K8ii (15) lives with g.parents who took her in when no-one else would. They do their best for her. they are easy going kind caring and love K8ii to bits. They have been there fore her since she was born. They're the only people to have stuck with her. She treats them like crap especially her Nan. They have tried everything. They feel let down by everyone they have approached in terms of support, except the school who are bending over backwards to support K8ii (whenever she decides to be there).

Life has not been a bed of roses for K8ii and she has a lot of unresolved issues this is not just a 'teenage' thing, any attempts to help her are met with abuse, she can hardly stand to be in same room as her Nan. She lies, steals, and bullies her g.parents. She believes they are the problem and she can do and say what she likes and that they ought to shut up and let her get on with her life the way she is.

Her g.parents hurt, deep inside the hurt is physical. pains in your chest and stomach. A sense of total impotence in helping K8ii get back to the kind and loving and carefree child she was when she was younger. The hurt is devastating, crushing, consuming. What can they possibly do to help K8ii to give her the self belief she lacks. What can they possibly do to stop this hurt that is tearing them all apart?

there are things , lets face it , tehre are things already avaliable that dont mean travelling miles and miles and walking for weeks .
schools have councillors for a start , so youd stick her in a room for a hour a week talking about whatever she wants to , in brat camp they may be councillors and talking , but brat camp is simply a attempt to speed up the process of change by not meeting once a week like in school but being around each other constantly.
so firstly , you dont have to travel for ages to geta councillor .

secondly , you dont need brat camp to get you off cigs, drink or drugs , on the show brat camp is seen ebing a double as rehab and brat camp , your own doctor could tell you a bunch of facts on these things and tell you lots of ways to quit im sure .

how does brat camp resolve issues better than things provided already ? because many parents , gparents etc dont ask for their son / daughter to get a councillor or help , in the early stages of their kid being brattish they think it'll work itself out , and in the late stages parents think all hope is lost . at no point on meeting the brats part of the show will you hear that they have had councillors help them with their issues .


if ''brats'' aquired uk councillors , they would see them as often as they wished if tehy wanted more than once a week , and that in itselff would premote self belief - the right to chose , the helping yourself , instead of forced change

Problem with councellors is that the child has to want to see them. We have tried this option but Katie refuses to go. School/EWO/social workers cannot and will not force a child to attend councelling sessions if they don't want to go. Lets face it if she were forced to see a councellor they can't force her to speak to them. Whats the old saying - you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

so you say , that if she was stuck in a room with a councillor , you wouldnt be able to make her talk .

well if you stuck her in the dessert with a councillor , that wont make her either , just because its a dessert , not a room , doesnt mean it has magic powers .

the councillor has to care .

if you badger her to do it , do you think she'll want to , do you think being told repeatedly you must talk to some stranger about your secrets is an easy thing ?

you list 3 things that cant force her , school ewo social worers , is taht not pressure to talk . not only do you have to talk to a stranger about you , but several tings are going to pressure you about teh seriousness . brilliant .

I think that often the problem with people like Katie is that they are very stubborn and strong minded. They just won't give up their ideas no matter how bad they're feeling and the more people try to talk to them the more upset and stubborn and angry they get. . Not knowing Katie's personal issues, I can't really suggest anything specific, but there are a few general things. Firstly, and VERY important, are you sure she is not on drugs? Becuase you can try all the therapies you like, if she is regularly smoking even certain types of cannabis (let alone take harder drugs) this could be affecting her brain chemistry to make her paranoid. If she IS on drugs it's a problem but at least there are likely to be local drug support groups for parents and families of users. Secondly, you must prioritise drawing the line about rudeness. If you are polite and loving to her and she is rude to you, that is just unacceptable. Both grandparents need to present a united front on this in every way. To be making your lives a misery in your own home just because she feels like it gives her uncomfortable and frightening power over you. And, she's not stupid - she knows that people who act like this are unloved. If she actually WAS a loving little girl then she is not a psychopath, and acting like this to someone who loves her will never feel OK to anyone unless they are a psychopath. Thirdly, I am not a religious person myself but I have seen the transforming power and help that religion can give. These days there are some amazing evangelical pastors and Christian groups around the country which do reach out to people of all ages and types. If you live in a city or town, it's really worth checking out your local baptist and evangelical churches as these are places where you can often find dynamic and inspired pastors who can get through to very troubled people. Go along to a few services yourself and check them out, some are hopeless, others are inspiring (even if you, like me, don't believe in what they say about God). They believe that God is in them and all of us, and this convicion can actually get through in a way that paid social workers (who may be bad or indifferent at their jobs) and distraught relatives can not. K8ti needs to see that she matters to herself and to others, FOR herself, and that's the priority. But I am still troubled by the bad behaviour. If Nan gets it in the neck, then perhaps Nan needs to stay out of the picture for a bit, and simply coexist with K8ti, making it clear that she is only doing this because K8ti doesn't like her and it hurts her feelings to always be badly treated. The truth is K8ti is never going to like herself if she is trashing people that love her, and getting away with it. And inadvertently Nan might be contributing to her bad feelings by letting her get away with murder and set the tone of the whole house to "Bad". there is also the possibility that Nan has a particular agenda of how she thinks K8ti ought to be, and K8ti just can't live up to it and so she lashes out. I have a friend who had a very troublesome son, and everyone except her could see that her constant interference in his life and her ambition for him to be a certain sort of person, was creating more problems. If I said to her to let him get on with it and make his own life, she couldn't stand to. She was just rather a controlling person. Finally he has managed to get away and is living his own life, not the one she wanted for him. She accepts that he hardly phones or gets in touch, but he still IS in touch and they now do get on because to her credit she has swallowed the bitter pill that they cannot be close like when he was a little boy and he is not the person she hoped he would be. But at least he's OK and he does love her after all. So I am sure there is hope for K8ti but anyway my main positive suggestion is to start looking for a pastor who will get involved in this and with you, approaching K8ti as an individual who is equal to everyone else.

firstly i am going to apologise for only skipping through the replies, after reading the first post, the unresolved issues this child feels is probably rejection at its most extreme, rejected by her own parents!!!
It is easy to say that in time she will have guilt pangs over the way she has treated her g.parents and that is just more "issues" that she will have to face and deal with, but has anybody ever explained to her why she does not live with her parents/parent or why she was tossed aside by them?
Let's face it none of us as we grow into and continue through adulthood rarely ever manage to get rid of all our childhood issues and maybe explanations and reasons are what is needed for this girl