[Adebisi]

I think you're allowing yourself to get too stressed over this. I think your responsibility here is just to give the kids food, shelter, a stable home environment, and a minimal amount of supervision until their mother gets well enough to take them back. Teenage boys are going to get in trouble. Especially ones who have gone through what your nephews have. Just don't take it personally. It's not you're responsibility to make sure they are perfectly behaved. The 12 year old doesn't sound that bad, and the 17 year old is pretty much an adult in the sense that at this point, nothing you can say do will change the way acts or how his moral compass develops. If you stop caring about what these kids do, and just focus on the fact that their your blood, and you have a responsibility to look after them for a while, things will run a lot smoother.