zereaux

A 12-year-old Rock Hill boy wouldn’t wait to unwrap his Christmas present.

But his defiance landed him in trouble with the law after his mother and great-grandmother called police.

The boy’s great-grandmother had told him not to open his Nintendo Game Boy Advance, which she had wrapped and placed beneath the Christmas tree, according to a police report.

But Sunday morning, she found the box of the popular hand-held game console unwrapped and opened.

Both the great-grandmother and the mother said they asked the boy where the present was.

He said he didn’t know.

When the mother threatened to call the police, the boy got the Game Boy from his room, the report said.

The 27-year-old mother called the police anyway, she said Monday, because she didn’t feel she had any other option in dealing with the child she says “can’t stand authority.”

“He took it without permission. He wanted it. He just took it,” the 63-year-old great-grandmother said.

The boy was arrested on petty larceny charges, taken to the Rock Hill police station in handcuffs and held until his mother picked him up after church.

The boy was never put in jail, police spokesman Lt. Jerry Waldrop said. “We wouldn’t hold a 12-year-old.”

The boy, his mother and great-grandmother are not being identified because of his age.

The mother said she gave birth to the child when she was 15 and is a single mother struggling to earn a business degree. She plans to graduate from York Technical College next year.

“I need help,” said the mother, who also has a 7-year-old daughter. “I’ve been putting overtime in trying to figure out what’s going on.”

She said her son was diagnosed in the last year with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but his medicine does not seem to help. Repeated trips to doctors and calls to various agencies have not produced results, she said.

“He can’t stand authority. He has a really bad attitude,” said the mother.

“He always blames somebody else for something. I don’t want to see him be another statistic. I want to see him be somebody.”

The woman said she has lost jobs because she has to constantly tend to her son, whose school troubles began with him taking things from his kindergarten teacher’s desk. Trips to the grocery store often end with her returning items he pocketed, she said.

The boy, on suspension from his alternative school, faces an expulsion hearing today, his mother said.

He was arrested last month for disturbing the school after he swung at, but missed, a police officer, Rock Hill Police Capt. Mark Bollinger said.

His mother said neither arrest seemed to scare him as she had hoped. She is distressed because her son is relishing the attention brought by his latest arrest.

The boy’s case will be presented to Department of Juvenile Justice officials in York County, who will decide what happens, Bollinger said. His mother hopes he can attend a program that will finally scare him straight.

“It’s not even about the Christmas present,” she said. “I only want positive things out of it. ... There’s no need for him to act this way. I’d rather call myself than someone else call for him doing something worse than this.”

zereaux

and i thought i was having a tough time with my kids...

draxcaliber

i've said it before, and i'll say it again, we need to hit kids people! drugs are not the answer, violence is! i mean seriously, sending kids to their rooms and timeouts mean nothing, they need a good whooping every now and again since you can't understand right and wrong when you explain it to them, but everybody understands pain just fine!

BigMURR

That was beautiful

I'm NOT trying to compare dogs with kids, but when you look at it if a dog does something bad usually a good spanking will make them seriously consider not doing it in the future, well kids (especially younger kids) respond the same way. You can be a good parent and still spank them, and that's what people don't understand they think they are bad for doing it.

Madzozs

When I was younger, I was a bastard to my parents. I was the single pain in the family. They tried the "sit in the chair in the corner" method....until that chair mysteriously broke. Then they did the best thing that they could've done. My dad took off his belt, pulled my pants off of my ___ and gave me the whooping of a decade. The whole time I was screaming about calling the police. He walked over and got a phone book. He flipped it to the CPS number and said, "If you call, I'll make it worth their while to come down here."

Needless to say, I stopped acting out.

It's amazing how one whooping did it for me. The best thing is, people will ask about if I was beat as a kid and I say, "Nope. But I was disciplined." Working in child-care, those were 2 terms never used together. If you hit your child, it was beating them.

Oh the good old days.

XtCFast

Suxx..he's just prob ____ed bc his moms hotter then his gf

06CStC

Sounds more like a skit for a condom advertisement. But man, hope that child will get better when he grows up.

emokid158

i agree a good physical punishment is probably best. i mean don't get me wrong, i'm only 22 and don't have kids. but as a littlen when i talked, my dad would choke me and throw me against a wall. i was scared to do anything. then when my step dad came around i got it easy, just spankings if i was in trouble. made me consider what i was doing. ...

funny how people can't spank their children, but when it comes to trying to get custody. the system doesn't help out the parent that really is better because the police can't get involved in "domestic" situations.

foxtrot685

what does she mean she dosent know whats going on??? thats y her kids do what they want cuz she has no obvious authority to them. and that whole "i was 15 when i had him" crap is just that... crap. my sister had her baby when she was 15, shes now 26 with an 11 year old and he dosent do that stuff (my sister is heavyhanded!) and if hes suspended, i really wouldnt b buying him a game boy advance... he would have no x-mas this go round

chrischoi

iTrader: (2)

uhhh that's noone else's fault that she get's around at 15. i mean come on... then she baked another cake at 20? and it's probably bad parenting... she lives in york huh? time to contact zer0 and go on a search.

scionofPCFL

The police? ADHD? Drugs? Please, that kid just needs a dad in the house that'll knock his frickin head off and then make him clean up the mess.

keg79

a good ole fashon butt whoopin never done any harm to a child,as long as you don't cross the line to abuse

SquallLHeart

^^ yup... seriously... kids think they have it easy these days..

physical punishment is seriously the best thing. i hated the crap out of it when i was younger but you know what? it works.

hotbox05

hmm i never had to be beaten as a child. if you needed to be there was probably something a lil wrong with the parent or the child.



but i guess this lil punk kid needs something . but yeah if my parents were ever to have beaten me . oh man . game on .

mrfuzzy4

(sings) euthanization.... put em down! lol. seriously... that kid is whack! beating em is bad... but a spanking really is not bad... i got em when i went over the line... time outs dont really work... only partially. he may be lying to avoid timeouts, but is not afread of losing and getting caught.

its not wrong unless ur caught!

chrischoi

iTrader: (2)

i agree... but if i had a kid. i don't think i have what it takes to do that to something i made.

now, if it was someone else. i'd have no problem

S1lent

Like I always say... Children are only good for two things... Pornography and leukemia.

Excuse me while I check my reservation in hell...

thegermangemini

Don't you worry, us moms can handle it too. I might not spank my son often, but don't let his tail step too far out of line. I pop it right back in. Single moms need to stop making excuses for themselves and step up to be the parent.

chrischoi

iTrader: (2)

very well said.

flintgauge86

Corporal Punishment is not child abuse! Sometimes You have to "knock" some sense into kids in order for them to properly develope... Young kids who have a problem with authority (especially young boys without fathers) will have much bigger problems with authority when they get older( i.e. become felons in jail). Kids need authority in their lives. That's why it's important for parents to be involved in and aware of the childrens lives. Parenting is hard hard work, and God bless single parents, but parernting is a two person job. You can't expect a single parent to hold a job (being gone from the home 8-10hrs a day) and still have time to be an influence on their child while maintaining all household duties( i.e. mow the lawn, do laundry, clean house), have enough "alone time" to maintain their own mental health, help the kiddies with homework, projects, sports practice, cook meals, buy food... etc.... I'm sure there are plenty of parents who could add things to the list. Point is, kids need two parents. It's so much harder to do it alone, and it's that much harder on the kids aswell. Kids NEED PARENTS!