This story is true, however, for the sake of anonymity the main protagonist’s name has been changed, as well as his place of residence and the acts in which the person was involved. Let us call him Petr.
Childhood on the edge – without rules or safety He is only eleven when he becomes a case for a curator from social and legal child protection in a small district town. At eleven, he should have concerns only about school notebooks and friends on the playground. Instead, Petr moved with his grandmother to a small town. He moved with his grandmother, who was already caring for him at the time—and not out of a loving choice, but out of necessity. His mother could not keep up with him.
His mother was already then a disabled pensioner, working part-time in a sheltered workshop. She was mentally ill, exhausted, and completely powerless and incompetent in upbringing. She was unable to control her son’s anger outbursts or aggression, which already went beyond ordinary childhood rebelliousness. The father had been stripped of parental responsibility by the court and never showed interest in the child. He did have a child-support obligation—court-enforced wage deductions from his salary at the glassworks paid toward the son—but that was where his fatherhood ended.
The family environment in which Petr was born was broken and toxic, simply pathological. The grandmother, who at first seemed like a rescuer, was not able to provide healthy guidance. The curator who had him in care still remembers moments when the grandmother literally slapped her own daughter in front of Petr—that is, Petr’s mother. And so, in the boy’s eyes, parental authority completely vanished. He felt no respect for his mother, only contempt.
To this was added another complicated relationship: a half-sister sharing the same mother but a different father. Behavioural disorders had also been recorded for her. She, however, was in OSPOD care in another city. The family was therefore divided not only physically, but also institutionally.
From the beginning, it was a complex story moving toward tragedy. Or rather toward a series of smaller tragedies that, in sum, became a destiny.
Truancy, aggression, and first falls
Already in fifth grade—a bearded-faced, eleven-year-old boy—he began skipping school. He had so many unexcused classes that the situation became unsustainable. The school and OSPOD sounded the alarm: truancy was linked with aggression. Petr bullied classmates and threatened them. At home—if it could be called a home—he had learned to get his way through threats. His grandmother was afraid of him. “When he wanted something, he simply demanded it loud and hard. There was always intimidation and threatening. He knew how to be cruel,” his former curator recalls.
Psychiatric care was recommended for him. Doctors diagnosed a conduct disorder and prescribed medication in the form of Ritalin to reduce his aggression and impulsivity. But medication use was irregular. And in an environment with no firm rules and consistency, treatment had no chance to succeed.
The curator and grandmother attended countless consultations at the educational care centre. Petr went there for a while, but change was minimal. To the destructive behaviour, another risk was added: marijuana—first sporadic, later more regular.
By the time he was thirteen, there was no doubt he was in major danger of falling apart. The most serious incident occurred at the public restrooms near the train station. Petr and another boy arranged an attempted rape of a classmate. A random passer-by saved the girl. The act remained unfinished, but the moral damage he caused was immense.
A child was becoming a threat—to those around him, to the school, to the family. But also, even if he likely did not fully realize it, to himself.
Institutional upbringing as an emergency brake
An order for institutional upbringing could no longer be avoided. The court ordered his placement in the Children’s Home with School (DDŠ) Hostouň. It was one of the few places where at least some form of order could be provided for him. For the first time in his life, he entered an environment with clear rules and routine. “Those were the best days,” the curator remembers. “He was medicated regularly, had structure. He completed compulsory school attendance without major problems. He still acted arrogantly, but at least there were boundaries.”
He did well at school—he was of average intelligence, understanding, and able to learn. He was not stupid. For him, obedience was synonymous with weakness. Gaining his respect was hard, but when the system functioned, he could submit to it. In Hostouň they did not confirm dependence on hard drugs—the marijuana problem had been more severe before admission. That is why he was not placed in a facility like Medvědí kámen for addiction treatment.
After two years in the institution, when he was sixteen, his compulsory school attendance ended. What next? The grandmother decided to take him back and applied for foster care.
Case conference – plans and promises
In spring, a case conference was held. Everyone came: the OSPOD curator, professionals from Hostouň, the mother, the grandmother, and of course Petr himself. They discussed his future.
Petr promised a lot. He promised to enter a secondary vocational school and train as a mechanic for agricultural machinery repair. He promised to stop using drugs. He promised to attend Prostor plus. These were minimum conditions. Yet even those later proved to be too much.
The curator remembers his behaviour: “At first glance he seemed calm and quiet. But the arrogance was impossible to ignore. He thought a lot about how to get what he wants, by any means.”
The court eventually entrusted foster care to the grandmother. It was her choice, her hope that she could save her grandson.
The holidays that revealed the reality
The very first summer at home showed that the problems had not disappeared. Petr wanted money. When the grandmother did not give it, he threatened to kill her cat, saying he wanted to throw it out the window. He broke things—threw plates with food onto the floor.
During the summer he decided he would not return to school. It took weeks of persuasion before he finally appeared at the vocational school on September 1. And for a while things looked promising then. He liked the practical work; you could say he actually liked it.
In mid-September there was a turning point: he brutally assaulted a classmate. The attack was so serious that the Czech Police (Policie ČR) dealt with it. After the incident, Petr ran away from school, and the police later found him at the station. He had a knife in his backpack, so he had been armed at school. The school then excluded him from the educational process.
Another fall – court and sentence
After the brutal assault, Petr appeared before the youth court. In the end, the court chose an alternative path. He was fined, ordered probation supervision, and required to perform community service. Supervision was to last a year, during which he was to undergo repeated drug tests.
The curator recalls one test: “He was supposed to be tested, but he drank a Cola right before it. That destroyed the test validity. It was clear he was not cooperating.”
He eventually stopped attending meetings with the curator altogether. He also ignored Prostor plus. Every measure designed to help failed due to his unwillingness.
Adulthood without a future
Petr is now an adult. He has not been in the system of social and legal child protection for some time. He is an adult man—but without work, without responsibility, without hope.
He hangs around somewhere, no one knows where. He visits his grandmother only sporadically, mostly when he needs something. He has no stable job. Sometimes he earns something “under the table.” According to the curator, it is very likely he not only uses drugs but also sells them. He does not pay health insurance, and as a result becomes indebted and his debt is growing. It is only a matter of time before he comes into serious conflict with the law to the point that he becomes a client of the Czech Republic Prison Service.
The curator’s view
The curator who worked with him for years is clear. “He is a boy of average intelligence. He handled school without difficulty when he was in the institution. But he has no insight into his own behaviour. He does not recognize authority. He sees respect as weakness. He cannot be reliable.”
She describes him as a person capable of all sorts of manipulation to get what he wants. “He can appear quiet, even calm. But arrogance radiates from him. His facial expression clearly shows whether he likes what he hears or not.”
His best period, the curator says, was the years in DDŠ Hostouň. “There he had a structured routine. He was under control. There we at least steered him somewhat. But even that was only temporary.”
The remaining question
Petr’s story is more than just the story of one “naughty boy.” It is the story of what happens when family fails, when healthy upbringing is absent, when a child is exposed to violence and fear instead of love and safety.
The curator admits that the system did everything possible. Psychiatry, social work, school support, institutional care, probation and mediation services. “It cannot be said that we did nothing. There was a lot of work and effort. But sometimes it is not enough.”
Petr became a product of an environment that did not give him a chance to grow into a responsible person. His story is a warning. It shows how difficult it is to repair damage created in early childhood. And it asks an uncomfortable question: How many more “Petrs” are still among us? How many more will there be?
Conclusion
There is no happy ending to this story. Petr is now a young adult man on the edge of society. He has no work, no ties, no goal. He carries a past that binds him. And a future that, for now, does not look hopeful.
But this is the reality too. A story that deserves to be told—not so we can beat about the head, but so we can try to understand how many things must work for such outcomes to be prevented. Because behind every “Petr” is a human fate. And every lost hope is a loss for all of us.
Author: Bc. Jan Brychta, Ed.D. The author works as an educator in a youth home. He professionally focuses on behavioural disorders in adolescence. He is a member of the school counseling office at a secondary school. He obtained his pedagogical qualification for the profession of educator, leisure-time pedagogue through studies in lifelong education at PALESTRA University of Physical Education and Sport. At the Department of Pedagogy of the AMBIS University, he completed the bachelor's study program in resocialization and correctional pedagogy. At the Faculty of Public Administration and Economic Studies of Jagiellonian University in Toruń, he completed a postgraduate managerial study program, Doctor of Education, in educational institution management. He is currently studying a follow-up master's degree program in social work.