food clinging to it, including to his teeth. Never bathes there, either.
We started being able to keep him one night a week so we started teaching him to wear REAL pants and REAL shirts. He says "Why do I have to wear 'man's' clothes?" I tell him because you are a young man!
So now it turns out the whole damn school was as disgusted at his BM attire as I was. For the other children, he must have seemed like "one of them" for the first time. BM dresses him to accentuate his "otherness." He's "that" kid. The one in the crazy clothes and a bit scary. Sweet personality, but lack of boundaries is just screaming off him as soon as you glance at the paper thin shorts, holes in the shirt.
For one day a week, not any more!!!! DH came home this morning to tell me what the aide said and we both can't stop smiling and giggling!!
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Hope he gets use to "mens"
Hope he gets use to "mens" clothes.
Why is his BM setting him up like this? Dose she dress herself like this as well?
He has language difficulties.
He has language difficulties. It was hard enough for him to come up with the whole sentence to ask, let alone the proper plural/possessive form of "man."
He's autistic. Change is not his favorite thing. But I've learned from his dad that once you get him over the initial step, he can get used to something new.
YES, SHE IS SETTING HIM UP! A) she's lazy
she doesn't much care C) she's lazy and D) she's lazy. But someone here once said she sounds like Borderline/waif and I wonder. I looked it up and it says these women like their children to be failures so people feel sorry for them. Ding ding ding! we have a winner!!!! Also so their children don't outshine them. Ding ding ding!
One time recently I looked at the shirt he took off from her house and I looked at all the tags -- couldn't prove it, but I think it's a woman's shirt. Just her own top she threw on him. Deep V neck and short in the waist.
My ss has a pretty good case
My ss has a pretty good case of autism. He would go to school naked if someone didn't supervise.
He's had no sensory issues
He's had no sensory issues with the clothes we put him in. Just the first half hour of fussing over change then he forgot to fuss and got comfortable.
My dh likes to tell them, "If you never tried anything new you'd still be breast-feeding." That grosses them out so they get more willing to try whatever he's selling that day!
Yup, it's a good one!
Yup, it's a good one!
Aw, that's so nice to hear!
It made our day, too! I feel
It made our day, too! I feel really elated!
BTW, all the clothes came from Sears. Turns out their cut and sizing works best for SS13. I tried several other stores and had to take it all back. Sears is my go-to now for him. Can get some pretty good deals there.
SD15 is more like this. Not
SD15 is more like this. Not autistic so she's more aware of what other kids are wearing than her brother is. But she sticks to what she's learned at BM's house, too. Including the not bathing.
We have the same issue with
We have the same issue with BM. SD6 isn't autistic but she has some pretty heavy behavioral/emotional issues. She missed the deadline so she's the oldest kid in her class (6 1/2 in 5K) and she's big for her age (4'2" 66lbs). BM dresses her in spandex pants and shirts that draw attention to her midsection because they're usually a size too small. She doesn't brush her hair or God forbid style it.
These things have all given her a terrible view of herself and she often says things like 'I'm fat. I'm ugly. I hate myself.' All of which is so hard to hear from a six year old.
We don't have a lot of money either but I'm a dedicated thrift store shopper so with time and patience we have built her a great wardrobe of name brand clothes. We also get one day during the week to get her ready for school and when we do, she has confidence in her appearance!
She's excited getting ready and going to school and the little boy she has a crush on said 'Wow, you look amazing!' You could see how happy it made her. We basically sacrifice one outfit a week because BM never gives our things back and every Wednesday when we pick her up it's more spandex pants and ugly stained up Walmart shirts which I worry must be hard for her to go back to after getting the compliments. She cries when she has to go home these days.
It's whore-ible that women like this have children and subject them to feeling like they're an outsider. Your SS is very lucky to have you.
^^^^This this this. This is
^^^^This this this. This is it exactly. How you look DOES affect your emotions and your social development. It just does. And it is just heartbreaking to witness the child going through it. I can picture your little sd very easily, it's pretty close to the vision of my ss. Already towering over every other child, bm stuffing him with potato chips and cookies every day his big tummy exposed in the too short Ts and holey see-through shirts and shorts. What 40 pound smaller kid wouldn't be put off?
Thanks for the kind words and your sd is lucky to have you, too.
I almost could have written
I almost could have written this entire post. SD8 has been 71lbs since she was 6, Very akward build for a girl, bigger on top. When I moved in, nothing but sweat pants and stretchy pants. She did have some jeans but she has a flat backside so they didn't even stay up, not that they were even her size. I took the girl out and bought her a bunch of clothes. I did the same thing, thrift shop and brand names. Her whole attitude had changed. The school was calling me, wondering what was going on. What was so different at the house, what was I doing because they had seen a complete turn around in this little girl. She was walking with her head held high and smiling, she was being nice to the other kids, she wasn't stealing things, she was keeping her hands to herself....
SD8 had a lot of emotional issues and would come in from school, go straight to bed and cry herself to sleep. I didn't allow her to do that either. YSD didn't like me giving MSD all of that attention at first because she was used to SD8 being in bed and BM being fine with that. I would tell her she was grounded from her room, we had to read a book or study letters.. (She didn't even know her ABC's) After about 2 months of that she just took off and she was reading chapter books by the time she started 1st grade. She has confidence now.
BM picked them up one day and I let them pick out their outfits that they were wearing, and in front of them said they looked like shit! I wanted to throat punch her.
When I was dropping BS5 off
When I was dropping BS5 off at school today, I stopped in the main office to ask secretary a question and she was taking a picture of a little one in front of a sign that said "welcome class of 2028" So I'm guessing he is an incoming Kindergartener.. must be in the head start PreK or something, because he's not in BS5 PreK class at the school.... anywho While I'm standing there waiting for her to finish with him I can't help but notice that the poor kid has a button down shirt on and it's buttoned like completely wrong like 3 buttons off wrong, pants don't match... and there's mom standing right there bringing him to school and letting him get his picture taken like that??? Poor kid~ These kids have no chance with worthless parents like that
Yup. That's it exactly. She
Yup. That's it exactly. She couldn't at least fix the buttons? Oh, she must be a soul sister of the BM I'm dealing with.
LOL! Just as another view
LOL! Just as another view point, I can totally see that happening to me. ALL of my kids are fiercely independent. I hear "I DO IT!" all the live-long day. That results in some, uh, interesting wardrobe choices at times. And I am NOT allowed to "help" if they feel they can do it themselves. So I can TOTALLY see one of my kids at 5, thinking they can do the buttons "all by myself, Mommy!" and then not letting me fix them.
LOL my BS8 is similar. He
LOL my BS8 is similar. He will only wear what he wants to wear. Today that was a bright orange tshirt (his team color for after school sports), so he insisted on pairing it with bright orange pants! It was a vision. He is very proud of his outfits though, so everyone knows he put them together lol
Ugh, picture day! We just got
Ugh, picture day! We just got SD'S from the beginning of the year. Shes' s wearing this Walmart shirt that BM still puts on her, hair unbrushed, stringy and just hanging there while all the other girls have on dresses and their hair done up nicely with bows and ribbons.
Thank you, as well. We have the same issues with socialization; she doesn't have any friends, no play dates or sports/activities. We can't even put her in anything because BM can't be bothered to drive more than 5 minutes much less interrupt her schedule of playing games on her cell phone and arguing with her douchey BF. Exercise is so important to these kiddos, not just for the obvious physical reasons but for the opportunity to make friends. BM will never move so SD will be going to the same school for at least the next 5 years and once you get the reputation as the weird one, the outcast, the one no one wants to play with, it's hard to shake.
SD will act out sometimes and make a spectacle of herself so the kids already are a little bit standoffish with her and the more they ignore/make fun of/ostracize her, the more she acts out. It's such a viscous cycle.
Yep, DH has always been
Yep, DH has always been pissed as all hell at BM2 because of her playing this shit with SS16. DH advocated for him to be in Little League. BM2 always complained that she was just wayyyy too busy working her PART TIME job to take him to practice... at the field that was DIRECTLY behind her apartment complex.. I mean she could have thrown a stone from her window to the baseball fields. Then DH wanted SS to take Karate. The ONLY reason he did was because DH and I took him EVERY TIME (2 times a week and most Saturdays)... BMs NEVER took him once. I remember DH and I went on vacation for 10 days and told SS to make sure he didn't miss karate practice that week because he had testing coming up.. guess who was just much toooo busy to take him??? And look where SS16 is now? Pot head, most likely drug dealer, soon to be HS drop out..
We took SSthen11 to a social
We took SSthen11 to a social skills class at an autism center for months every Saturday. One weekend we had to be out of town. DH printed her a map (like she doesn't know where the damn autism center is???!!!!), provided phone numbers, info sheets, and offered to pay the babysitter to come pick him up and take him. She refused the babysitter offer and claimed she'd do it.
We fly several states away. The Saturday morning we get a frantic call from the instructor: where's ss? The class is part of a study that will be invalidated if the kids don't show up. Kid won't get the benefit if he misses classes.
We had told BM all that. We gave instructor BM's number. 20 mins later, instructor calls us back. He talked to her. She "has no help," she thought it was "optional," not her "fault."
I was livid. And disgusted. Next time we had to be out of town, Dh just hired the babysitter without even asking BM. Can you imagine? Paid help must take your kid to autism class cuz you can't be bothered? It's not like she has a houseful of diapered rugrats. Only one other kid, one who's old enough to stay alone or who was welcome to come with and meet other kids with siblings at the autism center. D.I.S.G.U.S.T.I.N.G.
OMG, I.hate.cats, you just
OMG, I.hate.cats, you just made a lightbulb go on over my head. SD15 pretty much had this reputation by the time I entered the scene when she was 12. They had been divorced over 4 years by then. Sd has trouble enough with a lack of innate sense of social skills and with some outrageous parenting. DH would take the kids out every weekend for some kind of activity and try to make them friends but this was against his then-wife's wishes and she would sabotage their plans and flat out ridicule him in front of the kids.
When he finally left he was free to take them out all he wanted on his time and he did. But girls really do need a woman or big sister to help them navigate femaleness and she never got that. It never occurred to me before how much BM's failure to dress the girl properly as a first grader etc helped to form that child's sense of self and her comfort level with being the outsider with no friends. At 15 she is firmly entrenched in her identity as being anti everybody else and hostile to other kids. She has found 3 or 4 other kids who reside in the same strata and that's now her social life. She still has no real girlfriends but she has plenty of "enemy" females at school.
How do they let their kids
How do they let their kids out like that? In our case, BM has no shame. None. It's the only answer. I think the only person she has a slight sense of wanting to impress, oddly enough, is me. When skids show improvement in some area that she can easily deduce is due to my influence, she ups her own game. She lets ss go to school every day where not only other kids but a host of professional adults as well as parents will see him with food glommed on to his teeth without a second thought. What.The.Hell.