what is your opinion of.......

[wysiwyg]

A few weeks ago child said BM told him he could do an activity after school.  When he got home BM confronted him and was angry he forgot to turn in some papers at school - child said it was ok that he still had time as the deadline to turn in had not passed yet.  BM yelled at child and told him he was not going to his activity.  CHild got extremely angry, stomped to his room and stated he started to cut up some collectible stuffed animals, like ears, feet, hair and tails off and thought it was really funny.  BM found out and told him that "You make me sick".

I think this is some underlying scary anger issue and think the child is headed down a dark path.  This is the 4th child BF and I raised and aside from the other 3 normal lying, refusing to shower and change clothes and  dirty rooms, I do not see cutting as any behavior that would be considered as anything other than troublesome.

Comments welcome.........please!

[catherine]

is common for young ones who can't express their feelings well or at all.  Child was angry at Mom and instead of verbalizing it, chose to destroy their own property.  It could be that simple, or it could mean that the child has more serious emotional problems.  BTDT - still doing it!

Not a custody changer on it's own, but definately a red flag that the child needs to start counselling to get the anger out.

[JoeMaMa]

Yes, I would say it is common, well at least 50% of the time.

I raised my 2 sons after their mother took a vacation from reality through drug addiction. I had a lot of difficulty with 1 of the 2 boys. Psychologist and therapist to numerous to count and none of it did so much as a lick of good. He pissed a few of them off as he refused to speak up or cooperate with any of them.

It finally worked itself out as earned his own independence in life. Sorry I don't have a more clinical answer, but as I said he refused to cooperate with any one. All I can say is in his frustration he often complained "All I want is to be a normal family"

Dinner on time the same time every night, a very structured environment, pizza night, clean up day, annual vacations with regularity and a heavy emphasis on a "dependable" environment all helped quite a bit.