The evil that some children do!

The devil child (aka El Chupacabra) as struck again. Last week Mr. Chupacabra asked a bunch of questions about ear piercing. He wanted to know if you could use any earrings and why there were special ones at the mall-places for new holes, and what to do for care of the hole. My wonderful wife and I answered him and of course asked him about his intentions to disfigure his body. He told us that he was going to have a friend pierce his ears. We bluntly told him that this was not permitted in the house and should he come home with extra holes in his head, he would be required to remove the earrings.

As you may have guessed by now, he went ahead and had a friend spick a needle in each earlobe. He has the “cutes” little pieces of wire plunged into the holes. He came home all puffed up that his chest was literally sticking out. I made him aware that I was disappointed in his conduct and he was required to remove the earrings. He, of course, refused.

So he is grounded until they come out. Which is going to be a while, but I am getting ahead of myself in the story. In our attempts to discuss the problem Mr. Chupacabra has made the whole situation about having earrings, rather than about his direct disobedience. He will not acknowledge that he has done anything wrong and continuously refocuses the issue of his trouble back on holes in his head, rather than doing what he was told not to do.

Of course if he were to accept the idea that he did something wrong then the parents would be on the side of righteous justice and he would be the villain, so this can never happen.
His argument is that it is his body and he should be allowed to do anything he wants. He even tries to wrap himself in the US constitution and say he has a right to do this. I continually redirect the discussion [aka stupid fucking argument] back to his disobedience. The reality of the holes in his head are that I don’t very much care for them, but don’t really care. What I do care about is that his actions are violating our family rules.

Not so long ago, another member of the family went out and had his ears pierced. I did in fact tell him I would like him to remove them. It took about 3 days, but they were gone. This has a giant deal to do with the fact that he could not keep them clean and they got infected and started to hurt, but hey if God wants to help me in these battles I am going to accept his help.

At any rate, El Chupacabra when we first told him he was grounded until the earrings were removed started to do all of his classical manipulations. He was going to take them out when he wanted to do something, and put them back in as he walked out the door. This is a perfect example of his interpretation of the world. Utilize the letter of the law to defeat the spirit of the law.

THIS IS THE BIGGEST REASON I DISLIKE THIS PERSON!

So the argument continued to escalate and he hurled insults and nastys all over. My sweet and lovely wife was a bi*ch. I was a jerk. We were being stupid, and we were stupid. Again he fails to see that it’s not the earrings but rather his going against our express and ultimately clear directions and rules. I can’t tell you how many times I drove the conversation back to the point about disobedience.

El Chupacabraha has a huge problem with any sort of authority. He bucks and bristles anytime someone his any type of power over him. He hates his teachers, especially the principal and his guidance counselor, as they have huge ability to affect his life. He hates us as we have the house and money and such that he likes.

On another note all together, he finally admitted that he does not want to continue to live in our house because of the nice house, loving environment, safe realm, or any of the other things that all the literature says he should like about living here. Nope! He wants to stay because he likes his friends and school situation.

Academically he is being somewhat successful. This semester is the first semester he is failing anything. He is failing his English class because he refused to do a speech. He flat out did not want to do the research, work-up, and presentation and would rather try to find another way to avoid doing it, even if it means having to take summer classes. Once again we see the oppositional defiant nature of El Chupacabra.

I am left with a waiting game of wills and weakness. He IS grounded until he takes the earrings out [for good] plus he is grounded for his sustained verbal abuse to my lovely wife. I want to bring this issue up with his therapist and discuss the level f response. My wonderful wife wanted to ground him for an additional month, because she is a relentless target for his abuse. I think this is an excellent starting place for his therapy!

Now all I have to do is put up with his crap until his ears get infected or until he decides he wants to be able to go places. I still have phone privileges, his possessions, and such to use to punish further bad behaviors, but Lord willing I won’t have to battle this devil on that level.