My 14 year old son's behaviour is terrible and has been for the best part of 2015. He goes missing regularly, the police and social services are involved because they consider him to be at risk outside of the home due to the group of Older friends he is hanging around with and involvement with drugs and possibly more stuff we don't know about. He doesn't give a stuff about school, he is disrespectful and does not stick to any curfews. I don't recognise my son anymore and his behaviour is making family life miserable. We have all the agencies involved to help him, early help, Adaction,counselling, police, social services etc so we are covering all bases. We have tried talking to him, tried compromising but it's all one sided, tried family mediation but it's just getting worse. We were supposed to be going shopping today with him to buy him new trainers and clothes for christmas( we cannot give him cash or vouchers because he cannot be trusted at all with money and he is dabbling with drugs). His behaviour has been awful for the last two weeks, and we told him that he needed to be home by 9pm last night, I practically begged him to make sure he did not stuff up so that we could have a nice day today shopping and a bit of lunch. He did not come home, we had to report him missing and eventually he came home at about 2am. Yet another Saturday night ruined, his dad and I are knackered today, and he got to do what he wanted andv could not see what he had done wrong.
We told him that we are not taking him shopping, and he is not going to get the things he wanted because he does not care at all about the family and the stress he is putting us under, I've got him a couple of small gifts so he can open something on Christmas Day but that's it. I really want to just cancel Christmas, and I would but it's not fair on my 16 year old daughter because she loves Christmas so much. .
I know that giving presents are not about deserving them and is a gift of love and all that, but quite frankly, he is taking us for mugs at the moment and of course I love him but it's hard to be in the same room with him these days. We've got four days to turn this around and I don't know where to start. I am feeling so down, this is the first time I have ever dreaded Christmas, and I feel like smashing the radio when the jolly Christmas songs come on and taking down the Christmas tree.
Please can someone offer some advice to get me through the next few days so that we can all try and enjoy Christmas, including my son. It's breaking my heart to feel this way and he must be unhappy too.