I Have A Troubled Son. What should I do?

[psy]

Well, I guess Ombudsman school is out of the running. He would be around a lot of (maybe all) bad kids there:

http://www.statesboroherald.com/news/article/2191/

The choices are now home school  or let him return to public school. He is adamant about going back to public school, but his mom is just as adamant that he not return.

Home schooling worked fine for me...  Though admittedly, It all depends on how open your son is to it.  You can't keep him locked up forever.  At some point he is going to have free access to the outside world, and the question is: what will he do then?

[Antigen]

My wife is determined to use the 'grab the bull by the horns' method. She is adament that he won't return to public school this year. This has been very hard on her because she has a brother who started using pot at an early age and went on to other drugs. He is currently a divorced 35 year old father of 3 and a meth addict. My wife paid his child support payments for two months while he went to a men's Christian Rehab Center. He gave a good speech the day he got out of that rehab saying he was free from drugs. He was using again within a week. My wife has been on our son like white on rice because of her brother's history with drugs. At our family therapy session my son said his mom disgusts him and he kept his hand up to the side of his face so he wouldn't have to look at her. But, she was right about his drug use. She knew the signs. [emphasis added]

Ok, now this explains a lot!. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that the men's Christian Rehab Center was along the lines of David Wilkerson's http://daregeneration.blogspot.com/

I've met some of these kids, btw, at a very well organized protest outside the DATIA awards ceremony in DC in 2002 or so. I couldn't really tell wich, if any of them, continue to partake of the forbidden flowers. They were the kind of kids that any parent would be proud of; articulate, poised, self assured and way better at street theater than any of the opposition. Plus they were all either attending or had already graduated college.

Here are some pics of that event: http://www.fornits.com/anonanon/DatiaProtest/

Invite him to go to an event, why don't you? It may tweak his mother nearly out of her mind. But I can see where that might be sort of satisfying for both of you. ;-)

* Marijuana and Medicine
Assessing the Science Base Janet E. Joy, Stanley J. Watson, Jr., and
John A. Benson, Jr., Editors, Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Health INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE. You may as well take a few minutes to read this report. You and I paid over a million bucks so that General McCzar (aka Barry McCaffrey) could use it to line the ONDCP office round file.

[Antigen]

On homeschooling:

I just have to throw this in again too. I've run into an awful lot of frightened, controling, reclusive fundie homeschoolers. Generally, they have any state and regional membership organizations locked up. But you only have to deal with them once a year when it's time for the paperwork; usually early to mid June. Aside from that, homeschooling just means that the parent takes responsibility for ensuring that the kid gets an education. Check out those DATIA protest pics. Two of those young kids are mine, several others are my friend's kids. That was quite an educational trip. Not only did the event pique their interest in the issues under protest and the people involved, but they also took somewhat of an interest in the great American tradition of peaceful redress of grievance so that when they later read about Revolution era pamphleteers and Tom the Tinkerer, it was somewhat more real to them than if they had spent their young lives locked up in a drab classroom just reading about this stuff instead of living it.

Again, take John Gatto's philosophy on lifelong learning, not HSLDA's.

[ZenAgent]

I offered you options for your kid, laboring under the delusion you might not be a douche bag.  I was led up the path. You're Massengill, this whole thread reeks of vinegar. Your son is dealing with the normal trials of teenage angst, compounded by the fact his dad is a Summer's Eve.  From the exchange you had with TSW, it's obvious you get some kind of sick, trailer-trash thrill out of lobbing punches at the kid.  Go find one of the "loser" friends of your son, buy a fat sack of the sticky and smoke up.  It would cut through your mongoloid John Wayne boo'shit.  You'll always be a douche bag, but smoking with your son might help you bond a little and make you a less violent douche bag. You are the reason the lad needs a chronic moment regularly.

Fuck...go to StrugglingTeens, they could use a douching.

[Ganja]

Excellent advice.

[Karass]

DARE and the ONDCP will tell you that pot is a gateway to harder drugs. But the Institute of Medicine says that the only way in which pot is a gateway to harder drugs is in the same way that Big Macs are a gateway to french fries; that being the means of distribution. *

True, and I like the analogy and the truth about "the means of distribution" being the common element. Pot itself is not the gateway, but an underlying issue or unmet need that compels a person to want to be high 24/7 is not something to ignore. If the son gets busted, mandatory court-ordered drug testing could be a gateway to other drugs.

So many times my son lamented "why is it that the least harmful drug is the one that stays in your system the longest?" His preference & desire was just to smoke pot, but his fear of violating his probation and having bigger legal consequences encouraged him to try lots of other substances to satisfy whatever it was that shrinks, psychiatric meds and love & support of friends & family was unable to satisfy. Eventually he got wise about detox kits and I bought him some myself. But by then he had already developed serious issues with other substances that even he found alarming.

Similarly, these treatments are just as bogus as the fear mongering about pot. Obviously, the conventional wisdumb on drugs and treatment hasn't done your brother in law a whole lot of good. Aside from a fallacious appeal to belief, what makes you and your wife thing this approach will work any better for your son?

Not only the conventional wisdumb, but pretty much all wisdumb on drugs & treatment have failed most people that have tried. The statistics are pretty dismal, no matter what treatment method is used and no matter how much the person wants to lose the monkey. If there were truly effective treatment programs, then those would be the ones raking in millions instead of the mindfuck 'teen help' programs.

My daughters serious troubles did coincide with a change in friends. But correlation isn't causation, as everybody knows.

Correlation isn't causation, but if his son (or your daughter) reached a point where they said, "I want to get out of this mess," then being surrounded by people who exert strong negative influences or even predatory behaviors toward them is going to make it that much tougher. It's hard enough for some people to try to stay clean -- they certainly don't need the added pressure of their usual dealer(s) saying "c'mon, you know you want it. I'll front it to you and you can pay me later." Of course, until someone really wants to be sober (or let's say 'more sober'), all bets are off. It's a tough thing for parents to realize that they have only so much influence and they really can't 'make' their child do anything he or she doesn't want to do.

[Anonymous]

They aren't going away. We are a fucking MINISCULE minority of people here. This is mainstream shit.

Bullshit.

The only reason there's relatively few posters on Fornits is because the subject matter scares the shit out of sane parents.

It's the programmies who are in the fucking minority.

Bullshit, it's because it's become a mess.  Everyone slams everyone else and virtually nothing ever gets accomplished.  Witness the 125 pages of Robert Bruce and The Who going after each other about virtually the same damn topic.  125 pages???  Just in that thread alone.  There's a lot more that have a lot more of the same thing.  It's become a win or lose mentality.  The guys comparing cock size.

[RobertBruce]

Give HLA a call and see if we dont accomplish anything.

[Anonymous]

So then what exactly are you trying to accomplish with The Who?  125 pages of arguing about the same damn thing.

[RobertBruce]

If it prevents parents from buying into his nonsense its worth it to me.

[Anonymous]

I think they get it after 125 pages.  Hell, all they've got to do is pick out any few pages and read.  They all say the same damn thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over  again.

[RobertBruce]

In all fairness I was only part of about 75 pages of it.

[Anonymous]

Oh!!  Well, that makes sense then.  They couldn't have picked it up in only 75 pages.
 :roll:

[RobertBruce]

They did, no parent talks to him, he however didnt.

[Anonymous]

and he won't.  Any other parents that come along can read just a few pages of the thread and will get it.  Is there really any reason to carry this on anymore other than to find out whose dick is bigger?