Gray
Member
For the past 2-3 months i've had my 11 year old nephew living with myself and my mum because his other grandparents where neglectful and physically and mentally abused him at any given opportunity.
Shortly after he was born my brother, his dad, was killed by a motorbike accident, so it was then his mums responsibility to take care of him and her other children, however my mum was never happy because he was constantly in and out of hospital with strange injuries in his infant stages of life.
The Social Services weren't really interested, and it wasn't before long until his mum moved away with him. While he was growing up, it seemed she moved abroad and ended up marrying some Army guy, and by all accounts he made a stable father-figure even though they where constantly moving between countries.
Anyway, they broke up and she moved back here with the now-young boy. Seems she ended up suffering some form of mental breakdown and so the Social Services swooped in and brought him to his other grandparents, his mothers parents.
My mum eventually found out he was back in our town, so visited him. She had him for a day or two out of the week, and everything seemed spiffy to her. Until one night she was told the boy was arguing quite loudly outside with his other grandmother. She then said he wasn't going to be visiting us that particular week for "being naughty".
Late at night i got a phonecall from one of my other brothers, and was told that my nephew was getting battered all over the place by his step-grandad, i told my mum and she got out of bed and picked him up, the police and social services were once again involved...
We was told how everything behind the scenes was not alright. Infact quite the opposite. He was bullied by his step-brothers while living there, and if he retaliated his step-grandad would sort him out, but left the others alone. It was definately like something out of a fairytale book.
I took him to the police station and we ended up at one of those "secret" places where they conducted a video interview with him about the assault. Sadly though i don't think he relised the seriousness of the situation, because instead of talking about what happened to him, he kept going back to his pet dog/s which kept taking the conversations off course.
In the end it proved fruitless as i thought it would, they didn't have enough to charge the step-grandad with anything, but since that particular night he has been living (quite happily) with myself and my mum. So its been about 2-3 months.
Because he didn't have his own computer, i allowed him to use mine just so he could keep in contact with his friends from school and also his mother and other family members etc, afterall i don't want to restrict him to just using Google. So we agreed about setting up a Facebook profile for him (*warning lights* i hear you say!), his mother was on there, so no issue.
While i allowed him access, i did keep a careful eye on his activity to make sure he wasn't upto anything. Although i of course gave him the privacy needed to talk, i would just go back on the computer and make sure all was well - mainly with his Facebook messages and stuff. It might not be the way to go about it, but i don't know myself, plus it has been handy so far.
I came up one day a while back and he ended up being on some webcam chat site talking to one of his friends from school. I don't have a webcam, and i disable my microphone so it's only a one-way thing, but i ended up disabling the webcam website, because while that may have been an innocent chat (Which it was) these things progress over time, so i put a stop to it immediately...
His Facebook was being a hive of activity though. I noticed how abusive he was, with all sorts of assorted language, and he seemed to have a really short temper towards people, he would get the wrong end of the stick and end up causing unnecessary arguments.
He seems to harrass girls from school, maybe harrass is a very strong word. But he sends them constant messages which clearly bothers the girl/s in particular, but he keeps at it. He's also verbally attacked family members on the messages causing a right old uproar.
First one of his cousins sent an innocent message which was taken out of context, he ended up going nuts over messages with him, when i read it i even told him to stop being so hotheaded over it, they made up after agreeing it was a misunderstanding, however everything went nuclear about 2 weeks later.
His half-brother, on his dads side sent him a message to see how he was, admittedly it was a bit two-faced, even i know this - because no-one except my mum truely fought for him when he was being abused for all those years, his half-sister and brother didn't really care much.
It seems what happened next is, he told my mum that his half-brother was sending him a message, and she said something off-the-cuff to him, he ended up thinking it was a brilliant idea to relay what she said, back to his half-brother. Boom.
When i read the messages, i really was angry. At both of them. Him for starting the attack when his half-brother was being friendly, and also for well basically, stirring the crap. But also my other nephew for his responses, and also directing attacks towards my mum. I never told her of the exchanges they had because it would be like sticking your hand in a beehive, it just wasn't worth the trouble.
He has been getting a bit smarter now though, when he hears me coming up the stairs he ends up wiping out any chatlogs he has, which admittedly is infuriating because now i don't know what he is saying or who he is upsetting. But tonight his mum phoned up saying he had been swearing etc on facebook. I did not know this.
It was sort of like the final straw, i told him if it happens anymore i will be stopping it, final warning. Only issue i have now is i was told he is getting his own laptop in a few weeks for his birthday, it will still be on my home network though. Hopefully then he will get to stay downstairs where my mum is to keep him monitored, but she won't know what is what.
If he gets pissy about me checking his laptop i think i'd just cut it off the network, but thats only thinking about what the worst thing could happen.
My issue really is down to kids and authority... It has been me and my mum for a few years alone, which i was comfortable with. Sure i always wanted a brother or sister of my own, and now it has sort of happened, only, i'm massively unprepared for such a crucial and important undertaking, especially since i'm massively shy myself now, even with kids of all ages.
Shortly after he was born my brother, his dad, was killed by a motorbike accident, so it was then his mums responsibility to take care of him and her other children, however my mum was never happy because he was constantly in and out of hospital with strange injuries in his infant stages of life.
The Social Services weren't really interested, and it wasn't before long until his mum moved away with him. While he was growing up, it seemed she moved abroad and ended up marrying some Army guy, and by all accounts he made a stable father-figure even though they where constantly moving between countries.
Anyway, they broke up and she moved back here with the now-young boy. Seems she ended up suffering some form of mental breakdown and so the Social Services swooped in and brought him to his other grandparents, his mothers parents.
My mum eventually found out he was back in our town, so visited him. She had him for a day or two out of the week, and everything seemed spiffy to her. Until one night she was told the boy was arguing quite loudly outside with his other grandmother. She then said he wasn't going to be visiting us that particular week for "being naughty".
Late at night i got a phonecall from one of my other brothers, and was told that my nephew was getting battered all over the place by his step-grandad, i told my mum and she got out of bed and picked him up, the police and social services were once again involved...
We was told how everything behind the scenes was not alright. Infact quite the opposite. He was bullied by his step-brothers while living there, and if he retaliated his step-grandad would sort him out, but left the others alone. It was definately like something out of a fairytale book.
I took him to the police station and we ended up at one of those "secret" places where they conducted a video interview with him about the assault. Sadly though i don't think he relised the seriousness of the situation, because instead of talking about what happened to him, he kept going back to his pet dog/s which kept taking the conversations off course.
In the end it proved fruitless as i thought it would, they didn't have enough to charge the step-grandad with anything, but since that particular night he has been living (quite happily) with myself and my mum. So its been about 2-3 months.
Because he didn't have his own computer, i allowed him to use mine just so he could keep in contact with his friends from school and also his mother and other family members etc, afterall i don't want to restrict him to just using Google. So we agreed about setting up a Facebook profile for him (*warning lights* i hear you say!), his mother was on there, so no issue.
While i allowed him access, i did keep a careful eye on his activity to make sure he wasn't upto anything. Although i of course gave him the privacy needed to talk, i would just go back on the computer and make sure all was well - mainly with his Facebook messages and stuff. It might not be the way to go about it, but i don't know myself, plus it has been handy so far.
I came up one day a while back and he ended up being on some webcam chat site talking to one of his friends from school. I don't have a webcam, and i disable my microphone so it's only a one-way thing, but i ended up disabling the webcam website, because while that may have been an innocent chat (Which it was) these things progress over time, so i put a stop to it immediately...
His Facebook was being a hive of activity though. I noticed how abusive he was, with all sorts of assorted language, and he seemed to have a really short temper towards people, he would get the wrong end of the stick and end up causing unnecessary arguments.
He seems to harrass girls from school, maybe harrass is a very strong word. But he sends them constant messages which clearly bothers the girl/s in particular, but he keeps at it. He's also verbally attacked family members on the messages causing a right old uproar.
First one of his cousins sent an innocent message which was taken out of context, he ended up going nuts over messages with him, when i read it i even told him to stop being so hotheaded over it, they made up after agreeing it was a misunderstanding, however everything went nuclear about 2 weeks later.
His half-brother, on his dads side sent him a message to see how he was, admittedly it was a bit two-faced, even i know this - because no-one except my mum truely fought for him when he was being abused for all those years, his half-sister and brother didn't really care much.
It seems what happened next is, he told my mum that his half-brother was sending him a message, and she said something off-the-cuff to him, he ended up thinking it was a brilliant idea to relay what she said, back to his half-brother. Boom.
When i read the messages, i really was angry. At both of them. Him for starting the attack when his half-brother was being friendly, and also for well basically, stirring the crap. But also my other nephew for his responses, and also directing attacks towards my mum. I never told her of the exchanges they had because it would be like sticking your hand in a beehive, it just wasn't worth the trouble.
He has been getting a bit smarter now though, when he hears me coming up the stairs he ends up wiping out any chatlogs he has, which admittedly is infuriating because now i don't know what he is saying or who he is upsetting. But tonight his mum phoned up saying he had been swearing etc on facebook. I did not know this.
It was sort of like the final straw, i told him if it happens anymore i will be stopping it, final warning. Only issue i have now is i was told he is getting his own laptop in a few weeks for his birthday, it will still be on my home network though. Hopefully then he will get to stay downstairs where my mum is to keep him monitored, but she won't know what is what.
If he gets pissy about me checking his laptop i think i'd just cut it off the network, but thats only thinking about what the worst thing could happen.
My issue really is down to kids and authority... It has been me and my mum for a few years alone, which i was comfortable with. Sure i always wanted a brother or sister of my own, and now it has sort of happened, only, i'm massively unprepared for such a crucial and important undertaking, especially since i'm massively shy myself now, even with kids of all ages.
