Child keeps going missing

[ThisIsNotARealAvo]

DS is adopted and is 13. He is currently missing, having not gone to school this morning and has not come back. I've had a couple of messages from him today, telling me I'm annoying and he will come home when he feels like it.

The police are aware but he has now done this several times in the last few months. He has already been excluded from school, for bringing in a knife, so now he attends a PRU and has a caution from the police.

I'm worried, not so much about his immediate safety but more about how many more times this will happen. Of course I am worried that he will come to some harm, but more worried about the future as I am feeling less and less that we can keep him safe. We adopted him and his younger sister when they were 7 and 5.

He is seen weekly by a psychiatrist and we have endless family therapy, life story work and other interventions, none of which seem to be helping. I don't want the adoption to break down but how can we stop him from running away? We keep everything locked as much as possible, but he will do anything to get out.

Can anyone help me with stories of how this all ends? I don't know how much more I can take, it's also terrifying for DD and of course we are constantly worried he will be hurt.

Is there any help available?

I thought south London was posh. Can you move out of London in the country?

Do watch County lines on amazon it is really good.
I'd def ask for a different sw

Are you getting support? I can see there is family-therapy and so on - but are you getting support?

It sounds like classic attachment issues + trauma - which you are very aware of.

The fact is, this is a process. You are doing all you possibly can. All you do will either help him or not help him.

You can actually do no more.

So, while the process goes on, all you can do is try and acknowledge the effects on you (because, of course, it does exact a huge emotional toll on you) and try and protect yourself from that emotional toll. Well, not protect yourself, exactly - I'm not sure you can do that - but gather strength to shore up the depleted resources - from another area.

So - what is being done to help you?

Realistically, he is probably going to keep doing this. It sounds as though he has learnt some awful patterns of care. Equating boundaries with negative control, associating pleasure with negative behaviour, being unable to trust and thus pushing so, so hard to see where and how a cater will snap.

And he's done it for years now. Despite you being there and being there.

And the older he gets, the less there is you can do to physically stop him - and the higher the stakes become.

I know you will know all this already.

You don't need to be told this.

What you need is to know if there is more support available and how to access that.

I guess you could raise the issue with a Councillor. Ask them if they can find out if there is more support/if he has the opportunity to be assigned a more experienced SW. or you could try seeing if the PRU has more support (but you said he already has a psychiatrist - which may possibly be through the PRU?)

In the meantime, I do wonder if what you need is support for you. What you are doing is so horrifically stressful. Is there support for you?

First having had experience of this as I mentioned above can I just tell you that you are amazing!! You seem from your posts here to be doing everything you can. He is clearly a very troubled boy and unfortunately 13 is a bugger of an age without the baggage he is also carrying.

Boundaries are needed to show you care, and he is preprogrammed to push them hard to see just how far he can before he is abandoned.

The crimes and drugs are a big no, but is there maybe room for a wee bit of give and take. So for example, he agrees to and carries out x y and z and he gets a Friday night to do what he wants without heavy policing, but he has a 1030pm curfew and the second he abuses this responsibility he loses the chance to do it?

He is trying to find his way and yes I agree with the lady above who recommended love bombing but there also has to be some discipline within that.

In some respects I want to suggest you go back to toddler tantrums, so ignore as much of the petty bad stuff ie showing up late etc and just let that slide. Only sweat the big stuff ie the crime. Picking your battles may be an option here?

I am reading all the replies and thank you all so much for taking the time to reply. He's not back yet, the other.m child's SW has spoken to them today. DS told her he will "come home when he is ready" and the other child won't go home at all. Except he did last night so DS was out all night by himself. Apparently the police knew he was back but did not tell us and no one asked the other child where DS was.

I am now even more worried as I don't know when DS will ever come back.

Take a deep breath. I know this is hard.

Put certain things in place, like his phone always having credit so he can contact you if he needs to, etc.

Agree certain boundaries/strategies with him, like he will come home if his mate does so he won't be on his own overnight, or he will come home if he loses his phone. Ask him what he could put in place to keep himself safe.

Ask him what strategies he already has to keep himself safe.

Some children have an inner resistance to being parented- they had to survive without parents before, they can do it again.

So put in place what you can to keep him safe and alive.

Then batten down the hatches, do stuff to help yourself cope with the stress and trauma- loads of self care....

And wait until he rides it out. It's about keeping them alive until they hit that point where they properly keep themselves safe. I think dc with trauma history sometimes go through it all earlier, but come out the other side earlier, too. So you can hope for that, at least!

I agree with posters saying we just need to ride it out and wait for him to realise that this behaviour isn't getting him anywhere. I just hope nothing happens to him in the meantime.

I really do appreciate all the support.

I'm afraid I completely disagree. There is tonnes you could do, externally re agencies, plus internally re helping him. Posters have given you great advice on both aspects.

I agree I've had tons of excellent advice. It's just that no one has suggested anything we are not already doing, apart from getting support for myself and changing SW, which DH is on the phone about right now.

When parenting traumatised children I know we need to do things differently. You can't give consequences or punishments in the same way for example. DS knows that when he does the wrong thing, he is not going to be shouted at or told off, we will tell him we love him, reassure him and spent lots of 1:1 time (known as Time In) to make him feel as secure as possible.

We have got every therapy we can access and we have been to every course. We are really trying our best and he's still missing.

What has the other boy said about where he has been?

I've been at the place where you are doing everything right, but it's still not fixed.

Some things, places, situations can't be fixed. They can only be made less bad. Sometimes it's about the least worst outcome.

So look after yourself, it's a long gruelling and bumpy ride. Hang on to the good moments that happen in between. Keep trying to engineer good moments- make his favourite food, watch a film with popcorn and ice creams, take him gokarting/sailing/windsurfing.... try and make some great moments, document them and refer to them in passing to cheer you all up.

Is he home, OP? Been thinking of you & your family.

It sounds like you are doing all you can, so well done. It is very difficult and draining and although it sounds trite, you must look after yourself in order to help your son. I have two adopted children of ten and five. Both have additional needs and I’m bracing myself already for the teenage years.

I also have two adopted brothers who are now grown up. They had happy settled early childhoods but both had tricky teenage years and were school refusers from 12 and 14. My mum especially was incredibly supportive and was always there for them. Eventually they both matured and with masses of love and support were able to work through some of their difficulties. Don’t despair, as young people these days mature more slowly and (although obviously a generalisation) adopted children tend to take longer still. Can you contact Adoption Support? My Adoption Support worker has been incredibly helpful both with signposting certain services, but also offering emotional support. Best of luck x

I don't know what would happen if we threaten to break down the adoption
I think you need to do the opposite of this. Reassure him that he’s never going back to care.

I know that isn’t very helpful advice really as it won’t change anything in the short term. You have my sympathies, sincerely. This sounds incredibly difficult for you all.

Thanks everyone for your support. He finally turned up on Wednesday lunchtime, DH found him and his friend by the station and managed to persuade them to come home. Since then life has been very very hard for all of us. DS demands something he knows I will say no to - going out at 11pm, staying off school, driving my car (he is 13) and then massively kicks off and threatens to stab us all and run away.

We have reassured him he is loved, fed him food he likes, and have not told him off or given any real consequences for the running away. Things came to a head today and we were in the car and DS tried to hurt his sister and was throwing coins at DH who was driving. It was very dangerous and we stopped the car for an hour while he calmed down. This was over me saying he couldn't meet up with a friend today as we would be getting back too late.

I called the Mash team and spoke to a social worker, who was sympathetic but could not actually do anything apart from saying he would ask our social worker to call us first thing.

He basically said that if DS is violent we should call the police (we have done this lots but not recently) and that SW might be able to arrange respite, which we don't want as it would seem like we are sending him away.

So we are stuck again, DS is displaying controlling behaviour and generally being very difficult, and we are expected to put up with it. I imagine this week there will be another useless TAC meeting and suggestions we do a parenting course. We have done the parenting courses they offer, so they usually suggest to do it again. There are no resources and there's no money and it feels like nothing will be done until something really bad happens.

I'm feeling better for ranting on here and thanks again for all the people who took the time to reply.

And when I said about breaking down the adoption I didn't meant threatening DS with it, but in the past if professionals think that's on the cards things can sometimes fall into place more quickly.

Rant away. It's hard.

And, for myself, I know what you meant when you said about the adoption breaking down.

I'm quite sure that you suspect you and your son aren't marked 'urgent' because he is in a secure place, with adults who care and are doing all they can.

Sadly, for you, the situation is really difficult and you want and need more support.

So, yes, I understood exactly what you meant.

I've nothing to add - just much love and support. And you're not alone. I read this, I know you need to talk, I'll listen.

💐💐💐

I suspect you've thought of all of this as you say you are having "endless family therapy, life story work and other interventions", but just in case ... I agree that you may have to make noises about adoption breakdown in order to get additional services. Has your LA got an edge of care team? Are there specialists in children who go missing (have you seen their Missing policy?) or children at risk of criminal exploitation? Could your SW work with the long-term looked after children team, who may have seen more of children in this really damaged state? Does your son have a befriender? Is your daughter getting any services (would she qualify for young carer groups? Even if she isn't precisely a young carer, she might share some of their experiences)? Is the worker providing the LS work any good? Can you have a frank conversation with your family therapist about whether he or she is able to provide the strategies and support you need? Are you in touch with the national adoption associations for any other ideas? I'm sorry, it sounds so hard and exhausting for you all.

And I meant to mention non-violent resistance strategies also.

I think it sounds like you are doing everything. Keep pushing for more help but I think you may have to ride this out. You can’t keep him safe but who could? If he goes back into care he will carry on doing what he’s doing now anyway. Try and minimise danger. Like make sure he has a way to charge his phone and so he can contact you if he needs to. This must be so hard for you.

I don't have anything to add OP but I just want to say that things sound so tough for you all. I hope you're ok too

Does he have an EHCP? I'm wondering whether specialist education, possibly in a residential school, would help.

I thought south London was posh.

Bizarre idea. Large swathes of south London aren't in the least posh.

You need to find out who he is hanging out with. He may be being groomed into something. I think this is an emergency situation. Can you track him via his phone and follow him? I know that doesn't help right now as he's worrying you with his disappearance. Forget the social workers, as you say you've hit someone quite inexperienced so that must be quite frustrating. I've always said kids that go off the rails need a short sharp change of direction to boost confidence and give them purpose which can spark interest in something new. All the traditional things like scouts and after school clubs don't suit lots of kids because they demand compliance and good behaviour. This boy needs to stretch himself beyond comfort levels and feel a sense of himself. Maybe youth offending team or Duke of Edinburgh scheme might help. You need to take him, don't offer a choice. You need to make some tough decisions and stay tough about them, he'll thank you in the end.

He has gone again this morning, somehow managed to get a locked first floor window open and jump out. Police are coming but all they do is circulate his photo. SW has been informed.

Thanks to everyone who has suggested activities, but it is not possible to make him go to anything. You can't pick him up and put him in the car, you can't bribe him or take things away to make him go. It just doesn't work. He refuses to try anything or go anywhere unless he wants to. Which he never does.

EHCP a application is in process. Not sure what kind of school he will be able to manage to attend, but we have a few visits lined up for SEMH schools. Residential would not be ideal as it would feel like sending him away.