Advice needed regarding 15 year old moving out

[Sadless]

Hi all I have been having problems with my son and 3 weeks ago he decided to go to a friends house and has near come back. I have had child and wellbeing service since April and they said they wanted me to agree to private fostering. I have said no and I want him home. Social services are refusing to get involved and said they can't force him to come home. The child and wellbeing are doing an assessment at there house tomorrow and I want to know if they can just ignore me and do it any way without my consent.
Plus I found out that the child and wellbeing women give permission for him to be took on holiday with out me knowing.

Any advice

Sally

It is difficult and I have every sympathy for you. As soon as your son is 16 you will have no say at all, often by the age of 15 the families team will begin to disregard your opinions and go with what the child wants. You could put in a complaint because the boundary is 16, it probably won’t achieve anything though and could further alienate your son.

Having some space from each other might be beneficial to your relationship in the long run. I know it is hard and it goes against all your maternal instincts, but try to work with your son here instead of against him.

I would instead recommend pushing for family therapy. The families team will be able to help organise it and it could help make a huge difference to your relationship with your son as he becomes an adult.

He is living with a couple with 3 kids in there early 30s. He's more of a friend to the parents rather then the friend. I haven't spoken to him in 2 weeks he is refusing to see his family now.

At the moment I am just letting the child and wellbeing person just do what she has to. It's all a mess he has accused us of beating him up to get his own way. But I have 3 other children and if the social believe him why are they not doing an assessment.
He is 2 minutes away from me and I haven't seen him around at all.
Feel really stressed by it all.

Sally

Hi OP.

I had a very difficult relationship with my teenage son he no longer lives with me and we are all much happier.

What was the reason he left?
Whats his behaviour like at home?

He doesn't like having rules. Where he is there is none and he's still on his phone at 3am texting people. Which wouldn't be allowed at home about 18 months he sent naked pictures to a stranger while sleeping at a friend's house. My rule is no phones over night they need a proper night sleep for school and don't know what he's up to. I confronted him a couple of weeks ago about a conversation I had overheard with his girlfriend. I think he might be controlling her. What she wears any way. His girlfriend is now in care her parents found messages and a pregnancy test they had been planning on having a baby. Then she started accusing them of hitting her. Then she assaulted her mum and ended up in a children's home. Recently she has been moved local in to Foster care. He said that he told me he could turn her against her parents and I don't like any of it.

Her parents don't won't any thing to do with her till she splits up with him. He had a phone call 2 weeks ago from the police asking him if he thinks her parents want her home Which he said no. He attends a pupil referral unit after getting kicked out of school for a knife incident which he denied.

He knows how to behave with people her girlfriend parents really liked him then now can't stand him.
He had a rash on his hands in December and he told me it was down there. I sent him to the family planning clinic thinking it might be something bad. Came back it was scabies then for weeks he just said it was a skin condition to his girlfriend then she started with it. Her mum took her to the drs twice and then they said scabies. My son convinced her that is was from her dad's settee. But he knows it wasn't and her dad said if it was why hasn't he got any but she believes my son.

Its a mess
No one at that house knows what's going on really just that my son is beaten up apparently and his girlfriend what is hanging around there all the time parents don't want her any more because they can't be bothered which isn't true.

Sally

Oh you poor love, what a horrible mess. I think you need to let him carry on as he wishes. If you force him back home and he makes more allegations against you then what will happen to your other children? When he is ready, which may take many years, then start thinking about family therapy for him.

Has he been seen by CAMH or a Unit Clinician? There may be something going on in the background that he needs help with. If not, ask the families team to put in a referral.

What he is doing with his girlfriend requires specialist navigation. It is unlikely that you nor the girls parents have this specialist training. It sounds like the girl is in a safe place now, she will have been put with a foster family/home where there are adults with training on how to help her with being exploited. For a similar reason, I would encourage you to ask the families team why they recommend fostering for your son. I suspect they have a fostering team in mind who has some specific training.

Fostering doesn’t always go well, so I don’t want to raise your hopes too far. It is unlikely to make any immediate changes but may help prevent your son getting deeper into something he can’t get himself out of, thus limiting the longer term impact of his teenage years. It will also give you and your younger children a break from what must be quite a difficult time for them.

Lastly, I would still strongly encourage you to organise individual and family counselling for you and your younger children as soon as possible. The stress of this will be reducing your resilience and make you afraid of future parenting decisions (understandably), so you need to be able to talk it through and off-load. And your younger children will be confused about what is happening now and worried about what their teenage years will look like. This is step is so important, I can’t stress it enough. Again, the families team will be able to help you.

I am so sorry you’re going through this. It will feel manageable again, in time. Be kind to yourself and try not to stress too much (easy for me to say I know!). It does not sound like there is much you can do to influence the outcome of this, except get in ahead with your younger children to try to limit the future impact of this on them.

Have the wellbeing service or ss done any checks on this couple? Is he friends with a child of a similar age or are their children young. If he's more 'friends' with the parents in their 30s at 16 that would be ringing alarm bells to be about just why they have befriended a teenager! That doesn't mean anyone will listen to you but I would continue to try and be as involved as I can be. He sounds very troubled and I hope he gets some proper input before he reaches adulthood. Have you shared all the concerns above with the allocated worker? I can't even imagine how hard it is to have him so close but not be able to see him.

We have a child and wellbeing worker but she is in agreement with him stopping there. I have told her about my concerns about him with conversation that I heard between him and his girlfriend and she blow me off saying that's what kids do. Her parents told the social that he's controling her and they asked me I said I didn't know. She is doing an assessment today and is supposed to be reporting back to me. The friend has just turned 14 and only recently started hanging around with him because he's girlfriend wasn't about much. His friends always seem to be younger then him.

I have spoken to the social services saying that if we are supposed to be abusive parents why aren't they doing an a assessment which the child and well-being asked for but they know how he has accused teachers and neighbours of hitting him as well and I have a 8 year old disabled child which would be considered to be vulnerable but no. I want them to come and sort this out and they told me to stop giving them any money to make them send him home. But he has had his girlfriends bank card since she went into care I noticed some new clothes a tent and some wireless earphones he has now. So don't know how much left she has.
He has been under camhs school said they thought he might have autism but they said no he had cbt for his aggressive behaviour.
He definitely has two sides to him his girlfriends parents have seen it.
He was here a couple of weeks ago and his friends mum is always ringing him asking when he's going back. My other children think it's bad the stuff he is saying. We had a text message from the 14 year old last week threatening to break the windows and calling my husband a cripple and peg leg. I have reported it to the police and I sent him back a message telling him that and not to text me again. Then he rung up offering me a fight couldn't believe it.
I haven't seen or spoken to him for nearly 2 weeks now I saw his girlfriend and she is still wearing all his clothes other then the shoes.

My other children are enjoying the peace really. It has never been so calm in the house like this.
I am trying to get on with other stuff with kids daughter has her gcse results on Thursday so shes worried about that. I think over the years he has hurt them and they haven't forgot about it.
I have been saving his child benefit for the last few weeks in case they ask for it back but we where hoping he would have just come home.

Sally

Update assessment canceled on Monday till later this week. Still haven't see or spoke to him yet.
Sally

You're putting lots of significant and quite specific information in your posts and signing off your entries with a name (presumably yours) each time - are you aware of this?
I just feel you need to be more "incognito" so that you and others are not so easily identifiable.

Thanks for the concern I'm quite sure the name that I'm signing off with won't easily identify me and the info I'm giving is quite common apparently in family's with our problems as long as I don't give names I should be OK

One day at a time, OP.
Friend had her 15yo DD move out in a similar way. The DD told similar bizarre stories to social services. They are friends again now, but took time to work thru issues.

I had a phone call off him on Wednesday asking for money on Wednesday. Then he came to the shop he knew I woukd be at on Friday morning again asking for Money. The second assessment was cancelled again because of illness apparently but the women is still working. Next try early next week see what happens then.

Sally

Update been told he's not coming home now and that we have to stop his benefits. They are saying he's been there for 2 months but it's been 4 weeks. I am not agreeing to private fostering and I have been on the child benefit website to cancel it and 1 question is do I agree to some one else claiming it. What does that mean do I have to give permission for them to claim for him.

Sally