<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: SunnyFlorida</div><div class="ubbcode-body">...I keep thinking Mikey....if your difficult child is almost 18, why is curfew such a big deal? In your current parenting style, and please do not read anything into this at all...but it seems like you've picked curfew as your line in the sand. Why?
From what you've said before, your difficult child does well in the alternative school, works, pays his car insurance and note on the car, does help around the house, smokes pot, and misses curfew. So what....in 6mo if he's 18 and in college no one really cares about curfew. There won't be anyone monitoring him. He'll be able to smoke as much pot as he can afford and come back to wherever he's staying whenever he wants.
Is he graduating this year?
It would seem to me that your goals of raising a productive, law abiding citizen are almost there, albeit the pot use.
Why not take the car away until he gives you a clean drug test? Show him that there are consequences to his actions. All in the good sense of being a reasonable parent who expects their children to make mistakes and learn from them. Don't make a fuss over it, just have him drop a U/A and if it's dirty say no car until it's clean. What's he going to do...run away? yeah...like I believe that. So what if he does? If your difficult child is doing all that you say he is doing it won't take him very long to see that. </div></div>
Hi Sunny. Docs are giving him the only conseqeuences he respects (see later in this post). difficult child is a junior this year, won't graduate until 2008, but turns 18 in September. In Kansas, the law says we're responsible for him until 18 or when he leaves HS, whichever comes
later, unless he voluntarily "deserts the homestead" (i.e moves out, not running away). So we're stuck together until next May, at least. I hate looking at it like that, but there it is.
Car can't be a bargaining chip - we HAD to get him a car for school; it was the only way he could get to the two alternative programs (at two different schools). Otherwise, he'd either be at his old school (bad) or a dropout (worse). Also, he was having to mooch rides to get to work to pay his bills, and his "friends" had had enough of his freeloading, so no car, no job. Car is out as a bargaining chip.
Now, moving into the basement (I have another post/thread on that) - that
might be the bargaining chip to work. I have an appointment. with his therapist tomorrow to discuss current treatment scenarios (otherwise known as "Parental Coaching Sessions" :laugh: ) where we'll discuss how best to use this option.
Curfews are only important to us because when he was actually obeying them, they sort of kept him in check. He had to pass the "sniff and stare" test when he came in, and never once got past my wife when he was wonky. Even when he was sleeping over, he had to stop by on his way to his friends house for a once-over, then we had to speak to a parent once he got there.
Is it any wonder he stopped obeying curfew?
Curfew is important now because its one of the few ways he can show that he's actually trying to work with us, instead of treating us like jailers. Catch-22, I know, but that's how we feel. He gives, we give, and then he gets a little more. It would be a good-faith effort on his part, one of the few (besides not dropping dirty) that would actually mean something to us. Finally, curfew is important because it limits the time he's with other folks who I
know do worse things than my son - and I'd rather not have him running the roads with them at 2am if I can prevent it.
I like your quote
"It would seem to me that your goals of raising a productive, law abiding citizen are almost there, albeit the pot use." That's kinda how we feel, and why we're not ready for the tough-love thing yet. So far, he's only tested dirty for pot, and even when he talked big he had two completely negative tests in a row. He had another UA at the lab today, so we'll know in a few days if things are worse or better than last time.
Re: <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">If you don't take a stand and show him through modeling that drug usage will cause problems sooner or later, when will you? when difficult child is at college and campus police or local police pull him over? Will difficult child know how to solve those issues? </div></div>
Trying that, but we're letting the docs do the heavy lifting, and we're taking a softer approach to keep from provoking a rebellion response.
difficult child had a follow-up doctor visit today for his near-fatal asthma attack a few weeks back. doctor at the ER was straght up - keep smoking anything, and you'll die. That got to him in a way we never could, and he went from a pack a day to less than 5 cigs in the last 3 weeks (with the help of Chantix, too). On his way to completely quitting, which I never thought he was capable of doing.
Since then, he's found out how to "extract" THC from pot into a liquid that can be used to make brownies, put in salsa, whatever. Seems like THC is all he's drawn to as a drug, but again we'll know for certain later. Anyway, today the doctor found that his blood pressure and pulse rate were dangerously low, and that his lung capacity was only 50% of what it should be. difficult child perked up again when a doctor spoke plain english in terms that meant "you could die". We're hoping that continued treatment with his therapist, backed up by unambiguous evidence from his doctor will make it easier for us to draw the line on drugs. But if we do it right now, without the other groundwork being laid, he'll simply blow it off, get mad, rebel, and then use his anger as an excuse to act out.
It's as hard for me to sit back and wait for the right time to act as it is for other parents here to tell their kids to pack and leave. I
WANT him to stop the pot, but he has to want to as well. We got to a point where he finally decided to stop cigs. Until then, there was no way to stop him from smoking. It seems like we're slowly building to a similar point with drugs. Although it kills me every time I know he's out using, I also know I have to wait and let the docs do their work and lead him to the same point where he
wants to quit. If he doesn't get there on his own, nothing I do can make him stop.
Okay, I'm over my 10 paragraph-per-post limit, so I'll stop now for a breather.
:smile:
Mikey
