I am so scared right now for my son.  I have just seen things building for the last month or two.  This is typical I guess for this time of year, but the signs are disturbing none the less.  Bad interim report card found crumbled in a ball.  Things are starting to go missing again.  He is snooping and getting into things he should not and lying about a lot of things.  I know so much of this is typical 12 year old behavior but it is like taking that and multiplying it exponentially and you begin to get a clear picture sometimes of what we deal with.  Fits of anger, broken/smashed toys, holes in my wall from him kicking or throwing things.  when he shuts down, he shuts down completely.  I just want to cry.   Last night was as bad as it gets.  Just when you think you are beyond the worst, it comes back again.  Paul found open soda cans hidden all over in the basement.  (currently unfinshed basement where we store stuff, including cases of soda.)  Most still had 1/2 soda in them.  This was a few weeks ago.  Over and over with candy wrappers and food and cookies stuffed in drawers and under the bed.  And weeks and weeks of me telling him to clean his room.  He would always get to a certain point and would give up.  So this weekend, I said that he was not to do anything else until that room was cleaned.  An entire weekend of temper tantrums.  He would constantly leave his room.  I would find him playing.  So then we figured too much stuff, start filling boxes and empty.  That was going ok for a while. But he was still in a raunchy mood.  He is 12 and decides to play martyr- I am not eating dinner.  Am I supposed to feel sorry?  I cooked for hours.  We went to bowling as a family, which we are part of a league on Sunday nights.  I did not want to take that away.  it is one thing we enjoy as a family.  Everything was great.  Had a great time.  Came home and back to awful.  Refuses to brush teeth.  Does not want to go to bed.  Find him 45 min later after bedtime playing in his room.  Paul and I decided to begin emptying the toys out ourselves.  David FREAKS out.  I guess at that point it is a loss of control issue?  I don't know.  He starts hyperventilating and screaming "leave me alone.  I want to go to bed."  Over and over.  His face turns bright red.  I keep telling him to sit in his bed and take deep breaths.  He literally works himself up to where he can't breathe.  He starts banging toys over his head and breaking them.  He bangs his fist (very hard) onto his head.  You could hear it.  The more we took out of his room, the more worked up he got.  Finally we stopped and Paul hugged him until his breathing was calm.  I guess he slept good last night.  This am all apparently went well to get out the door for school. The portable dvd player is missing.  The power adapter was plugged into the outlet under his bed and the case was under the other bed.  He swears I took the DVD player.  I took the Nintendo DS and the Zune (both because he got caught in the middle of the night playing with them.)  He gets up in the middle of the night and watches tv.  Paul, always the cynic, thinks David broke the DVD player and hid it somewhere.  I don't know what to think.  I have looked all over for it.  There are other kooky things missing.  He is told he is not allowed to go in my office and take things without my permission and then I am walking down the hall and he is running out of my office.  He just lies and lies.  I know he recently took $20 out of wallet but can't prove it. What do you do when you don't trust your son?  We have not been to counseling.  Time to look for a new counselor.  I am tired of it always being about our parenting skills and not about David's coping skills.  His reaction to frustration:  anger (typically), or melt down or shut down/give up.  He has to learn to find the strength in himself to work through it.  He is a freakin' black belt!  I refuse to baby him.  Yes, there were almost 4 years of turmoil, abuse, neglect.  But he also was in and out with foster mom, Paula, who took good care of him and loved him.  And he has been with us over 8 years!   I am so sad and frustrated and angry.  The rules are basically the same now as 8 years ago:  Make your bed, clean your room, pick up your clothes and toys, do your homework.  Doesn't he see that the energy he uses to battle us is 10 times worse than if he just did what he was told to do?  If he did what he was told to do, he could watch tv, play video games, etc.  It is almost like he sabotages himself.  Again, this is not all of the time.  But it is awful to see a 12 year old boy so sad and angry.  My dad took off.  I was the oldest of 4.  My mother was abusive.  There was often not enough to eat.  (We were not starved, but never full if that makes sense.)  But I NEVER lost hope.  Yes, there were sad times.  But overall I don't remember being sad all of the time as a child.  Maybe this is my perception.  4 years ago it was like this all of the time.  So maybe seeing it once every few months is more disturbing.  Maybe just because he is older it is more disturbing. Is this a lack of sleep?  Is this more than ADHD, like bipolar or manic depression?  His bio parents apparently have some mental issues.  His younger brother is experiencing a lot of this and worse apparently.  His younger brother's mother says he also bangs his fist into his own head until he bruises.  Am I looking too much into this?  I really DOUBT myself as a mother right now.  I don't know what to do.  HELP!  I need to really pray for answers.  Big time.  I want someone to tell me that David is going to grow out of this.  Paul is in his room now cleaning it out.  We are now going to have to go through his room on a regular basis.  We already go through his backpack every morning.  Hopefully a few days or a few weeks and things will get better.