Posted on 07/06/2006 10:41:40 AM PDT by devane617
NEW PORT RICHEY - Last week, her son turned 10 years old. On Tuesday morning, she watched as police took him away in a patrol car, charged with a felony.
A neighbor saw the boy break into her car and make off with a pocket knife, according to a police report.
Police were originally uneasy about arresting the boy, who will be a fourth-grader this year. But New Port Richey Lt. Jeffrey Harrington said the mother insisted. They charged him with armed burglary.
"The mother was at her wits' end," Harrington said Wednesday. "She thought he was just incorrigible. She asked us for help to get him into the system."
The single mother told the St. Petersburg Times that her son was so out of control that someone had to do something. (The Times is withholding her identity to avoid identifying the boy.)
"This kid has me in such fear for my own safety and my other son's (an 11-year-old) safety," she said. "I'm not giving up on him. I just think this is what he needs."
She said her son began beating her at age 6 with a Nerf baseball bat that had a metal rod inside. She said he knows that she has a bad leg from a car accident, and he aims directly for it. Sometimes, she said, he threatens to kill her or slit her throat during the night, and she is so afraid that she has a friend stay over so that she can get some sleep.
The mother listed several incidents involving her son since she moved to a new home June 1. The police had been to her home at least eight or nine times before the arrest.
Her son had punched walls in her last home, which angered the landlord so much that they had to move. She said he stole a bike from a little girl at the library and has also stolen jewelry, money and other items.
Recently, a police officer brought him home after he was found spray-painting the playground on Main Street, she said. But because of his age, nobody would press charges.
"Everyone's felt so bad because he's so young that nobody wants to press charges, but that doesn't help him," the mother said. "Apparently, he's trying to act like an adult, so he needs to be treated that way and learn he can't do these things."
When she saw her son in court Wednesday morning, she said, he was arrogant and refused to look at the judge, giggling throughout the proceedings.
"At one point, the judge had to yell at him to look up," she said. "And he said he didn't care if he was kept there for 21 days."
So that's exactly what the judge ordered. The 10-year-old will remain in the juvenile detention center near Land O'Lakes for just shy of a month. His mother said she hopes it will make a difference.
"I pray to God it will," she said "No matter how bad it gets, you just have to be a parent and give unconditional love."
Why is corporal discipline always framed in the extreme? Why is the choice only between alternatives to physical action and extreme beating?
You advocate "in betweens" but fail even to mention an "in between" is possible while still using corporal discipline.
Exactly what I was thinking!
>>>Can you use your telepathic powers to determine why she is a single mom? My wife's first hubby walked out because he didn't care to be a dad anymore (his loss my gain, 2 great kids). My mom was a single mom 'cuz dad died of leukemia (I was 5). >>>
Here Here!! Lots of judgemental types on this here Freeper Board. My ex decided he didn't 'want to be tied down to a family', after having two kids of course. But my husband is a great dad to them and now the one we have together. Of course there was time I was a single mom, and it certainly wasn't because I was a floozy having illegitimate babies.
>>>You haven't been around FR very long, have you? Threads like these draw the usual suspects, all ready to draw conclusions without having relevant info.>>>
Heck, half of them don't do anything more than glance at the title and first few sentences.
So you have judgemental attitude and lack of information.
I do not believe this (or any) "broken-family" explanation for behavior is aimed indiscriminately at the mom. I believe that single parenting is the cause for many of the problems in our society, but I do not blame moms exclusively for the problem. Blame for single motherhood can lie (on a case by case basis) with mom, dad, both, in-laws, society*, etc.
* Society at one point in time frowned on divorce and this pressure prevented many couples from getting divorced. Society is more accepting now and enables more divorces (as well as out of marriage "families".)
Posters trying to pinpoint blame on this particular single mom are not reading the story very well. First of all, I didn't see any similar problems mentioned as associated w/the 11-yo brother. In fact, even the 11 yo brother has safety issues associated w/his younger brother.
If the Mom or single-mom status was to blame, then we would be seeing two juvenile delinguents run amok. We don't. So stop seeing shadows where there are none.
"I bailed out of the relationship...."Smart move.I've been in that situation as well.
I think you are more gracious than some on this thread. I'm not sure that all are so generous in their thoughts.
So THAT'S the visual template for Nellie Olson!
That simply does not follow, unless you make tacit assumptions like behavior has only one cause, the experience of the two children is alike in every respect, their internal makeup is exactly the same. The older brother may have had more of his early years with a father in the house, and that might make a difference.
Yeah, there's not enough here to blame it all, or even partially, on the single-mom status. There's not enough here to exonerate the single-parent family status from being a contributing cause.
Some kids get hit by cars and recover conmpletely AND they gain a healthy caution about crossing the street without looking both ways. That doesn't show that being hit by cars is never at fault for damaging or killing kids and it certainly doesn't show that it's just as risk-free to be hit by cars as not to be hit by cars.
That some kids do okay coming from single-parent homes doesn't make single parent homes just as good as one parent each of either sex homes.
In this case however, my money is on the 10 year old having some kind of brain damage or personality disorder.
THanks for adding a little dose of optimism to a horrible story. Was just reading an interview with Courtney Love's mother in Psychology Today. Same kind of kid and story. Very interesting, and one can speculate whether a different kind of parenting at age 2 would have made a difference with a manipulative child. I wonder whether America was home to so many psychopaths in the days when the culture expected better behavior from children.
So have I. And this kid was TWO. It's a scary thing to see. I wouldn't let my kids near him. By the time he turned 18, he got a brand new home. Guess where? If he's still alive, the world will be a safer place if he stays there. Like you said it's rare but it does happen.
It is very difficult to get the authorities involved with a young child. Once they are involved there is no turning back. She was desperate and had no other place to turn ,but to the state.
I hope you never have to make a decision like she did. It is the hardest thing you will ever do.
Yes, it is unconditional love.
I agree with the part, lack of a father. A father could possibly make a difference. But not always.
In the society we live in, these kids have a hard road to go. I don't blame the mother ,either. She did what she should have. Hopefully, before it is too late.
(The Palestinian terrorist regime is the crisis and Israel's fist is the answer.)
I don't discount what you say in the slightest. I also know that there are plenty of kids in the system whose parents don't try to help them. Parents who need to be kept away from them entirely.
(The Palestinian terrorist regime is the crisis and Israel's fist is the answer.)
What have you done?
(The Palestinian terrorist regime is the crisis and Israel's fist is the answer.)
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