The best programs are mentoring and after school programs, activities that teach your child responsibility, discipline (to get a job done) and most importantly PRIDE and SELF ESTEEM. Is there anything he's got talent at? Make him volunteer, make him do something to feel proud of. I don't know what your life is like, but maybe if you had the time you could do some volunteering with him, or his aunt and him could find some common ground working on something together? I could have been described exactly that way at 14, and my parents sent me away to a boarding school that operated by BREAKING childrens sense of self and instilling a false morality based on SUBSERVIENCE and following orders. Even being a "leader" like they were always telling us to do was still being a follower, being obedient, for all the wrong reasons. I can't look into your future or tell you how another person is going to feel about you, but i'll tell you this about myself. I had talents in me before being sent away to school, I was a gifted violinist (who learned through the public school system not a conservatory) and good at art. I was also the classic troubled teenager, but you know people are a mix of good and bad, and the side they experience in life is the side that gets accentuated (as in, if i'd been around more positive people who liked music and art, maybe I would have done something really great, but my parents went ahead and moved me 13 times before I was 14, and I had a terrible time with shyness and making friends with other people). After I left, I was able to resume these things, but I never had the same passion about them (or anything for that matter) again. I've made it through college and am in graduate school, but I think I've done it all as a show of obedience to my parents (who wanted me to be an academic). I acted like gold upon leaving the school I was at, and my parents were delighted, I love them both and we have a nice friendly relationship . However if I ever so much let myself think about how they tricked me to going to a program for 2 1/2 years that subjected me to verbal abuse and isolation, hate burns in my heart. Do you see what i'm getting at? Many of these programs appear to work on a superficial level, they definitely modify the behavior, but at costs to the internal psyche of that individual that I would consider unacceptable. I have a life that looks good but to this day I get into internal rages and depressions that make me scared i'll accidentally kill myself in these states of mind. I'm no psychologist but my memory puts the origin of these diseased feelings at the time I was suffering through treatment in a "residential treatment center". I feel really bad for you, I have no idea what its like to be in your shoes and am in constant fear that one day I might be, but please try and find someone through a local program that will be a big brother and show him how to be cool by accomplishing things, I wish my parents had done that for me.
