Our Story-

All that I ever wanted in life was to be a mother.  Oh, I wanted to be a nurse or teacher also, but my main goal was to be a mother.  That dream was achieved when my husband and I had our first child, a boy.  He was born by C-section because he was breech, head up, and oddly enough, he never did like to be turned upside down as a baby or toddler like most kids do.  Go figure.

The nurse in the hospital brought him to me one day and told me that she wasn't just saying this, but that he was a truly beautiful baby.  But, she added, he's going to give you hell.  After we got home, I realized what she meant.  He was a crier!  He only stopped when I nursed him and we all know you can't do that non-stop without severe pain.  I always had to nurse him to sleep and then sneak him into his crib.  The moment he awoke though, he was screaming to be rescued.  We very rarely left him with a sitter because he would cry so much.  My mother called him Contrary Harry, but we shielded him from that because we didn't want him labeled as difficult.

Life went on and as a toddler he was very popular with our neighbors.  We could take him places, and he wouldn't touch things he shouldn't.  He was very polite and well behaved.  At home though, I noticed that when I'd try to teach him things, he didn't seem to be catching on.  But.... when I tricked him, I discovered he knew his colors or letters, he just wanted me to think he didn't.  Odd.

We had a little trouble getting pregnant the next time and he was nearly three and a half when his next sibling was born.  I was worried about the gap, because in the meantime, he thought the world revolved around him and I thought it would be best to establish otherwise at an early age.

When he was a preschooler, I took the boys to have them tested for potential learning disabilites, as there is a history of them in our family.  Our oldest son tested as very bright, even above average, but we were informed that he had ODD or Oppositional Defiant Disorder. 

Okay, that explained a lot.  I felt very blessed to have once taken a course on discipline in the classroom.  It helped us to deal with him and his ODD in positive ways and for the most part, it was under control both at home and in school.  Life was challenging, but good.

I grew up in a violent home and never thought I'd resort to spanking.  Despite my background in Early Childhood Education, I found that at times, it was the only thing that could restore peace with this kid.  I know that sounds counter productive, but until you have lived with a child like that, you just can't understand.  He would get on jags as he aged, where he would push and push and push.  I would pull out every tool in my arsenal from positive reinforcements to time outs, all to no avail.  When I would finally break down and give him a spank, he would seem quite happy and peaceful.  I didn't get it then and I still don't, really. 

As a teenager and to this day, we would see this play out over and over.  He'd spin out of control until he'd be locked up and then he would seem perfectly content to be there.  This puzzled us, because we have a good, loving, safe home.  We finally decided that perhaps it is because he doesn't like  to be out of control and so he's happiest when someone else takes that control for him.  As a child we could do that for him to a degree with consequences and time outs, but as a teen and later an adult, it took law enforcement to achieve that effect. 

In elementary school, our son fared pretty well other than a false fire alarm and a few other complaints.  By 2nd and 3rd grade, he was driving the teachers to the point of distraction and they required us to have him tested for ADD.  We chose to handle it through behavioral therapy rather than medication and he did well and got good grades.

In the meantime, we added three more children to our family and each one made us realize how difficult the first had been.  They were lucky that we didn't throw in the towel and quit after the first... and so were we!

When he was in fourth or fifth grade, we moved and our son did wonderfully in his new school and neighborhood.  He was one of the very most popular kids at school and actively involved in various sports teams. 

The Hell Years
About the time he turned 14 though, things started to go downhill.  He would do sneaky things that he knew weren't right.  He was getting too intimate with his girlfriend.  (Trust me, I had discouraged even having one at that age.)  Despite being captain of the school soccer team and MVP of the basketball team, he dropped out of sports.

A cross country move proved even more disastrous for him.  He started hanging out with gang members, joining their fights, skipping school, getting physical with girls, smoking pot, shoplifting, drinking, stealing and got physically violent with us.  We took him to counseling and that was a disaster. 

Dad and I went house hunting in another state, where it was more family friendly and had less crime and gangs.  During that trip he went off the deep end and when we returned he had run away, saying he needed a vacation. 

We moved and things continued to spiral out of control.  He lied and lied.  It was as if he couldn't even tell fact from fiction.  He constantly undermined our parenting of the younger ones.  He skipped school and finally dropped out altogether.  He broke into a neighbor's home and stole beer.  He told all kinds of lies about us and our home life to both justify his actions and to gain sympathy from people. 

During this period, we received his diagnosis of Conduct Disorder and Narcissistic and some kind of anxiety disorder.  Well, I'd have an anxiety disorder too if I was living like him! 

It wasn't until he was an adult that I found information stating that conduct disorder is a polite term for young sociopath, and certainly none of his many counselors and probation officers, ever told us that, but it is probably a good thing.  I knew he was a menace to the family, I locked my daughter in her room at night, sleeping with the key around my neck and tried to keep his alone time with all of his siblings to a minimum, but it might have been too much for us at that time to know the extent of his illness.  We still had hope for his recovery.

We did everything we could think of and involved the police whenever he brought illegal substances into our home.  We supported the court system in every way, took him to various counselors, did family therapy, and even tattled when he broke probation.  We hoped that if he went through the juvenile court system, that he would get it together before gaining an adult record and before he had a wife and children to drag down with him.

After he'd been through every program the state had to offer except for making him a foster child, (why when he had parents at home who were trying?) they finally just cut him free.  I think they recognized him as non-rehabilitative and saved that spot for some other kid they could hopefully help. 


We watched the trials of people like Mark Hacking and Scott Peterson and were horrified to recognize our son in so many of their behaviors and it scared us to the core. 


Did you know that it is illegal to kick your kid out, but it is not illegal for them to run away, and yet we would be held responsible for his actions whether he was run away or not?  We were counting down the days till his 18th birthday!

Misery loves company, and our oldest son had been intent for years on bringing his younger siblings down with him.  He did a very good job with our 2nd son.  Though he was not exhibiting the antisocial behaviors of his older brother, he was already experimenting with drugs and alcohol and all that comes with it.

So, when at 17, the oldest declared that he was returning to our previous state, I didn't fight it.  He was already disappearing for days and weeks at a time anyway.  He was making our lives a living hell and since he wasn't working or going to school, I drove him to the bus station.  I never thought I'd do something like that, but it was time for him to be enrolled in the school of hard knocks.  It was time for our family to have a bit of peace and safety.

I wish that were the end of the story, but he came back after he burned all of his bridges with the friends and family there and was deeply wounded that we did not welcome him with open arms although we did let him return home.  Life was hell once more and he did even more to take his brother down with him.

As an adult, he has continued his downward spiral with gangs, violence, weapons, armed robberies, etc.  He now is sitting in prison and we couldn't be more relieved.  If I think of it as my baby boy in that horrible place, it's overwhelming, but the man that he became is no relation to the sweet little boy that was ours before this mental illness took him away.  This family is breathing free for the time being and we're not watching every newscast expecting to see his face.


If you have a child with Conduct Disorder, please get help!  Counseling may or may not help your child, but it WILL HELP YOU!  You need a support group of people that have been through this!  Feel free to share here and explore the other places that have popped up since we went through our own personal hell with this. 

ConductDisorders.com calls itself a soft place to land for battle weary parents.