dealing with a 13yr old teen cousin

[dhammerman2003]

Update: I talked to my aunt and she was telling me that the little stint in juvie made him realize that he needs to change. I hope that he does change for the better and I hope that this week will show him that he does have family that does care about him. I told my aunt what the teen did to me (blocked me from myspace for some odd reason) and she was not happy that he did what he did so we'll have a little talk about it. Don't worry I'm not the kind of person who would yell at him for doing what he did. I'm curious as to why he did it though.

I leave in 46hrs for vacation and I am getting more and more excited as the time quickly flies by!

I hope this week will both be educational, emotional, and fun!

[dhammerman2003]

Well I am back from AZ and the teen and I are cool and he trusts me as well.

While I was down there he did get suspended again for doing some stupid things and needless to say I wasn't too pleased about it but we had a talk and he knows that what he did even though it was funny it's not cool.

I also got to know his friends and they think I'm cool for giving my cousin rides, looking out for him, etc.

The only issue that I had with him is the fact that he stayed out way past my bedtime and always talking on the phone with his gf until the wee hours in the morning. I had to several times keep reminding him to go to bed as his folks do a bed check to see if he's home or not.

He knows that I do care about him and all that stuff but what I don't understand is why does he not want me to follow his myspace statuses and what not. To him by me checking his statuses he considers it 'stalking' while I consider it 'big brother'. I understand that he doesn't want his family to be up in his business but it's not like I'm going to rat him out because of what he is posting. I might have a talk about it but only if he brings it up otherwise he'll delete his page completely. Little does he know that everything on myspace is public and not private so anybody can view it. I'll still be keeping tabs on him but he can't tell me what I can and can't do but I can for him though

[Hopes]

"stalking" and "big brother" mean the same thing.

[dhammerman2003]

thought they meant two different things.....

[lucknow]

Take him to visit someone doing hard time in the pen.

Take him to the morgue to view some dead teens.

If those things don't effect him then nothing will.

[dhammerman2003]

Major updates:

1) I was able to spend a lot of time with the teenager and got him to open up a little bit. I got him to tell me things that his folks don't know about and I gained his trust although after what I found out on my cell phone and what he was searching on my phone he lost some trust with me but he doesn't know about it yet.... Hopefully when I have another chat with him I'll just tell him that he is lucky that his folks didn't find out what he was searching for on my phone and I'm going to tell him that the next time he does it that he should ask me first if he can do it and not just do it without telling me that he did it.

2) The teenager is excited about me coming back in 3 months and staying with them until I can get my feet off of the ground and be on my own.

3) The teenager was very happy that he got to spend time with me while he was suspended from school while I was down there so he didn't have to face the wrath of mom.

Things that I don't understand about the teen are the following:

1) Why he hasn't accepted my friend request on myspace as he claims it's 'stalking' and I'm claiming it's 'staying in communication/contact'. He also claims that the reason why he doesn't want to be my friend on myspace is because he doesn't want his family to be up in his business yet he can accept his other cousins friend request but not mine.......

2) Why he smokes cigs and parties every single weekend.

3) Why he is cussing at his teachers/principal/etc. in school and getting in trouble not only in the school but with the law as well.

4) Was his suspension from school the week I was down there planned or was in not planned?

Things to accomplish for next time I visit.

1) Get the teen to further gain his trust and come to me for anything (advice mainly).

2) Getting the teenager to see what he is doing is wrong and that if he continues going down this path he'll end up like other members in the family.

3) Getting the teenager to respect me and listen.

4) If he still has community service to do I'll ask my cousin if it's possible that I can be responsible for it, setting it up, going to the place and doing the work with him.

[dhammerman2003]

Update: the teenager added me to myspace and the suspension wasn't planned either. Even if it was planned I wasn't too happy about it but we still had fun though.

[dhammerman2003]

Update: Teenager got expelled the day after Halloween and he just started a new alternative school today as he's been out of school for the last 3 weeks. I just hope that he doesn't get kicked out of this one and passes the 8th grade or else he'll have to redo it again.

The teenager also tried pulling a fast one on grandma as he has community service hours to do so he thought he would get out of it if grandma signed it saying that he did all of those hours but she flat out refused to sign it!

Also the teenager has asked his dad, grandma, and me for money for his birthday party and we all agreed that he shouldn't have one. After the stunt he pulled on me with him disconnecting/hanging up the phone every time I called that shouldn't have happened as his dad knew I would be calling at that time. I found out later that they were having an argument about something and my cousin apologized to me the next day for it as he knew I would be calling and he should have called me back after they were done arguing. Since the teenager was the one doing the constant disconnects on me I feel as though he should apologize for his actions. The teenager needs to learn to respect your family and if your family calls on the phone long distance then you shouldn't show them disrespect by disconnecting/hanging up on them when you knew that they would be calling as that is more convenient for them to call you and not for you to call them because of the difference in time zones.