Divorce Support Forums: Discipline or Abuse

From what the kids report, it's clearly abuse. Don't talk to the kids about it any more. Let the professionals deal with it.

Understand that it's possible the professionals (police, CPS, therapists) will EITHER not have enough evidence to prosecute OR that they will think the boys are exaggerating. And you need to not have an opinion one way or the other.

When a parent defends thier children without understanding that the kids MAY be lying or exaggerating about what they're being defended over, well... that parent is setting things up to happen wrong. I've seen women in the courtroom insisting that their kids were with them at the time of an offense, when the offense is MURDER and not only did SEVERAL OTHER PEOPLE at the murder scene see the person, but the kid's fingerprints were on the murder weapon and the kid was a rival gang member of hte person who was murdered. This mother maybe started with defending her son against accusations that he stayed out too late at night when he was a teen and interfered when his father tried to discipline him, believed every word the kid said when he said the discipline was too harsh, and the kid has had her wrapped around his little finger ever since (that kid is now in prison for life with no possibility of parole, in a similar situation where there was not an actual murder, the kid went to prison for 17 years, with no possibility of gain time or good time for the first three). I've actually seen this happen several times... kids who are on a VERY wrong track whose mothers have almost made it worse by believing everything they said in their own defense.

I've struggled with this idea for years. What DOES a mother do when a kid has done something really wrong, but says that something ELSE really wrong either justifies thier bad behavior OR shows that the bad behavior was punished excessively... My conclusion after seeing this happen a LOT is that when THIS is the situation, she needs to stay honest and seek outside help.

I'm glad you've gotten the outside help to start looking into this. If it turns out that the ex did a wrong thing (if the boys' stories are entirely accurate), you'll need to figure out how to punish the boys for their bad behavior of sneaking out till 2 am while at the same time NOT approving of what their father did. You may need the advice of a family counselor, a few sessions with them, to figure this one out for yourself.

Good luck. You've got a 16 year old who is encouraging a 13 year old to sneak out at night... and an ex who is beating on them... ASSUMING they didn't fight back or exaggerate, this is bad enough... but if they fought back or are exaggerating, you're on the beginning of a long road of figuring out what to do next.

I'd recommend lots of therapy, intense supervision of thier actions, etc., early on before the wrong stuff takes hold and forces the juvenile authorities to get involved. It's SO much worse when their fahter is not helping out... take a look at some of LJ's posts for the past year as she's watched wrong things happen, repeatedly, till finally one of them nearly got tossed into detention last week... you're just at the beginning of this journey so maybe if you look at what has happened to others, you can cut somd of this off at the pass before it gets worse.

What I'm sayin gis that the father's behavior is way wrong... but dont let that make you ignore the thing that MADE the father go off... if you ignore it, it might NOT go away!