Originally Posted by kane

Well, in a way you are 100% correct, but about 99% of the blame falls on the kid's mom and grandma. To make a long story short when my brother met his wife she already had the boy from a previous relationship. He was about 4 when they got together. His biological dad has been in and out of his life and is unreliable at best. He was the first grandson in the family and his mom and grandma basically treated him like he was a deity. They all but threw rose petals at his feet when he would walk.

No matter what my brother would do as punishment, she would go behind his back and undo it. Of course, my brother didn't know this until recently. A few cases in point. The boy, when he was about 10, stole money out of his mom's purse to buy a video game. He got grounded to his room, no TV no nothing for two weeks. When my brother wasn't home his mom let him come out of his room, watch TV, play games whatever. Another time he decided that he didn't like school (he was in 6th grade) so she didn't make him go. After two weeks of not going the school called the emergency contact number (my brother's work number) to find out if he was okay. He went home and asked why the boy was not in school. She lied to his face and said he was. When he told her that school seems to think otherwise she finally confessed. That incident nearly led to their divorce. In 8th grade the kid failed 14 out of 16 classes. The school told them he needed to be held back, but she refused. As it turns out, she was doing all his homework. To this day - and it makes me sad as hell the say this - he is 18 years old and essentially illiterate.

This has caused massive strain on the family. They had two other kids together and both of them are very good kids in part because their mom actually does discipline them along with my brother. For some reason she can't say no to the boy and now after all these years it is coming back to haunt her. He has been in trouble with the law multiple times, blew off all his probation stuff, gets in more trouble and no matter what he does she makes excuses for him and seems to make like it is okay for him to be this way.