Not sure what to do

[Ladystardust78]

My son is 17 in a few months. We've had 4 police visits in the last 2 weeks due to his behaviour and new set of friends. He has been charged with an offence and will have to go to the youth justice management unit. He is very down and upset about this but continues to hang around with his bad friends. Yesterday he announced he'd rather live on the streets than here and seems to be actively considering it. He vanished from the house yesterday and we found him, but he had been planning to sleep rough. He is also very underweight, he barely eats although food is made or left out for him if he's out but again he's not concerned by this. He won't explain to us his reasons behind wanting to leave or not caring about his health. We're at our wits end as we also have another younger teen and a 7 year old. All this is impacting everyone in the house and its very stressful.

That must be tough. I haven’t got any advice but it does sound as though he could be using. Do you think he could be?

As far as I know he drinks and smokes pot, he's denied everything else. But we've found recently that he does lie.

Do you think that the offence could be drug related? Hace the Police spoken to you? If he’s smoking pot and drinking, I’d try talking to adfam. I hope you manage to find the support you’ll need

No its not drug related, we do know what it is. Thank you for the advice.

Sorry, I wasn’t very clear. I didn’t mean it was a drug offence but many offences can be drug related, stealing, fraud, public order, prostitution can all be drug related offences.

How are you all this morning?

I get what you mean but no its not related to drugs at all. We are okay this morning, but I suspect that's largely due to the fact he hasn't come downstairs yet.