15 year old taking risks-its bad

[Supercalib]

Having a terrible time with son age 15. ADHD, school refuser. Bought a moped but we reported to the police had previously been stolen, not by him. Has stolen our cars to drive in the middle of the night. Sneaks out. Started smoking weed. I’m losing the will with him and scared stiff. Sometimes he can have a conversation about it all and say whats right and wrong. I feel he is chasing a thrill and high but i’m scared daily, cannot sleep and ill with it feeling like a failure. I don’t know where to turn to.

Please could you say (only if you want to, of course) what the results were for children diagnosed with additional needs?

You are not failing as a parent; this sounds incredibly difficult, and you deserve support too. Please reach out to your GP and local ADHD or youth support services; you don’t have to face this alone.

I don’t really know how I could admit all this to a professional, feel they would get social services involved so I cannot really do anything

What’s difficult about picking the phone up and making that call?
Just remind yourself of that when you get a knock on the door and he’s dead or someone else it. You could have potentially stopped this. It’s a really dangerous situation surely you have to appreciate that - I’m not “beating you up” what a ridiculous thing to say when this is going on!!!!

I have spoken to the police of you seen above, do you not think I envisage daily I’ll get a knock at the door and then think i’ll just kill myself under those circumstances. I do

I echo what others have said about sport: Gym, football, boxing, martial arts, scuba diving, etc.

I completely sympathise with you. Have a 15 year old adhd gifted academically but he is always thrill seeking.
Those who suggest consequences that match the crime, clearly have no adhd child.
When we put our foot down and take things away that matters to him, He packs up and leaves.
If i said id call the police, he thinks he can take them on as well.
Even if he got taken away, he’d put it down to a new exciting experience.
The half term with full of parties and drinking was horrendous.
He will only take his meds during term time and that’s a battle too.
So i feel for you. I wish there was a mothers meeting for support ❤️

Of course this sounds great but at 15 if you haven’t been doing these, it’s unlikely they will take on a new sport.
My son has played football for 10 years and is still quite competitively doing so (county team etc) but recently when it comes to partying (and everything that comes with it) he will chose the party. It’s extremely hard to reason or push an adhd teen to the right direction

I agree with you. We previously asked for counselling help and all we got was told we were being too harsh on him.
We ended up privately paying for counselling and concluded that asking for nhs or resources is a no go

I know it is hard but you need to report him if he takes your car OP, he could kill some innocent person or even a child and that would be a whole lot harder to cope with. His issues don’t trump the safety of the general public.

You say that when he is calm you can talk to him, so why not have another conversation about medication, or see if he would be willing to see a professional for a real dialogue where he can express his worries about being medicated.

It's not an unreasonable concern - I was diagnosed two years and am not on
meds, but ADHD as a middle aged woman is very different from ADHD as a teenage boy.

There are lots of options for medication these days - it doesn't have to be stimulant based. Yes, it can be a ball ache getting the titration right, but it only needs to be enough to help manage the risk seeking behaviour. It doesn't need to change his entire personality. I've worked with a few lads in their teens who have been able to find a balance that works for them and they still very much their own individual characters.

The more nuclear suggestion, is to ram home the fact that he might damage himself, never mind other people. My friend used to car for a guy in his thirties who went 'joyriding' in his teens - he ended up tetraplegic, his family washed their hands of him and he wasn't able to live independently so has spent his entire adult life wheelchair bound with cognitive impairment and a series of middle aged women coming in on shifts to support him with everything including showering and toileting. Maybe the thought of that will make him consider his options.

And what would you do?

Loads of posts like this but never with any actual help.

Because these aren’t people who are going through what we are.
They bystanders who see the situation and think the only thing all these kids need is stricter boundaries.
I can tell you before you stereotype them that a lot of them come from decent families who believe in raising nice human beings and no we are not pushovers but have exhausted a lot of options without success

How could I suggest something for a 15 year old where I don’t know them or the wider context? For example, I could say “remove X” “stop allowing Y”, or “stop providing Z” but they may not be relevant to this child.

I don’t think it’s as simple as “just be firm”, but equally, he stole her car to drive it without a licence or insurance and I’d have reported my child to the police for that.

So you think the op doesn’t consider the impact her child’s action may have to the wider community??
You feel her reporting him is a genuine productive suggestion?

I think you need to do a sit down and chat; or find someone who can.

In our youth (my partner and Is); we did lose a number of friends to drink, drugs and car crashes. A sliver of a silver lining to that is we have plenty of stories and their photos are still displayed in our house 20 years later.

Do you have anyone like this who could befriend them and be an understanding yet guiding figure? Explain that they are not invincible. That it’s fun to be in a silly crowd. But people will die. And you really don’t want to be one of them!

This. And also provide as much structure as you can to keep him busy. Things like holiday camps go right up to age 17, for example CHUMS Holiday Camps | University of Essex runs at Christmas, Camps for 13 to 16 Year Olds | PGL Adventure Holidays runs in the Easter and summer. Both have sports and risk taking activities. Discuss with him and sign him up to a sport, take him there, do not leave it open to discussion, it needs to be implemented into the routine. Snow Camp is also well worth a look- it's for teens who are similar to your DS and runs in the summer but worth contacting ahead. Snow Camp Charity: Turning Young Lives Around with the Power of Snowsports.

Where is he getting the money do buy a moped and weed? I'd be removing pocket money etc if you haven't already until this is more under control.

I would also talk to your GP in terms of support for yourself with stress. They will focus on you and not involve social services if that is your concern against going. You can't help him if you can't help yourself x

Honestly you sound a bit hopeless. Get tough. He's 15, he's financially dependent on you. Take his phone, block his internet access, take the door off his bedroom. He gets nothing from you except a roof over his head unless he takes ADHD medication and attends school consistently. You are being way too soft with all this hand wringing. As for a driving ban it would only be for a few years - having to wait until he's in his 20s to get behind a wheel doesn't sound like a bad thing.

PGL??? I appreciate you mean well but it just shows how far removed you are.

PGL don't offer risky activities - sanitised abseiling on a custom built tower?

As for the get tough what do you think will happen if you take everything away, do you think he will just meekly do as you want?

The problem with removing everything is you push him further away- he will just find things outside of the home.

Re the uninsured driving, here’s a true story of the consequences.
40 years ago my cousin took a motorbike (not his) for a “joyride” and drove it down the street, with his girlfriend on the back. No helmets obviously.
He hit a child.
The child died.
My cousin’s injuries were massive; his face took a year to recover, after multiple surgeries.
My cousin has never had a job. He did serve a few years in a young offenders unit & then prison.
His girlfriend was relatively unscathed as she landed on the two of them.

eta - yes there were massive financial consequences for all involved, including my cousin re cost of insurance when he was finally allowed to drive legally of course.

eta 2 - his parents were indulgent, he was always spoilt, they never disciplined him, or his sister for that matter. She ended up as a heroin addict, poor lass.

It’s a more productive action than knowing your child has stolen your car and not reporting that your 15 year old is joyriding and putting innocent peoples lives at risk. It needs reporting every single time he is doing this or anything else putting people at risk. Who gives a shit if he might get a criminal record or not be allowed to drive at 17, He IS a criminal. it’s a consequence of his actions now and perhaps that may make it sink in for him and getting arrested is preferable to him killing someone. I will repeat my previous comment, his issues do not trump other peoples safety.

Of course that needs to go hand in hand with other things be it medication, therapy, channeling his energies into something else, whatever helps but you cannot sit by while he is putting himself and others at risk. I do sympathise with OP, i don’t think all parents with troubled teens are from awful families with poor parenting, I know this from my own family experience but I do think that part of being a decent parent means be reporting him to to police no matter how difficult that is and what consequences it may have for him.

And if you need stories… it’s not even the dead ones. There’s also the living. One of our dear friends got caught smoking weed at college at 16. He got kicked out. Never went to uni. We are mid-late 30s now and he’s gone back to do his qualifications and is doing a degree in law. He was always smart and able. But silly. And 15 years later he’s turned his life around. But he’s lost 15 years. In the meantime others have had careers, travelled the world, had families, bought houses/ cars. Lived well.

I also know a few who ended up on prison for drugs in their 20s. That actually seems to have had less of an impact than missing education at 16-21 education.

Basically these upcoming years matter and shape the rest of his life more than pretty much anything else.

It sounds very reasonable to report your child and thrown them under the bus as long as it’s not yours. You are a prime example of someone who should not be offering ‘support’ to parents.
If they harmed anyone or causes serious damage maybe I would agree but perhaps we are not in the USA yet where we sue our kids for no reason.
Again i can only repeat what I said. Unless you’ve been in the same situation, have no real purpose of offering toxic advice.

So you think it’s fine and dandy for a 15 year old to be stealing, joyriding and smoking drugs and their parents who know this is going on shouldn’t make the police aware of it so they can bloody well catch them and keep the public safe. Gotcha. This is not pinching a can of coke from Sainsburys , it is a serious crime which could quickly become more serious if he hits someone or something.
Who cares about the innocent people lawfully going about their life, perhaps driving home from work or going to the airport or even like the police officers killed earlier this year simply trying to protect the local community who get smashed into by criminals like this joyriding without giving a single fuck about the consequences. As long as you aren’t throwing your child under the bus that’s all that matters.

By the way once they have harmed someone or caused serious damage it is too late, peoples lives get destroyed, not just the victims of the crime but also the kid committing the crime and their family who then have to live with the fact that they knew their kids was out joyriding but they didn’t report it because they didn’t want to “throw them under the bus. “ it needs nipping in the bud before it gets even more out of control.

I have every right to offer my opinion on this just as you do no matter how you try to frame it as toxic or whatever you want to call it. It is a public forum after all.

This is not a TV show where people are looking to see if there is anything morally wrong with what their child has done.
It’s a post from a mother who is desperately asking for advice dealing with her son who has done a lot of bad things.
Your suggestion to save the world from her son is completely unhelpful but carry on i’m sure it will be appreciated by someone