Even at a young age,
Rivers was always acting out in school
and getting in trouble.
He flooded his art class
by plugging up the sink
and one time
he cut a kids backpack open
and all the books came out.
He drew a racist cartoon,
got sent to the office
and got suspended.
He was always a bully.
Rivers has always been defiant
and even then, Angie and Hunter
wouldn't discipline him.
He behaves this way with you two
for a couple of reasons.
One, you trigger it.
And number two, he knows it works.
He can get away,
he can grab your wrist and twist it
wrestle your phone out
of your hand,
call you a bitch and slam the door
and he knows there's not one consequence
gonna come form it, true?
True.
He doesn't go to school
and he gets
to play video games all day.
We agree,
but we feel like,
having the cops come
and put him in the back of the cop car
and get him to school
and he wouldn't to school
so we put him in a psychiatric hospital
and we've had him on medication and counseling.
Is it just me?
No, Rivers controls them
with, when they would call the police
to come get him to take him to school
Rivers figured out
real quick that if he started using
the catch phrase, "I'll run away,"
well then the phone calls to the police stopped.
Now he realizes "I'll run away" doesn't, you know,
he is up to "I'll kill myself."
And so he knows to up
the ante-- He's elevated
the threat.
To threaten them to maintain control.
I don't know that it's
appropriate to fight
the war against the war
against mental illness with the same
quiver of arrows that you do
a normal child.
I think there's certainly behavioral dysfunction
but I don't know that there's mental illness here.
All signs point to no
from my stand point,
but I don't that-- I'm happy to know that.
I haven't diagnosed him yet.
But I see no indication whatsoever
of mental illness here.
What I see here is a spoiled brat kid
who gets rewarded for bad behavior,
that's what I know.
Now there may be mental
illness on top of that, (audience applauding)
there may be mental illness on top of that
and that has yet to be determined, but
He's had psychological evaluations
at all the hospitals and they've
all said the same things.
No matter what I'm saying
to the two of you,
you're saying yeah but.
I'm saying look he's not going
to school and he gets to stay home
and play video games.
Yeah but, I mean we call the police
and they say he's not a criminal
so we just got to let him
play the video games.
Really?
I say look you're rewarding bad behavior
when he gets away with calling
you names and twisting your wrist
yeah but, I mean he's bigger than me.
Yeah but, yeah but, yeah but,
no matter what I say
you're saying yeah but.
He calls you names.
He attacks you physically.
He's disrespectful.
He does not perform
and you're allowing that to happen.
True or false?
True. True.
And his behavior is situation specific.
It happens when
there are folks requiring him
to do something he doesn't want to do.
Yes.
It's either teachers or parents.
He has a very immature level
of problem solving and problem recognition.
He's very immature right now
and you're rewarding immature behavior.
True or false.
That's true. True.
Okay, thank you.
(audience laughing)
Ha.
(audience applauding)
Now,
what you should be thinking
right now is okay baldy
so what do we do instead.
Okay now he had a seizure when he was one?
He was two.
Two.
Febrile seizure yeah.
Scared the bee geebers out of you?
Yes.
I carried my son Jay
into the operating room at four weeks old.
I carried him in.
I was on staff at the hospital
and he had to have emergency surgery.
Scared me to death.
Scared his mother, she ain't over it yet.
Yes, it was horrible.
And you can remember me carrying
him in there right this second, can you not?
Yes, he had been crying so hard
to put that IV in.
He was just so tiny and when you were walking down the hall
I could see his little head,
just still crying and shaking.
I do understand and it makes you
handle that child
from the beginning
differently than you would handle him
if that hadn't happened.
Little differences real early on
become big differences later on.
Your job as a parent is to prepare him for the
next level of life.
Yes sir.
And you're not doing that.
No.
And we need to start doing that.