For the past 2 years I have been raising my stepson who has been diagnosed as cognitively impaired/developmentaly delayed and obtained an IQ score of 52 on two seperate tests. We had to battle it out with his BM for 4 years before we obtained custody of my ss. It was only after the man she had living with her raped a 10 and a 9 year old living in the neighborhood that cps stepped in and decided maybe they should let my husband have him (we lived in a different state). When my ss came to live with me he was like a little animal. Although he was 12, he couldn't tie his shoes, read or write (not even his first name), he was violent, he lied about everything, he stole food, he was 50 lbs overweight, he had absolutely no idea how to act in public...I could go on and on. It took me 3 days at 15 minutes a pop to teach him to tie his shoes. I hired a tutor because we had been told by his former teacher that he was dyslexic with a language receptive disorder and adhd. The tutor happens to be the highly accoladed dyslexia instructor/teacher in our area. She tested him and much to our surprise he was not dyslexic nor did he have a language receptive disorder OR adhd. His mother had him addicted to red bull and nyquil. When he could no longer get those items his adhd magically went away. After 2 years he is now reading on a 3rd grade level. My frustration however continues to grow because now that he knows how to read he won't. In our district if you can't be intergrated into regular classes by 9th grade they send you to an alternative school to learn "life skills". My ss has great powers of manipulation and often cons his teachers into thinking he can't do his work. He also lies all the time even about silly stuff. I am so tired of being the only one to push him into doing what he's more than capable of doing. My husband is away on business weekly because one if us has to be here for our children (I have a 12 year old daughter as well) and I am 8 months pregnant. So basically I am here on my own for the most part. And to top it all off now the bm wants to see the ss. Everytime he even speaks to her I have to deal with weeks of acting out. My husband and I argue constantly over this (his mother died when he was 10 and he thinks worries because the bm has esrd that his son will have to go through what he did). We argue because as far as I am concerned I don't think she was any kind of mother at all. The things that woman did to my ss are illegal in all 50 states. She is my idea of a monster. He agrees with me but still pushes the issue from time to time. I get frustrated because I am the one that has to deal with the fallout! I need some helpful advice if there is anyone out there who can relate I'd be appreciative.