Trish... I cannot tell you what to do but I can certainly sympathise hun...

my story goes like this..

A month after I got home with DD his mother dumped (& i mean dumped child & bags on door & drove off.. i never even saw her)... he was 13 1/2 ish at the time, he had been getting in trouble, skipping school, fighting, stealing, lying etc... (not quite at the stage of getting in trouble with the law), so she gave up & then he became my problem (DH was working out of town at mon-fri at this stage)...

I rearragned my life to accomodate him, spent a fortune on uniforms etc getting him into a new school, rearranging the house (no bedroom for him at that stage).. I tried everything under the sun, took him to councelling, took time off work to take him to councelling, rewards, punishments.. you name it I tried it...

The last straw was when I got a phone call at work & he had done a runner from school... (long story short) I had the local police looking for him & family & frinds etc... I wrang social services & told them they needed to find him somewhere to live NOW... I had been trying to get help from them but to no avail..I even ended up on antidepressants due to this & DH being away all week too...

Fot the last 18 months SDS has been in foster care & seems to be getting better, a much nicer house to live in & alot nicer when he visits... he get along better with his brother now & Alexa no longer has a stressed out mummy (mind you I am still on antidepressants cause of the situation)...

I really have no answers for you but I know that it is really a hard thing to deal with & I imagine it would be 10 times worse being a blood child & other children in the family too...

I hope that things come right..... but at then end of the day you still have other children that depend on their mummy more than the older ones... & you need to be able to function & take care of them... if you cant keep your self together then your younger children will also suffer... I found that Alexa was really starting to feel teh effects of having a stredded/angry/crying/sleep deprived mummy...

Hugs hun... Feel free to email or PM me if you need to vent....


Sorry for rambling too!!!