Big Day for My Little Guy!

Today, at 2PM, my youngest son had to come before the judge on account of the assault and battery charge against him. As you may recall, back in December, my 10 year old son (then only 9) was accused of assault and battery against his mother. The local police were called and my son was officially charged. I was not originally given the details as to what allegedly happened and only found out about the charge when a policemen came to my door to issue me a summons to appear in court. According to Virginia law, both parents need to be served when the accusation involves a child.

The judge listened to the evidence as presented by the detective that offically charged my son, as well as the testimony of my wife and the man with whom my son is currently living (and has been living with for the last three months or so). According to the testimony given, my wife was trying to get my son to go to school that day back in December. My son insisted that he was not feeling well and did not believe he should go to school. However, his mother insisted that he go. My son then became angry and began to push his mother and attempt to striker her. When this continued the police were eventually contacted and brought into the situation. According to the detective that came to the house that day, my wife told her that, in addition to the pushing and strking, she also has had to keep the knives away from my son because she was afraid of what he might do.

Most of the rest of the testimony presented was concerning the positive changes that have been taking place in my son's life since that incident in December. This included that fact that he is virtually a straight A student that typically turns his work in on time or, in many cases, ahead of time, that he does not disrupt the house in which he lives, but is obedient to the rules of that house and that he has progressed a lot over the last several months. As a result of this the judge finally ruled to keep this situation under advisement. If my son keeps his nose clean for the next 12 months, then the charge will be completely dropped. However, if he gets himself in trouble, he could face punishment for the assault and battery charge and gain a criminal record.

With that, the judge released my son into the custody of the man with which he is staying. However, there were a few things that I learned during this trial. Most of this I had heard sort of as a whisper or had speculated about, but now I heard it as sworn testimony in court.

For example, despite the assault and battery charge, no one removed my son from the house. According to the testimony that was given, my wife was struggling with my son's acting out and also the owner of the house where they are staying was not pleased with his behavior. Because of this, my wife decided, of her own free will, to find a place for my son to live. According to the man that testified (the man with whom he is currently living), if he didn't take him, he did not know where my son was going to be staying.

The judge asked the man if he knew when my son was going to move back in with his mother and siblings. The man answered by saying that it was open-ended ... no date had been set. Later, when my wife was on the stand, the judge asked the same question. He wanted to know if my wife had a plan for moving the child back into the home with the rest of the family. Her words were that it was open-ended. My son has lived outside of the home away from his mother, brother and sisters for the last three months or more and my wife does not yet have a plan to reintegrate him back into the family! Why not?

To be fair, according to my son (when I see him during visitation days), he does get to see his brother and sisters during the week. I don't know how frequently, but he does get to see them. I am glad for this as I know that both my sons had been very close to one another.

I have no reason to doubt that my son pushed and attempted to strike his mother. In fact, he told me the same thing when I talked to him about it in the presence of a supervisor during one of our visits. I told my son that striking someone because you cannot get what you want is certainly not the way to behave and that he needed to honor his mother. I hope my son has learned from this situation and that it will give him reason to pause and think about his actions before possibly doing something that he may later regret.

But I am still concerned about my son. Why aren't there plans to bring him home to be with the rest of the family? Why should the responsibility of making sure that he is fed, that he goes to bed, that he goes to school and that he does his homework, be given to someone else? Why should this child not have full access to his brother, sisters and his own mother? I realize that I am not there and I realize that this is a tough situation for my wife, being the only parent in the house, but however tough the situation is, a child's place is with his family when at all possible. If there was not this protective order placed against me by my wife, I certainly would be fighting to have my son living with me.

In any case, I am glad that he came through this situation with flying colors. He was a little man today, sitting straight in his chair, looking directly at the judge when spoken to and answering his questions when asked. What he did was wrong, but he seems to have come through it alright thus far.