Yesterday was the family counseling session in which we brought the rest of the kids.
I am still trying to proccess it. We all left slightly sick to our stomachs. Youngest was escorted out looking bewildered,I was told.
I did not see him because I was holding my sobbing seventeen year old daughter. It is so hard on her and the boys. My sixteen year old looked as if he was about to cry as well. My thirteen year son old just looked lost. both boys were ticking.
And youngest? He entered the room with his gangsta stance and would only look at (and make eye contact with) the facilitator. He reacted to and talked with the boys completely different than he did my daughter or myself.
He has no remorse. he knows intellectually what behaviors he needs to change. He even volunteered a couple that we only suspected. He added he would not hurt the animals or the little kids (grandkids) anymore.
I am omitting most of what was said durring the hour. We did go over ground rules for while he was home. Things like arm’s reach supervision until we were sure he could be safe. The kids made it clear they wanted him to come home,if he would quit trying to destroy it.
He did admit he thinks I’m an idiot for seeing good in him. I asked.
I then asked him if he knew what my IQ was. He said no. I told him it was 160. (OK so I exaggerated just a bit) His eyes got big. I asked him if that was the IQ of a stupid person. “No” he said,still slightly awed by my superior intellect (OK, so I am putting a bit of color in here).
“So,” I asked him “If someone with an IQ of 160 thinks there is good within you,You think maybe there is?”
It was toward the end of the meeting my daughter broke down and started weeping. It was weeping; not crying. She let me hold her and I rocked her as well as I could. Once she was calmer, she told us she was crying for both her brother and for herself. Old wounds are being flayed open.
My husband said that youngest looked taken aback by his sister’s tears. She is a tough thing. She rarely cries and never in front of strangers. Her brother has never seen her cry.
My husband said he left looking subdued.
Tonight my youngest son called. He was chipper and upbeat. He wasn’t sure he would make private this week. (the “rank” he needs to make to begin visits home). He hadn’t tested yet.
I hope the visit is delayed, to tell the truth. It would be better if his first time back home was not on July 4TH.
I want so desperately for him to be doing better. I want to hang onto the hope I felt on Sunday.
I feel bad for the other children. This is causing them an enormous amount of pain.
They didn’t sign up for this.
