karen1573

Apologies in advance cos this is quite long.

My son is 15 and he lives with me and my partner since July this year.

He is not mine by birth; I was married to his Dad and he lived with us from the age of 5 til 11, when I split with his Dad. His Mum had walked out when he was 3.

When we broke up, his Dad took him away to another city and moved in with his new girlfriend. I still kept contact with my son (as I consider him, and he considers me his mum) and had him to stay in school hols etc.

Then last year his Dad died very suddenly. My son was obviously deeply shocked and grieving very hard. A short while after the funeral his birth mum suddenly got in touch and said she wanted my son to move to her city and live with her. I had some doubts about whether it would work out but I let him go as he really wanted to live with her and his younger half-brothers and sisters.

About six months later social services got in touch and explained that he's been placed on the at risk register due to abuse within the household, and that there had been police involvement, my son had been beaten quite badly by his mother's husband, and the mother had thrown my son out numerous times leaving him to the care of the downstairs neighbour.

Of course I was horrified by this and immediately said he must come and live with us. My partner was a little reluctant but agreed as my son really had nowhere else to go. Social services had already tried to place him with some of his dad's relatives, but they had all rejected him. (Considering most of them had never even met him, not really surprising.)

Anyway... he has now been living with us for nearly 6 months and I feel we have made good progress. He is improving at school with the help of a specialist unit, and he has been going to counselling every week. His depression and anger are much better than they were when he arrived. He no longer talks about self-harming or suicide.

But last night my partner and I had a massive row as he says my son cuddles me too much and that he finds it "uncomfortable and inappropriate". My son does like his cuddles, he always has, and although a "normal" 15 yr old would surely not be wanting hugs with his Mum, my boy has been missing out on hugs and cuddles pretty much since I split with his Dad - his Dad was not demonstrative, and if he approached his birth mother she would tell him to get lost. My son feels very insecure still and seems to have this need to be near me as often as possible. His favourite thing is to sit next to me on the settee and just lean on me and link his arm through mine.

This last week he has been poorly with a cold and seems to want more cuddles than normal, just for reassurance I guess and because he feels crap. Last night he sat on the arm of the settee and put his arms round me and my partner got up and left the room. Then later on he said this about it being inappropriate and "not right".

This made me feel really awful - like I'm corrupting my son. I felt really accused to be honest. I spoke to my partner about it again this morning and he said I'm not helping my son, I'm just molly-coddling him and I'm not doing him any favours because how's he going to cope with life when he leaves school next year?

My partner's mum is quite cold and undemonstrative so I think my partner is just not used to the same level of physical affection that my son has been used to. On the other hand I know that my son does seek much more cuddles than another child of his age.

I am really worried that if I try to limit the amount of cuddles, it will make my son's insecurities worse and this could lead to him acting out again.

Has anyone experienced anything like this with your kids? How did you manage their clinginess?

Thanks for reading so far :)

Where is the weapons trunk for True Crime: New York City?