The Altercation, part II

Robert ended up being suspended for 3 days and ticketed for assault. We have to go to court on the 2nd of Feb...the day BEFORE his 18th birthday.

BTW: The girl was not suspended or ticketed because on the cameras it 'appeared' unprovoked...

We want to make him "work" to get court fees...but not necessarily for us. Andrew has suggested he go door to door and offer poop scoop services or garage cleaning or something to the neighbors...he's not an outgoing sort and has a social interactive disability so I don't think this is a good idea. He has an issue with attention to detail as well so he'd most likely miss 70% of the turds and not get paid the full price, which would not only upset him but also not help his self-esteem issues.

So far as his disabilities, he has ADD, ODD, OCD, an "emotional disturbance" and possibly bipolar. I still think he is on the spectrum (although high functioning) because he lacks in social skills tremendously...but my ex got in the way of testing while he was still of age to be able to get that label...I just worry b/c I see a lot of those tendencies in him and if he had the right label, they would help him more...He's been in special ed services since he was 2 :(

He does see the school psychologist on a regular basis (she calls him into her office once a week to "chat"...we have had some issues with trying to get him mental health treatment (again, courtesy of my ex husband) and we don't know what's going to happen to his health insurance when he turns 18 in two weeks...we may have to change his carrier :( so I don't want to try to establish him with a counselor now if he's going to have to change soon again anyways (he has some major trust issues as well).

His private counselor had told us to try to apply for SSDI for him as she didn't feel he would be able to hold a job...but we felt we had to give him a fair shot at trying to find a job and maintain it with the extra assistance he's qualified for...if with the extra assistance he still can't function, I will take action to help him file for it...I really don't want to go there with him though :(meaning I want to make that a very last resort!)

I have a friend who is working on rearranging her house and cleaning her garage, so I thought maybe he could help her and we would give her the $ to pay him and she could keep it in a jar marked "Court Fees".

IDK, he's taking it all so lightly...he KNOWS that we have to pay the court fees since he will still be 17 when we go to court. We definitely plan to ask the City attorney to assign him some community service so that he doesn't feel like he got off scot free and discourage it from happening again.

Of course the school psychologist is helping him make excuses that his disability made him go off, which may be the case to a point...but I want him to understand that this is no light matter and he needs to do something.

His dad, who moved to Wyoming in March feels since he wasn't in his 'custody' at the time he is not going to pay a portion (he also does not pay child support, health ins, and is considered the legal guardian of this child. We go to mediation at the end of March, well after the court hearing and court fees need to be paid.

It's not that we can't pay them, we fully intend the pay for court fees, we just want him to "pay" too...Are we wrong? What would be a good way to get him to "work it off"? He always has a bad attitude when working for us, so we'd rather 'hire him out' to someone who will actually take into consideration the quality of his work...

We figure court fees are going to be at least $200, then they will most likely order anger management classes and maybe a fine too (the judge will determine if he has to pay a fee and how much)...So far he has "raised" $30 by selling Yugioh Cards. We told him to make up the rest of it we will take him to the pawn shop and he can pawn his DS, PS2, whatever he has that is worth money...that makes him angry, but he's not making any other efforts to try to get $200 (which we gave him as his goal).

Sorry for the rambling post :D