What if you caught your kid smoking pot?

[crown1]

what is the use of the advise if you can''t make him do anything now because he is threatening you that he will live solely with his mother? i think it is going to have to be time for tough love or he is ruling the roost. why does your husband want him to live with you if it is only to sleep and take a shower?

i think it is time to have a chat. first and foremost i would stress that his father loves him dearly and wants to be a part of his life but changes are in order. if he can not bring himself to become a member of the household for purposes other than laundry, a place to sleep and i assume financing then maybe it is better if his mother deals with him full time.

i certainly have no knowledge on what you or the son are doing other than what you have posted here but it sounds like he is playing one household against the other to get his way. it is the nature of human beings to try and get their way don''t expect anything less from this young man. when he is forced to follow reasonable household rules or take it elsewhere he will have to make the decision whether to straighten up or to keep acting out some place else.

i do not think it is fair to your young son to threaten his stability by a troubled 17 year old step sibling. tell him he can not risk your son''s home and happiness for his habit. he is playing you.

i have real compassion for you, your husband, your young son and the troubled 17 year old and hope this works out well for all concerned. i know the teenager is troubled and needs to feel loved and valued but their needs to be structure to his life also. i feel it is the responsibility of his parents and you to help him achieve that structure by enforcing the rules. i do not think this is easy or that you are to blame for the situation. it is a tough thing to deal with and no one is exempt from these types of problems. if suicide is a real threat and not lip service that is the first thing to be addressed. good luck!

while i was composing my not so well said thoughts sumbride has put together a great post with lots of knowledge i would definately have the husband and stepson read it.

 

[KimberlyH]

I asked my husband what he would do in your situation, just for a different perspective and his answer was as follows:

I would let him know that you both know he is doing drugs. He would be informed that on his 18th birthday, if he hadn''t changed his ways, he would no longer be welcome to live in your home. That he would probably ask him to submit to random drug testing once he turned 18, if your son chooses to continue living with you.

17 year olds are pretty close to being adults, and a lesson that must be learned is that as an adult he gets to make choices but that their are consequences to those choices and that includes being allowed to live with you. Grounding, etc. isn''t going to make him stop getting stoned, but facing real consequences, that include not having a place to live will force him to make a choice about the way he wants to live his life.

 

[ladykemma]

i went and thought about it and this is what i would do. I would arrange for a treatment center and arrange for therapy for the entire family (the rehab facility will give you some counselors). Addiction affects the whole family and the whole family must be treated. This is going to be a tough year for all. It's not going to be fixed in a week.

Then I would drop him at the rehab center, take his keys, tell him his stuff is in a storage unit, give the key and the code to the storage unit, and change the locks to your home. Tell him he can't come home if he is endangering the rest of the family.

And wait for the rehab facility to do what they do best.

may I recommend "the meadows" in wickenbirg arizona?

 

[eks6426]

Thankyou everyone for all your advice and perspective. My husband has a meeting schedule with his ex to discuss the strategy for how to deal with the 17 year old tomorrow. He's hoping they can be on a unified front in how to deal with it.

My cousin who comes from a divorced family and has had many of the same anger issues as my step son had an interesting perspective. She said that "she can tell me from experience that step-son thinks his parents are selfish adults that had kids then didn't do what they were supposed to do to live up to their obligation of giving him the perfect family life they deserved."

That idea really sums up a lot of what's going on with my step son. It is easy for me as a step parent to want to take the hard-line attitude. But I don't have the history with him (only married 18 months now), so I'm going to step out of the picture and let my husband and his ex figure it out. I think anything else from me will only damage my relationship with my step-son or my husband. And as long as it is not affecting my 9 year old, I think I can do it.

 

[crown1]

i think it is good that the parents are meeting to set a plan. i know this is hard on you but you have a good attitude. best of luck to you and your family.

 

[Cehrabehra]

my biggest issue is he DRIVING under the influence? That is the one thing that would set me over the edge. I would send the pipe to his mother and suggest she take away the car. That''s what busses are for.

 

[eks6426]

The driving definitely concerns me too but buses are absolutely not an option because there aren''t any where she lives....out in the country on a pig farm.

I hope they do a drug test on him to find out if there is anything else beside pot going on.

 

[diamondfan]

I never did drugs, I was afraid to, and I hear such awful things about kids and drugs these days, how young they are starting etc...and it worries me because kids feel invincible and often do not see long term fall out to choices they make.

I would sit down and be honest about it, how it may seem cool and fine now but it is really not okay, it is illegal, it could really mess him up in the future...most people I know who ended up with serious drug issues started with a little pot smoking and progressed from there. Also, many colleges now have zero tolerence for drugs, I am not sure if he cares but it can be an issue too. It is hard to stop someone who is hell bent on something, even a kid who is with you "full" time, so you could try the honor system, or tell him you will do random drug testing...there are home kits. Has your hubby spoken to his mom at all about this? (I have not read the whole threadso if you discussed it I apologize)... I did see your comment that he would just not come back to your home. Well, that would be emotional blackmail, and since he has his mom who is not supportive, you may have to take that chance in order to set down a hard line. I would search his things, tell him that when he is under your roof YOU have zero tolerance. Tell him what jail is like if he is caught, I know one of the toughest issues is that even at 17 a kid does not think about the forever of an action, how something could be following him around forever. One bad judgement call and it is part of your record for life. What about military school or something? Sounds like he really has no discipline at all and is just flaunting his freedom with your home and his mom's...he might need a reality check ASAP.

 

[rainbowtrout]

Incredibly manipulative. That has got to stop.

OTOH,he is STILL your responsibility. Children don''t just stop when they hit 16-17. It''s probably too late to make major changes in his personality but I think flat kicking him out is not the answer.

On the other hand, I WOULD start taking a very hard line dicipline approach, and if he leaves and doesn''t come back, so be it. No matter what he hits you with, ignore it. THe therapy "I will kill myself" is TOTAL BS. Real suicide risks don''t use it as a manip, they just kill themselves.


This is based less on the pot incident than the other info about how he treats you. I don''t see the pot use as much more than cigs or alcohol at his age--VERY serious if abused, but does he show signs of being an addict and not just a kid who smokes up once in awhile? There is a big differance between a pothead or an alcoholic or someone who just does it once in awhile.

Personally I don''t touch the stuff, but that''s my choice...my dad and stepmom are recovered addicts (not to pot, we''re talking LSD, cocaine level) and they instilled the fear of it in me pretty good.

 

[eks6426]

Update on this:

My husband and his ex met with the 17 year old together to discuss this. He did admit to doing it "just a few times" and says he doesn''t buy it but a friend does. (The friend he spends the most time with). They asked him where he does it and he said he does it IN THE CAR! The parents tried to impress upon him that doing it is bad and illegal but doing it in the car is just plain stupid. They told him they will be doing random drug testing so we need to get some kits to test him, but other than that I haven''t heard of any sort of punishment.

The kid basically said that he started doing it because his dad (my husband) made him so unhappy and that if his mother didn''t live so far out in the country he would live with her full time. The kid blames my husband for the divorce even though it was the mother who initiated it. She sat there and told him that it takes 2 to need a divorce and that she was the one who wanted it, but the kid basically said, "well if dad had worked harder to make you happy then you wouldn''t have wanted to divorce him." When it comes down to it all the things in this kids life that are wrong are my husband''s fault. My husband believe he has "lost his son" at least for now.

I don''t think when it comes down to it my husband or his ex will pull any sort of hard line discipline with this kid.

 

[diamondfan]

Unfortunately I do not think you will be able to change his view that it is all his dad''s fault. Maybe with some maturity things will change. I have a friend who married a man who was unhappily married at a young age, he was miserable and left his wife, and then my friend got together with him...she did not break up the marriage, in fact the first wife was cheating with the tennis teacher at their country club or something trite like that, so he left, but his daugther who was ten at the time just could not accept that her parents marriage ended having nothing to do with my friend. She blamed her and tried to break them up all the time. (She is 25 now and married with her own child so one can hope she has moved beyond that!!! But it was a long time coming if so, I think in her mind she just always wanted to blame her father and then my friend for what happened).

That aside, it is also hard to teach someone consequences and long term troubles from things they are doing NOW. Kids have a tough time seeing that. And you cannot make them, so sometimes things go awry. I really hope he gets it, and learns, but just too hard to say. At least the mom is trying to help a bit...

 

[ladykemma]

... and remember that people who own their own drug paraphernalia aren''t doing it just "a few times".