my teen DS best friends mum is a junkie

[songline]

My Ds is 16 and his best friend grew up in care but is now living back at his mums. My DS is pretty open and honest with me and I know that this friends mother is a long term drug user and lives a chaotic life. I like her son whom I have know since he was a little boy but the world he now lives in has its dodgy side and he has had a disturbed childhood.
He has always been welcome at our house. Lately my Ds always wants to stay at the boy's mums house in town,(we live in the countryside.)
I think they can smoke dope there, there are no rules and there's lots more excitement and adventure for a teen in that chaotic household than in our own.
I feel I cannot ban my DS from staying there as that would probably just make him want to go there more. I am just encouraging them to hang out here as much as possible. How can I protect my 16 yr old from this dark world he's so attracted to ? He's very protective of this family and any judgements I make infuriate him.

Hi Songline I can only tell you the experience that I had with my son, he was a few years than yours though. He wanted to hang out with the girl who lives down my road who lives with her Dad who is a abusive herion user. I was worried for my son that he may lose his temper with him being protective towards his girl. The more I asked him not to go around the the more he wanted to and was. I was geting stressed so in the end backed off and said I would prefer it if he wasnt there but if he was then best advice for his safety was to leave if the Dad was raising his voice. Within a few weeks the attaction had worn off and he stopped going!!!
Is your son smoking dope there do you know? I dont see how you are encouraging it though? Do you drive? are you able to drop them in town or invite a few other mates over to yours to make it more interesting for them ect? Try encourage other friendships.

Ideally (ha!): I would protect him by talking at great length about what he sees, what they do, what does he feel comfortable with & what isn't. Don't quiz him, just coax him into talking about what their lives & house is like. Get him to be totally honest about the environment & talk together about what's not nice about it, and even what is good (presumably junkie mum loves her son as much as any mum would).

The more he talks to you the more he knows he's worked thru what he accepts & what he doesn't, what he thinks is okay to come into his life & what he knows already (deep down) he wants to say no to.

Then if he does anything stupid, he'll be quicker to fess up & ask you to help him out before it gets any worse. It's all empowering him to make sensible decisions & cope with consequences from his mistakes along the way.

what a night mare .my sons best friends mum is a heavy drinker (she has been arrested etc ) because he is 15 i have explained he cant sleep there but they can sleep at ours.its hard when they hit 16 tho xxx

Good advice from posters I think. The problem with forbidding stuff in the late teens is that fairly soon they might not even be living at home and they will have to make these judgements and decisions for themselves. So it's much better to guide them through and help them make them at the moment, rather than banning them when the ban will suddenly cease to have effect as soon as they move out, they're left having to make hard decisions by themselves and have no direct experience to look on to help with that. So at least you're providing a supportive environment for them to lean back on while they make these first independent but hard choices.

Different obviously for younger children because there's a larger element of needing to protect them, but IMO for older teens you can protect them too much, it doesn't serve them well when they are out on their own I don't think.

Thanks for the advice.. it reasures me that I am not being a bad parent for letting him carry on visiting this family and their friends. I thought you'd all say how could I let him go there ! I have to trust in him making good choices whilst keeping the chanels of communication open... but its so hard. I know he smokes dope and has tried mdma and maybe LSD. I have talked loads with him about drugs and the impact they can have on peoples judgement and lives etc etc ... Ultimately he's just a teenage boy, sometimes he's a mature boy and sometimes like a toddler throwing a tantrum ! I am finding it so chalenging parenting this phase of his life.

Talk to 'Frank'

You can't 'really' stop him from doing stuff he wants to do, but what you can do is educate yourself on the signs of drug use.

The information is out there, you can get leaflets.

If he's sensible you should be able to sit him down and explain that you are worried about his wellbeing in this atmosphere and feel that a discussion about drugs etc might be a good idea, he may well do the 'Oh, Mum! I know that already' thing, ask him to tell you so that you understand it better.