Polly

The reason I don't let him go to forest is because he'd often go cave exploring or rock climbing which isn't exactly safe. He even asked for a climbing rope that cost $200 for his birthday. Also couple weeks ago he left as soon as the sun raised and didn't come back until late night. He says he went rafting down river and got stuck in other city and have to walk all way back here. He says it's no fun if he calls for help.

As for downtown, he usually go when there's farmer marketing or a event.

On weekend night, he often will go and meet some people and go to their house or something. Last week, a car pulled up by the house and he came out. When I asked him who it was, he says it was an famed art collector he met at a art exhibition. He went to his house and talk about arts and history. When renaissance fair was here last fall, he went out with history professor to get coffee and talk about history. He has done this with others as well. My father has spotted him hanging out with punk girls. I don't want him to be around those types of people.

As I have mentioned, he also get in fight a lot. He would always try to find biggest man he can and test their temper. If he sees that they have a bad temper, he’ll provoke them in seeming innocent way to get them start a fight. I found this out through a couple of my kids’ friends. But I never really believe them until after he broken his hand and feet a couple time and the doctor keep say that it look like he broke it by hit or kick something hard. When we confront him about this, we got the whole story. Basically he just says they shouldn’t have picked a fight with him if they don’t know how to fight. He says that when he trained, he never got in a fight because he got it all out in the dojo. He says his father use to leave him at a dojo after school everyday.

He’s a pretty good kid but… It’s just so frustrating with how he doesn’t seem to follow any house rules. As I say he doesn’t know what being grounded mean. When we told him he’s grounded, he’d just give us an odd look and in a couple hours or next day he’d be out running around again. The best we can do is telling him to go to his room and to not come out for rest of the night, that’s only thing he really understand. Also he seems to think we’re silly that we are worried about his safety and say if he has done this thing his whole life, he must be doing something right. He expect us to let him live the way his father allows him to. Our other kids often complain that he always get away with everything and do more than they.

I and my husband believe that for most of his life, he never really has a home. He’d just stay in one house or hotel for a couple weeks then move when his father got other job. So he isn’t use to living in one place for long time.