Hi, I'm new to the boards but I have two teen boys and my oldest who will be 16 this summer can be really oppositional at times, nothing like you posted..he has never been in trouble at school or with the law but that is where it stops! He bullies his 14 year old brother and 11 year old sister and at times has turned our entire household upside down with his behaviors. He argues constantly!!! and at one point we had him in counseling and even tried to take him in for medication but he refused to take it..

The thing is he was a very quiet and sweet child, always smiling and happy, and he went to 9th grade this year and THAT WAS IT!! he got in with a different crowd of kids and completely changed! But he never does anything that is going to get him in REAL trouble, its just enough...if you know what I mean..he antagonizes, and does things behind your back.But at the same time he keeps all of his grades up and always does his work..always! He is very egocentric/naricissitc while my other two are the total opposite and it just makes me so sad as a mom..I don't know how he has turned out the way he has, he is always thinking about money, how to get it, earn it, if he has it, and will do just about anything to get it. Wants the namebrand stuff, while my other son is not this way and neither is my daughter, they don't even go to a school where this is a norm, they go to non-traditional schools, so my son really doesn't have very many friends, because he isn't a nice kid, this also makes me sad.

My 14 year old did get in trouble for drinking on school property with some other kids, had to do the community service and for three months he was on probation, took the classes but he learned from it, and I can handle this, because at the end of the day he made a mistake, and learned from it but he is a good kid and he cares about other people and has empathy for others. He enjoyed being at the shelter and passing out food.

I think my issue and hurt as a mom is that my oldest son doesn't care who he hurts in the process of getting what he wants as long as he gets it, and that in a few years he will be on his own in the world. Will he care about others? the world around him? I worry that he will always have a "me, me me" attitude. My other two children don't have this..

He has decided he wants to go and live with his dad because it will be "better" and "more fun", dad plays nothing but video games all day, meanwhile I'm remarried and my dh works two jobs and I'm a full time student, so I can see that it doesn't seem much fun here

I'm sorry you are going through all of this with your boys..I have been through a great deal with my middle son, he had a few difficult years that I won't post here that were beyond his control, but as moms we feel so guilty, I know I do, because I'm divorced/remarried and I worry about the impact it has had, and how they will turn out, what they will feel when they are older. We all do the best we can, and we can't always control everything our children do..trust me the day my son decided to take a drink of run in coke, that was a shocker!! And we have friends who just wouldn't let it go and talked about it everytime we saw them...well they don't have kids, let alone teens That really got old, always being judged, we can't always follow them everywhere, and sometimes we have to hope that they will do the right thing but they don't always make the right choices