Any suggestions welcome

[dizzy34]

Hi, this is the first time i ahve posted here. My 15yr old son has always been quite good. He went to sea cadets, did his homework etc. He has been on course for 10 grade A gcse. But this all changed about 10 months ago. He started dressing in ripped jeans that are round his thighs, black tee shirts, long hair etc. To be honest the clothing doesnt bother me, i like the fact he is individual. However, he is also smoking (tobacco and weed), his grades are dropping and worst off all he is stealing from me, £10 here and there, but it is breaking my heart. he recently got caught shoplifting in asda. I cant leave any money round the house or alcohol. I have grounded him but he only stays in till hes bored and then walks out. Am i supposed to lock him in his room? What can i do, any one with any advice would be greatly appreciated. He is not short of possesions and is prob quite spoilt. I am getting to the point where i really dont like him. Do you know what the laughable thing is? i am a child protection social worker and spend my working life lecturing others on how to bring there kids up!!
He took another £10 before and i was so angry and upset that i went out on my bike and found him on the school field. (i must have looked a sight, flying accross the field on the bike). He was so cocky that i made a show of him infront of his friends. But they are all sat there smoking and drinking and i prob helped pay for it!! I actually told him not to come home in my anger and feel like shit now.Dont even know if he will come home now. I have 3 other kids and the 2yr old is severly disabled (quadriplegic, unable to eat and drink, blind, has up to 150 fits a day) so i have my hands full. Dont know how much longer i can cope for. Anyway, really sorry this is so long.

Denise

omg, no advice, but lots of sympathy.
maybe his dad can help?

Is this an attention grabbing thing as you obviously have your work cut out with the youngest child?

Can his father help or someone from school?

It sounds like you need someone to help you here.

no advice either dizzy but stacks of sympathy for you. My dd is 12.5 and I dread her doing stuff like this. She tries to be "individual" and cool but I give her an allowance which she only gets if she keeps her grades up and her room tidy - if not, no money!

I think I may have sat down with them and started drinking too just to humiliate your ds and especially as you've paid for it - maybe he wouldnt know what to do and may think twice next time he nicks your money to buy his alcohol. When he gets pissed off with you hanging around, maybe then he'll compromise his behaviour.

My dd wants to go to a rock festival when she's 14 with her friend (over my dead body) and so I've said "We'll all go and make a nice family time of it" - she doesnt want to go anymore

Thanks everyone, Have just reported him missing to the police.
He refused to come on holiday with us this year and his dad had him for the fortnight, but there was hell, he stole from his dad and his dad was far to strict with him (given that he doesnt see him that much). My husband is not much help and refers to him as 'your son', i dont get any emotional support in dealing with him and i think im cracking up.
He is really good with his little brother, who is ill. Just wish the old personality would come back.

Thanks again

Denise

hiya denise

i'm a tp officer and my husbands a community worker - we liase frequently with the agencies that help families deal with this kind of stuff. i knew exactly where to look when this happened to me - i knew exactly who to contact within youth services the drug and alchohol team - mumsnet told me about parentline. i contacted the youth offending team and even social services.

in fact i would say that dh and i were better plced than most to know how to deal with this situation.

but it didn't help at all!

my ds is 15 and started coming home so obviously stoned - he had a "whitey" in the front room - i have two other kids - i begged social services to help me for the sake of my other kids - no-one was interested - i get a newsletter from D&A services! i was offered to go on a course for the friends and family of drug users - but didnt think that a 15 year old getting stoned was quite in the same legue as herione users in brighton so i declined.

so - the mumsnetters who remember my threads will tell you - i was beside myself, i couldnt believe that my lovely baby boy was breaking my heart, that he didnt care about the family etc etc. i got into a complete state about it.

now - and i dont know why - maybe its just the way i am, i just decided tog et over it.

hes 15, he gets stoned once a month. once a month becuase hes grounded for the rest of the month. becuase he was stoned.

he gets off his grounding on a friday , comes home friday night - stoned and gts grounded for a month - its actually become something we all laugh about believe it or not.

ds went through a phase of " i'm going out and you cant stop me"

so i said " you can leave at whatever time you want homey - its getting back in thats the problem.

to illustrate my point when he decided to push this partic boundry i locked the door and went to bed.

he slept in the shed and had school the next day too. we were called into school becuase he burst into tears after being shouted at for messing around in class. he burst into tears because ( like the vauxhall safira add) he was overtired! the school let us have a room where we could work things out on "neutral ground" we talked things over and he told us all the teenage things he hated about it - the rules, the boundries - you never let me.....

we listened and i told him that he has to live by the rules in the house. he agreed i wasn't unreasonable as a person usually. i am not overly arsey am fairly laid back - have always treated him a little bit special becuase the other two are twins and they got allt he attention - he knows i love him very much but he knows that hes taking the piss.

so we are condemned to this utterly benal stupid inane routine of him getting stoned - being grounded - first night out he gets stoned - then hes grounded.

on the up side he is getting about 12 days a year at the rate hes going to get into mischief - so thats not bad.

he smokes - and i dont come down on him for smoking.

so - you will know the agencies in you line of work. bit hard to ask collegues though isnt it! arrrghhh we had this situation - my dh works regularly with the police and we had our fingers crossed that he would never be brought home by a copper my dh knew!

so your not alone CAT me for a blub and a whinge and a cathartic writing session any time you like.

its just donw to them being STUPID teenagers.

remember your his mum -ergo your stupid and know nothing!!

the other thing is - if he fucks up his gcses he can take them again. - not ideal but equally not the end of the world.

xxxxx

not homey - honey*

Thanks custardo,

How do i CAT you? i am new to this and not sure how to do it. He hasnt come home as yet, so i guess its just wait and see.

contact another talker is ont he bottom line of the tabs at the top of the page - looking forward to hearing from you - am sure hes ok.

brilliant post, custardo - I am filing it away in my memory for the future. Telling your son he can go out and break his grounding if he wants - but it's the coming back home again he's got to think about, is spot on.

dizzy, I am really glad custardo saw your post. I know there are no easy solutions, and I can't offer advice, as my son is only 11, but hope you soon make headway with this.

hey denise - tell me how it went

Hi Custardo
He came home at about 12.30pm yesterday. Apparently he had told his friends mum that i had threw him out and so she let him stay there. The police came to see him last night and gave him a bit of a telling off for wasting police time. he was a young officer, but big and quite intimidating. Not that its going to make a difference to his attitude. I havent grounded him cos to be honest i cant stand him being around me at the moment. He went to a local youth gig last night where bands play. Some fighting broke out and he rang home at 9.00pm for a lift cos he was worried about the fighting. it took great effort to keep my mouth shut and not say 'not so grown up now then'. To be henset i am sick and tired of worrying about him now. There is nothing i can do to make him try harder in school if he doesnt want to, except give him my opinion and point him in the right direction. I know he has decent values and beliefs beneath all this crap so i am just hoping that at some point he will get through this phase.(or that i will get through this phase without killing him cos i think i could happily strangle him at the moment). i love him to bits but dont like him very much, if that doesnt sound to stupid.

God help me, i have twin daughters aged 11yrs and i cant imagine going through this twice over. Do you think i could just lock them in their rooms until they are 16?

Denise

Sorry that word should be HONEST, not henset??

twin daughters --- ooohhhhhhhh my! errm good luck!

glad he was ok.

the mother should have contacted you - one of my sons mates said his mum threw him out and asked could he stay in our shed!!! so ofcourse we let him in the house and i put a note through his mums door.

i let mine go to a party last night, on the way back from the pub i noticed there were a tribe of teenagers outside a house and figured someones paretns had gone away for a holiday. told my lad at 11.30 and told him to be back for 2am it was three houses away.

today all my kids said " i cant believe you let him /me do that"

so i explained that as long as i know where they are - i can pick them up and check they are ok - am not unreasonable.

are your girls fighting over clothes and make up yet? i dont envy you !

i have a twin sister and an older one - we were all little cows in our own right! I honestly feel for you but in our house my dad was outnumbered by women so everyone pretty much felt sorry for him

Hi, just been reading your thread. My son was v. similar last year, stealing, getting high, failing at school. Withdrew from the family and had a really bad temper. There was nothing we cd do to get him to see sense. Grounding really didn't work, because there is always lunchtime and after school to get high. Things finally came to a head when he was picked up by the police for selling pot. This was the wake up call he needed, our attempts to make him see sense had no effect. He has since turned his life around. He went to court and has to do community service and was given a fine. He is a different son now. I know it sounds crazy, but we give him more freedom now than ever before, and he responds. He respects our curfew of midnight (his friends are out until 2/3 am) and once again talks to us!! We know more about his life now than ever before! My only conclusion is that as much as we try as parents to show and help them do the right thing, they have to (unfortunately) mess up themselves to really learn the hard way. I never thought our son wd be the way he was, but there is always "light at the end of the tunnel", but it's hell getting there. Just keep telling your son that you love him and support him, in spite of everything. They are still children at heart and need that - although they try to be so grown up. Hang in there, your son will return, hopefully stronger than ever.