My husband and I recently took in our 9 yr old nephew. He was not living in the greatest household, and we decided he needed a change. He grew up in a very low income household and was rarlely punished. He has been put into in school suspension a couple of times and nothing was ever done. He came to live with us just 3 weeks ago and we are trying to get him settled in. His english is not the best however he does understand and speak it very well. The school district he was in was definitely below par and we are trying to get him up to his level for the school year. Well last week I came down stairs to find that he has spilled milk on my suede couch when he isn't supposed to be eating on the couch anyway and he had covered it up with a blanket. When I asked him why he did it he just said he didn't know, that he was just being lazy and didn't want to clean it up, later that day at vacational bible school he punched another kid below the belt. So my husband and I decided to punish him. We took away video games, and going to the park with his friends and staying the night with one of his friends he has acquired here. Well that seemed to be going OK. Then on sat we went to a softball game, there was a jumpy castle and he was told specifically not to play rough or wrestle because of the smaller kids. Well I found him wrestling so I made him sit down and not play with the other children and when I was speaking to me he woud not look at me was completely ignoring me and just stared at the ground while breathing heavily. That evening we went to a friends house for dinner, at her house he started picking on the other child who is considerably younger then he is. When told to apologize he refused and started to ignore my husband any myself. I am running out of ideas I understand he is at the age where he is going to defy athourity and all and he is going to mess up but groundation does not seem to be working what should we do