Our son came to live with us in Dec 2013 a couple of weeks before his 5th birthday. We adopted him in 2014, and he was a lovely boy in every way. We had no challenging behaviour, no tantrums in the supermarket or anything else untoward.
However fast forward to age 14 and he is a different boy altogether. He has stolen alcohol from us (we found loads of empty bottles and cans stashed in his bedroom), got in with the wrong crowd at his secondary school (how do you stop them being friends with certain kids), got horrendously drunk and picked up by the police. Discovered weed and other substances, and has an angry, rude, obnoxious, ungrateful attitude. I do so much for him and support him in every way, so I am the 'good cop' so to speak, my husband however has a shorter temper and is far stricter with him. The relationship between him and my husband is rock bottom now, and I would go so far as to say it has totally broken down.
We got back from holiday two days ago, he virtually disowned us on holiday and went off with another kid and their family, didn't respect meal times when we wanted family time, and was moody whenever in our presence. We also found him with a vape which he admitted to me he had stolen from the hotel shop. We took him back there, made him apologise and admit to the shop keeper what he'd done and pay for the vape. Our holiday was virtually ruined because of his attitude towards us.
Since being back my husband has tried to reach out to him, but he throws everything back in his face and is rude to him.
His attitude has significantly changed within the last 2 years since he has been at his secondary school. We are considering changing his school but is this wise when he is about to start his GCSEs? He is good at school and he and us have a good relationship with his Head of Year. It is when he gets together with his friends out of school that the trouble happens.
He says he hates my husband and has recently also been talking about finding out about his birth parents. We have had a no-contact, inoperative letterbox contact only.
I don't know what to do.
