Pre-Teen Problems is he a socipath?

[jbone24]

Starting at age seven is when all the trouble began cause I was trying to keep the peace between me and his mother by  allowing him to spend time with his mothers' mom despite my better judgement to what was going on. He was displaying acts of vandlism, indecent exposure, and poor grades in school I had been issued sole custody of my child because his mother was detained and convicted of sexual assault of a minor as a  repeater and from how his mother acts she might as well be marked as a sociopath. Their were two occasions between the ages of 9 and 10 where their were accusation of sexual abuse toward a friends of familys' son and  his half sister shortly after. Although nothing was ever was proven to happen I do have my doubts. Also at the age of 10 he set off the fire alarm on the last day of school was caught when asked why he did it he stated that he looked at it and it went off then changed his story stating his hoodie sleeve got caught on it but for as long as I can remeber it has been nothing but lies. As a small child he has had a rough life which was quite unstable seeing things that a child shouldn't see such as drug abuse, sexual acts by adults and the latter but around the age of nine the love and stability was greatly enforced. To keep the stability we had him stay with my father while I got my life in order cause of rocky relationships and my own legal problems his behavior was okay but he was still lying he showed an act of violence towards himself hitting himself over video games he isolated himself from others not speaking for hours. On one occasion he wrote on the front of a notebook consistanly degrading his self specifically saying he is no good, he's dumb, stupid, that he will be just like his mother and the latter. As of January 2013 he's stolen his grandfathers Smart phone twice once while he was in the hospital facing near death and when we found it he had stolen it again off the desk. He used his grandfathers credit card and acrewed $400.00 of video games and the latter. He has a very strong obssesion with video games almost to the point of just watching the game make him strongly addicted he also has ADHD to which he's been medicated for since the age of 5. He some acquired a $ 200.00 I-Pad touch which we believe he traded his broken nintendoe 3DS for too which we can no longer find. At this point we decided he needed more parental care so we had him move in with my other children and my newlywed wife. For all that happened to this point were continuous lies, no appolgies lack of reconition for his faults and a blank stare seeming like he did nothing wrong. All he says is I wanted it, I wanted to play the game. He's selfish and only thinks about himself. Around this time my brother was released from  prison and agreed to oversee "restitutional work" over at my fathers house because I knew he could keep an eye on him and that my father was quite disgusted with him. He responds well to his dicsapline but at times finds him "slacking" on his chores or work and has to be basically watched throughout to complete the tasks at hand. My brother also started watching him on the weekend we don't have the other kids so we can have time to ourselve because we had given him the benefit of the doubt and figureed we would let him stay home by himself since he was 12 almost 13 and most 12 year olds can be left at home. He went through everything in the house tried to break in to our bedroom  with a butter knife to which my wife found the knife with the paint chips on it which caused damage to our door and shined a flashlight into the neighbors house as an emergency signal. The police came to our residence to find no emergecy he claimed that he though we were never coming back although we were only gone for 2 hours. Officals gathered he was bored. At this point he can not be left alone per juvinile intervention and were given information regarding the issue at hand. This specific workers' opinion was he is headed to juvinile court the way things are going. We decide that maybe some more responsiblity may improve the situation so my brother thouhgt him how to do laundry. He did well for a couple of days but then found the detergent cup in the machine and when told to close the dryer door he purposely left it open despite the electric bill. Estimated to have it around a week he had pilfered through our room and found the I-Pad touch that he acquire through unknown means and I had  cuaght him with it while he was on the toilet for 45 minutes. I snuck in on him and swiped it from him. Once again he lied about it and said had found it lying  around and just wanted to play the games when he knew he stole again. The disturbing thing was that we found audio recordings of himself singing in the shower, talking to himself in the third person and the latter. At this point I realized what we had been doing wasn't working even though he was being punished he had much leaway to watch tv and stay up late nights with my brother on the weekends. All he is  aloud to do is go to school, work his restitution when my brothers available, eat, socialize with his siblings and play but otherwise he sits in the room to which he told my brother he enjoys cause he can be in his own world and away from others. Today we were at chuckie cheeses and it was my step-daughters birthday party and he used his half sister (7yrs old) to try to steal tickets acquired by the family for the birthday girl unbeknowenst to him was that my wifes father had heard the whole scheme my father-in-law confronted my duaghter  and told her not to do that cause she would be the one to get in trouble. He then informed my wife who then informed me to  which we then cofronted my daughter and asked her what she was thinking. At first she tried to cover for her brother cause they are very close but my wife had asked her if she was calling grandpa a lier and she got upset and knew that she was wrong. When I confronted my son he was in denile and was discluded from partaking in the rest of the events. At which time he distanced himself from the others and even when we tried to include him he  threw stuff around and basically shutdown. When we came home he was normal again but my brother, wife, and I discussed everything and while we made dinner my brother googled how he was acting which led us to this site. We all love my son dearly and don't want to see him going through the system and we are looking for a solution early on so that things don't get worse for him or us.

[Sandman2]

   Therapy is a good idea.  The video games are not a part of the problem.
    The problem is that he has had a very disconnected childhood with all the different homes involved and he has ADHD.
    In fact, I would say from my experience on the ADHD forum http://www.medhelp.org/forums/ADD---ADHD/show/175  ; that he is acting about the way I would expect him to given the circumstances.
    Do you have any idea of what ADHD symptoms are and what an unmedicated child will do compared to a normal child?
    And while medication is only part of an answer - all studies show that you need both medication and counseling.   It may be part of the problem here.
     Has his medication been changed at all in the last several year?  Because it really sounds like it is not working very well.  And it certainly is not working later in the day.  They have medications now that will last all day long.
    Let me know what he is taking and I can give you an idea if it might be in the ballpark of the proper dose or not (although all kids are different in how they respond).
    I have many things that can help you help him.  But it requires you learning about ADHD.  The fact that you took the time to write such a long letter does show that you care very much.  
    I would start by buying the book, "The ADD/ ADHD Answer book," by Susan Ashley.  About 10 bucks on Amazon.  It covers discipline, school, etc.  Just a a ton of really important information.
    Then check out this site - http://www.help4adhd.org/en/about/what/WWK1  -   a huge amount of very good info here.
     Then for some parenting ideas go here - http://www.additudemag.com/topic/parenting-adhd-children/behavior-discipline.html     you will find many, many useful ideas that will help you.
    Finally, if you do have any questions about what you read or want more info post over on the ADHD site that I gave above and I will definitely see it and respond.   Best wishes.

[remar]

I would highly recommend getting your son in to therapy as soon as possible. It may end up being the whole family that has to be in therapy in order to help your son.
If children don't have a structured environment they can really act out, be selfish, hard on themselves and so on.
I would also recommend taking away the video games. Some of them are extremely violent. Your son needs to do more constructive things other than sitting in front of the TV playing those games. I know it's hard to take things away and for the child to throw a bit fit but he'll get used to it and so will you.
It sounds like his mother is'nt in a good place as far as her life right now. Does your son have to visit her right now?