The Challenges of Adoptive Parenting

Today was rough.

Last fall, Aaron had a myspace account and we told him as long as he used it appropriately (and we had the passwords to be able to check up on him as he is only 12) he could keep it.  That lasted about a month before he decided to try his new "middle school vocabulary" out on the girl across the street in messages he was leaving her.  So, I closed down his myspace.

This morning, when the Brit came downstairs, he noticed an empty spaghettio can on the desk and when confronted about it, Aaron tried to insist it was not his.  I informed him that I was the last one upstairs last night at 11:00 and I can't even eat, nor do I like, spaghettios.  He finally admitted he came down at 6:00 this morning and ate them and then went back to bed.  The Brit made him clean up and I told him he had lost his ipod for another week for lying (an ongoing battle), then we all got dressed and the boys were dropped off at grandma's for the day.

When I got home from work after a pedicure, I picked up Aaron's yearbook which he had left lying in the kitchen and found that he had written in sharpie the name "Lil Ace" on the outside cover and inside as well.  This sent off alarm bells.  See, his 14 year old uncle, Cody, lives with his sister who is Aaron's bio-mom.  Bio-mom and Cody's mom passed away two years ago and bio-mom took in her brother, though she already had her two younger children as well (which is a lot for a 26 year old recovering drug addict).  When Cody was last here, he informed me that it looked like he was failing 8th grade so that tells me that things are not really good at home and that maybe he is not getting the support he should be getting, but I digress.  "Lil Ace" is the name that Cody uses on myspace.  So, talk about mother's intuition...I logged into Myspace and did a search for Aaron plus his bio last name and there is was.  A Myspace page he had created just last week and that isn't the worst part.  He had been messaging his bio-mom and she was messaging him back.  

So how does an adoptive parent handle this?  First issue was he had broken the rules and betrayed our trust,so we brought him home from grandma's to deal with the issue.  He admitted he had waited until we went to bed last night to get on the computer (the laptop.  He doesn't' have the password for mine).  I got his user name and password and signed into his myspace to shut it down and found a new message from Cody from last night.  Cody had commented that Aaron was up late and did Kim and Chris know.  I messaged Cody back, told him it was me and that no, we had not known, that his Myspace was being shut down and that he was not allowed any further contact.

We've dealt with the Aaron issue with a long talk and punishment of losing his privileges and having to earn them back.  We discussed his bio-mom and why we don't allow contact, which is as much for her well being as his.  This whole bio-family in the same town crap at times drives me wonky.  How do you handle it?