Turmoil

Whether our son lived with us or not, it seemed like the turmoil was going to be on-going. 

He didn’t want to live under our roof because he wasn't willing to live up to any rules and expectations, but, he pushed our buttons and played on our concerns for him, anyway. 

He called and asked for rides to work.  If we couldn’t or wouldn’t take him, then he would twist everything around so that it would be our fault if he lost his job. 

He would tell us how he was hungry because he didn’t have enough money to buy his own food and that he couldn't work, if he was starving to death.  Thus, if he lost his job he would blame us for not caring about him enough to get him some food.  

We felt as if we were in between a rock and a hard place.  We didn’t want him to lose his job, but we also knew that we shouldn't give in to him every time he demanded our help either.  This game went on right up until the day he finally lost his job.  

One day, right after dropping him off at work, he called me and wanted me to come back to pick him up because he just got fired.  I didn’t know what had happened, but I told him that the only way I would pick him up was if we immediately went to get applications filled out and turned in at as many places as we could so that he wouldn’t be without a job for very long. 

He said that was okay, but that he wanted to go to our house to take a shower first (he really did need one).  As we drove toward home, I asked him why he lost his job and he said that it was a bunch of b.s. and that it was not his fault.  As I pressed him a little bit more, he finally admitted that he missed a mandatory meeting the previous day.  He claimed that he went to the meeting, but because he was five minutes late, they wouldn’t let him in.  This was frustrating to me because I had offered to drive him to the meeting to make sure that he went to it, but he assured me that he already had a ride. 

While he was showering, I looked online and found three nearby places that were hiring, so that we would have a starting point.  But, when he was dressed and ready, he stated that he was going back to Arctic Circle to meet his friends.  I said, “You promised to go get applications, if I picked you up and you need to take advantage of my help when it is being offered.”  He said he did not agree to that and just wanted a blankety- blank ride and that  it shouldn’t be that hard for me to give him one. 

Once again, the conversation went around and around as I tried to get him to understand how important it was for him to have a job now that he wasn’t living at home, but he just got mad and told me to quit repeating myself and that this kind of constant interference in his life was the reason he didn’t live at home anymore.

I knew that he wasn’t going to change his mind, at this point, so rather than continue to argue with him, I told him that I had somewhere that I needed to go and that he had to leave.  He just continued yelling at me and refused to leave if I would not drive him back to the restaurant.  In order to keep things from getting out of control, I finally agreed to give him a ride.

My attempt to avoid any more conflict wasn’t as easy as it should have been.   At the restaurant, he told me to go through the drive-through and buy him some corn dogs for lunch. 

I could have just done it, but I seriously thought it was a pretty ridiculous expectation at this point and I said no. 

My refusal just fueled his fire though.  He accused me of being embarrassed to be seen with him and wanted to know why I wouldn’t go out to lunch with him anymore. 

As if smoking marijuana, moving out, making everything that happened to him my  fault and my problem, and just being a jerk would make me want to have lunch with him or even buy him lunch. 

And, quite honestly, I WAS embarrassed to be seen with him at the place he had just gotten fired from.  

I said, “Just so you know, I came here after you turned in your application and asked a friend of mine, who is a manager here,  to please get you an interview.  So, yes, it would be embarrassing to be seen with you HERE since I will probably see my friend.  You need to get out of the truck now, or you are going to be walking from the shopping center because that is where I am going RIGHT NOW!”  I put the truck in reverse and began to leave.

Somehow, he came to the conclusion that he wasn’t going to get what he wanted.  He swore at me as he got out of the truck – telling me how he felt about me at the moment--and slammed the door as hard as he could. 

I felt so bad.  Being subjected to his tirades  and told in all kinds of colorful ways, what a horrible person I am, is always so hard on my heart. 

When I got back home, I felt that I should say something to him and sent this text message:  “You are my son and I love you.  I am sad that it isn’t like it was two months ago when we would go get lunch together every week.  But, you changed everything when you chose marijuana over your home and family and I am not happy with what you are doing.  It makes me sad to not do things for you, but I can’t enable you either.  I am sorry it is like this.”

He did not reply.

He was angry about getting fired and angry that he didn’t get everything that he wanted out of me.  I don't even think he got the big fight he was looking for.  If we would have had a big blow-up, he could have somehow shifted the blame for getting fired on to me.

Denying him was the right thing to do, I guess.  Everyone kept telling me that the “tough love” that you hear about all the time was going to have to become part of my daily life. 

Tough love is very hard to put into practice.    

As a parent, your instinct is to do everything you can to protect and care for your child no matter what.  Every time I tried to step back and let him deal with the struggle, it just about broke my heart.  He let me know that it proved that I didn’t give a darn about him.   I love this kid with every fiber of my being and the "love" portion was hard to reconcile with the "tough" portion.   I didn’t want him to believe that I didn’t love him or care for his well being.  

I was advised that I had to wait for him to hit rock bottom because no matter how hard my husband and I tried to help him, or how many different ways we tried to get him to see the reality of his situation, or how much we wanted him to change his course, it was ultimately his choice to change or not to change. 

Since he had never been able to learn through consequences, it was probably going to take him living through some very hard times to get to that point.

And every hard thing he brought upon himself—was equally hard for us, too.

When your child is an addict who does not know how to accept responsibility for his actions, rock bottom doesn’t really seem to exist.

There is always seems to be another rock just below it.

Waiting.

Feels Like the Beginning of the End Part 2

 Well, he saved us from having to kick him out.

Within a day of that revealing night, I received a text message that said, “Hey, I am going to move in with Spence for awhile.   Just wanted to let you know.”

I felt like he was choosing to smoke marijuana over his home and family and it broke my heart.

I replied to him that this wasn’t a conversation to have over text messaging; that he needed to think twice about that decision; and to come back home to talk to us.  He did not answer me back.

I did hear from his sponsor.  He called to relate some of my son’s concerns to me.  He was afraid that we would call the police on him and/or that we were going to put him in rehab again, so he moved out in an attempt to avoid those consequences.  Apparently, my son admitted to him that he had been smoking marijuana about twice a week for over a month.  That lead me to believe that he had been smoking a lot more than that, since lying comes second nature to him when he is using. 

 

I asked his sponsor to tell him that we wouldn’t call the police as long there was no marijuana or drugs brought into the house and as long as he did not smoke pot IN the house (like he had been the year before), and, now that he had moved out, he also had to honestly be clean and sober in order to be able to come back home.

You know, when we put him in rehab at the age of 14, we thought he had a really good chance to change.  And we really didn’t have much choice, but to put him in rehab.  We had to do something to try to help him quit using, because we would not have even thought of kicking him out of the house at that age.  We hoped and prayed that the things he learned about addiction and the life skills that he learned would have a lasting impact on him.  At one of the parent meetings, we were told that one third of the kids would go on to live a productive, successful, drug-free life.  But, the odds were also that one third of them would die from their addiction, and one third would just go on living life as an addict—in and out of jail, rehab, and relationships.  We only wanted to picture our son in the successful scenario. 

But now he was 17 years old and couldn’t see the road that he was heading down again.  He actually left home, rather than take the chance of going back into rehab.  We really felt that if it wasn’t his decision, he wouldn’t be receptive to anything that they tried to teach or re-teach him this time.  After all of the programs that he has been through in counseling and rehab, he had never changed his opinion about using marijuana.  He didn’t think there was anything wrong with it.  The fact that it was a gateway drug for him which led to his becoming a drug addict who used any and every drug that he could get his hands on, did not seem to matter to him.

The previous year while he was in the Psych unit, as the therapists and psychiatrists were trying to figure out what to do with him, they all agreed that even though they had tested him and he still showed all of the signs of being an addict, they thought that rehab would be a waste of time and money until he wanted it for himself because he knew the game and knew how to play it, thus not taking it seriously.

But, even though he hadn’t had a long inpatient stay, I did think that the previous year’s stay in the Psych unit had helped him in some ways.  He seemed to have been able to control his rages more than he used to, even though he still had more of them than I liked.  There hadn’t been any incidents that required the police to intervene!  I felt like we got along better at least some of the time.  He even changed how he talked about moving out and used the word, “if” more frequently than he used the word, “when”.   I was feeling hopeful about the future.

And then I was stupidly blindsided. 

I GET that he is an addict.  I have had years of education on this subject.  I knew that multiple relapses were likely. 

But, I am his mom.  I love him more than he will ever know and my heart doesn’t understand his turning his back on me because of marijuana.  

I was at such a loss and had no idea what to do.

We asked our good friend whose life's work is to help transition addicts from rehab back into society what we should do.  He said, “Stick with the ultimatum of no drug or alcohol use while living in your house.  Part of me feels you should just kill him with the kindness of telling him—good luck.  He believes he can make it on his own.  What will really happen is that he will get a small, but useful taste of what it takes to me a man.   He will lose his job, thereby losing any money from that job.  He won’t be able to eat and will definitely grind on the nerves of those he is surrounded by.  Pot smokers will only smoke out their friends for so long.  He will then come back to you with his proverbial tail between his legs and maybe learn that you guys are through with the bullcrap, which at the end of the day is the key to a person beginning the journey of recovery.  He has very few options, but the scary thing is he doesn’t have a clue about that.  I believe that he will sooner, rather than later, find that out.  I tell parents all the time that it is them who have all the power, but it is somehow the genius of all addicts that make parents believe they have none.  Such is not the case.  You are all that your son has.  Don’t forget that.”

What he said about addicts making their parents feel like they have no power made sense.

We definitely were feeling powerless.

Even though we knew our son would move out someday, we didn’t want it to happen like this and there didn’t seem to be anything that we could do to change the circumstances. 

We were so sad. 

And so very disappointed.  

Feels Like the Beginning of the End

The first month of the year was mostly uneventful—meaning that we had very few blow-ups.  My son even got a job at a fast food restaurant near our house and at first, was excited about it.  It doesn't take very long for someone who is oppositional defiant to start disliking anyone who has authority over them so he soon began to complain about the managers.    

Since we had been getting along fairly well so far that month, I wasn't surprised when one day he asked me if I wanted to go to a movie with him.  I told him that I didn’t think there was anything that I wanted to see and he asked me to check.  I was right.   At that point, he said, “Well, can I just use the money that you would have spent to go to a movie with me, to go to a movie with Hailee?”  He is such a con artist.  I do not appreciate being conned and I did not give him the money.

I should have suspected that the good times were coming to an end a few weeks later when we had a battle about his filthy room.  He would take meals and snacks up there, then leave the dishes and partially eaten food in piles all over the place.  No matter how many times I reminded him that he was breaking all the rules about food in his room and told him to take it all down to the kitchen, he wouldn’t do it.  He said that he should have been able to keep HIS room any way that he wanted to and that if we called it HIS room, we didn’t have the right to tell him to keep it clean.  So, for the 150^th time, I told him that the term HIS room referred to the room that he was allowed to reside in, but that in no way gave him possession of it and that the privilege of having a room came with the requirement to keep it clean.  He responded, “I never agreed to that.”

Where his reasoning came from was a mystery to me.

But, the battle got heated and when his behavior started getting out of hand I told him that if he didn’t want to follow the rules here, he could leave.  He said, “If I leave, you will call the police and I am not moving out until the day I turn 18!”  I told him that I would not call the police and that he could just go ahead and go because he was close enough to age 18 that the police wouldn’t care whether he left home or not.   I guess he thought I was serious because eventually he cooled down and stopped playing the “I’m going to move out as soon as I turn 18” card as if he knew that it wasn’t working to play it on my emotions anymore. 

Then, one night, at the beginning of February, he came home from Hailee's house reeking of POT!  I guess he thought I wouldn't notice it over the cigarette smell that always followed him home.  But, I noticed and I was very angry!  It made me so furious that he had been smoking pot with her, but he said that he left her house and went somewhere else before he came home. He stated that I didn’t need to know where he went, or who he smoked it with, and that I might as well stop asking him about it. 

I had a sinking feeling that it had to have been going on for awhile and I was just barely finding out about it.  I had been deceived, once again.

I said, “Things have been going fairly okay around here and then you go and start doing this again!  What were you thinking?  Everything is messed up now!  You can’t smoke pot!  It’s not allowed if you live here and you know it!  Why did you start smoking pot again?” 

He finally gave the excuse that he had been feeling bored and anxious and that I was crazy to think that things had been going great around here because they weren’t and he couldn’t stand it anymore.

Well, I guess it was my own wishful thinking.  I obviously wanted to believe that we were getting along better than in the past.   

I had been watching for the bored-ness factor that shows up in the winter months because I knew that it was a trigger for him.  I provided money to go out to dinner and bowling quite frequently with his friends.  He also had his new job to keep him busy, so I really didn’t see any indications that he was becoming bored or overly anxious.  He hadn’t even shown any more signs of drinking in the previous few weeks. 

Now what?  He wasn’t 14 anymore.   We had hardly any control over him as it was at age 17.  Nothing we had done, or facilitated, or forced in the last few years made any difference at all.  He just refused to get it.  How could we convince him to “get it” now?

I told him that I was not funding any more activities with his friends because the trust level was back in the negative zone.  He insisted that he never used my money for marijuana.  Even if that were true, it seemed pretty hard to believe at the time. I also informed him that transportation to work would be provided, when I was available, but that rides to friend’s houses would not be given anymore because I wasn’t going to enable him.

In the back of my mind, I suspected that he might be headed this direction after his New Year’s Eve drinking episode, but I just wasn’t ready for it.  

The next day when I heard the song “Sweet Child of Mine” by Guns and Roses on the radio, I got very emotional.  It used to be one of my son’s favorite songs and I have associated it with him for a long time.  As I listened to it, I pictured that sweet one-year-old child in his little white tuxedo, standing outside the temple where he was sealed to us for time and all eternity, a few days after the adoption was finalized.  I wondered how he had grown into the big, long-haired defiant person that he was now.  16 years before, I never would have thought that this is where we were headed.

I just wanted to cry.

We hadn’t given him the “quit or move out” ultimatum yet, but I was fairly sure that nothing that we said or did would make any difference.  He was going to do whatever he wanted to do. 

If he wasn’t willing to quit using marijuana, we were going to have to get the courage to kick our son out of the house. 

How does a parent do that? 

New Year's Eve

On New Year’s Eve, my husband, son, and I went to see Thor, got some dinner at our favorite Mexican food chain, then came home and began a movie marathon.

As the first movie was ending, my son got the New Year’s Eve phone call that I had been dreading--to go hang out with friends.  I wished that he could have just stayed at home with us where I knew he was safe and not likely to be tempted to do anything stupid.    

But, they were some of his childhood friends, so I hoped it would be okay and he promised to keep me posted on his status throughout the evening.  As the night went on, I received the updates:  they went to get junk food, they went to Dillon’s girlfriend’s house, and then went to I-Hop at midnight.   After that, they planned to spend the rest of the night Dillon’s house.

I believed every single update -- until the next morning. 

He came home at 9:00 a.m., as he had promised, to get ready for a job interview at Little Caesar’s Pizza.  When he came into the house, he was chewing gum like crazy and it seemed to be clashing with the smell of alcohol emanating from him.   He went straight to the shower—probably to try to wake himself up and wash away the evidence.  But, after the shower, when he went to his room, instead of getting ready to go to interview, he crashed onto his bed.

Well, the shower obviously didn’t work to keep him awake and it didn't seem to do much to wash away the smell of alcohol.  I don’t have any experience with people who drink, but when I walked into his room, it seemed to me, that he still reeked of alcohol as if it was coming out of his pores or something.  I tried to get him up and moving, but he was out cold.  I spoke loudly and sharply, practically yelling at him until I saw his eyes open a little bit and got a grunt of acceptance out of him.  At that point, getting up and getting ready was all on him.

I couldn’t believe it when he actually started to get ready, but was frustrated at how slowly he was doing it.  He finally made it to the interview, but was five minutes late.  We were afraid that it wasn’t going to go well.  It made me angry that he partied all night long— all the while leading me to believe that I could trust him and what he said he was doing—and then was unprepared and hungover for this interview. 

He came home and went right back to bed.  I wanted him to take a drug test, but he said he wouldn’t until he woke back up.  I didn’t have any alcohol tests and wasn't sure if they would have worked by then anyway.  Alcohol had never been his substance of choice, so this was a new area for us to have to deal with.

The drug test came back clean and when we asked him why he had been drinking, he said, “I don’t drink because I don’t handle alcohol very well.”

Was that a denial, or a way of getting around answering the question?

He didn’t get the job.

And there we were.

Beginning the new year with a potential new problem.

Happy New Year?

JOBS

The day that my son started his seasonal job at a party store, I just wanted to tip my head back, spread my arms wide, turn around in circles and breathe.  He was scheduled to work for six hours—the best six hours, ever!

And then, at the end of that first day of work, he said he was going to quit.  His task for the day was standing on the corner, wearing a pirate costume, and waving a sign to attract people’s attention to the party store.  For some reason, he did not think that was what he signed up for.  

I don’t know what inspired him to go back the next day, but luckily he did and since it rained, he was able to work inside the store and didn’t say anything else about quitting for a few days. 

He spent a lot of time out on that corner and hated every minute of it.  One day, while he was working, I got a text from my friend that said, “We just passed a pirate standing on the corner.  He looked like he wanted to shoot himself.”    

I drove by many times, hoping to see him in the pirate costume, but I never did.  I did see him looking like a very unhappy clown a couple of times and took his picture. 

One day after work, he said, “I don’t think I will be hired on a permanent basis after Halloween.”

I asked why?

He replied, “Because I can’t tie balloons.” 

I laughed out loud and then promised to buy him some balloons to practice on.   He said he did not want me to do that.  Why would he make the effort to practice something that might help him keep the position after Halloween was over?

About two weeks later, he was interviewed and then hired at a wholesale shipping warehouse.  He worked there for two days and said it was very, very hard work.

On the third day, he called in sick.  We could not believe he did that.  We were sure that he had just lost this new job.  Of course, he thought we had no idea what we were talking about and that he couldn’t be fired for being sick.

After that, every time he checked to see what his schedule was, he was told that they didn’t need him the next day.

He never worked there again.

He continued to work at the party store, but didn’t like it, threatened to quit all the time, and started to refuse to go if he had to walk or ride his bike.  If I couldn’t take him, he would say that he was going to call in sick. 

Apparently, he hadn’t learned anything from calling in sick at the warehouse.

HIS future was on the line, and he was behaving as if this job was my responsibility, not his. 

It was so frustrating.  

But as usual, I did everything that I could to help him because I always felt like I had no choice.  He would threaten  that if I didn’t drive him to work, he wouldn’t go.  I knew that somehow, if he got fired, he would turn it all around and blame me for it.  I just couldn’t handle that and did all that I could to help him keep this job for as long as they would schedule him to work.

At least when he went to court, he still had one job.   I wondered if that would be enough to keep him out of detention.

He told the judge that he had a job at the party store (without mentioning that it was temporary) and had worked for two days so far at a wholesale shipping warehouse (neglecting to mention the text message that he had just gotten the day before that said, “We won’t be able to use you anymore.”)

The probation officer knew that the first job was temporary and that my son was likely not going to be working at the warehouse anymore, but didn’t make any effort to clarify those points with the judge.  Neither one of them seemed to care that my son was not "fully employed" as had been mandated at the previous hearing.

I felt as if their goal that day was to close the case and wash their hands of my son.  There was nothing I could do about it.  

As we  left the building that day, his probation officer said that he literally never wanted to see him again—meaning that he wanted him to stay out of trouble, but I was pretty sure that it also meant that he was ready to be rid of our family’s  drama.

My new worry was that without the court's jurisdiction, my son would immediately feel that he was free to start smoking marijuana and doing whatever he wanted to do again.  I hoped and prayed that he would stay sober, but, every single time he has been sober, I have always secretly wondered how long it would last. 

He was not asked to stay on at the party store after Halloween.  This was disappointing, but not unexpected.  

As soon as he was not working anymore, he started spending a lot of time hanging out with his new friends from work. He always came back smelling like he had been sitting in a room full of smokers.  He claimed that the mother at the house was a chain smoker and that he didn't like it at all.  When I picked him up, I had to drive home with the windows rolled down (even though it was cold outside) because I couldn’t stand the smell and eventually stopped giving him rides and made him walk home.  He swore that he wasn't smoking and that he didn't like the pervasive odor, either. I did not know whether I believed him or not.   

I really wanted him to get a new job as soon as possible, so that he would have less time to hang out with these people.

But, he was having  fun, doing nothing, and wasting time. 

He was still demanding and mean.  As he began to run out of money, the name calling and berating about my unwillingness to "treat him like other parents treat their kids" increased.  I was supposed to give him everything that he wanted and rides everywhere he wanted to go.  

He wasn’t in any hurry to get a new job, especially because that is what I wanted him to do.    

He would rather do the exact opposite of anything that I expected.  

He was really good at that.

Summer

Once school was out, my son actually started taking a little bit more responsibility for the community service requirement.  I spent A LOT of time driving him around.

By the time he went to court in the middle of July, he had about half of the hours completed, but luckily for him, a lot of the people that he worked for gave him double hours, so that made up the difference.  I wasn’t excited about him getting double hours because it seemed like he was getting more than he deserved, but I couldn’t say much about it.  At least there were people willing to let him do community service for them.

The judge was glad that he got the service hours and not glad that he did so poorly at school.  He said that the court was through babysitting him, though, and that he had to either be fully employed or enrolled in school when he went back to court in October, or he would go to juvenile detention for a long stay.

Afterward, my son said, “So, I have three months to get a job.”

I said, “You have about two weeks to get a job because I have to get you registered for school if you don’t get one.”

He told me not to register him for school because he wasn’t going to go whether he had a job, or not.

So, I didn’t register him.  I was done fighting with him about school.  If he didn’t get a job by October, then his stay in detention wasn’t going to be my problem.

With community service and court over with, he had very little motivation to do anything.  So he spent the rest of the summer doing absolutely nothing.  He did not look for a job and his main activity was pestering me for something to do.

When he was a little kid, wanting me to provide constant activities and entertainment, he would never let up on his quest until I finally came up with an acceptable idea, or sent him to his room because I couldn't stand it anymore.  But, now that he was an angry unhappy teenager, if I didn’t come up with the solution to his boredom, he yelled at me and called me names.   I would get so tired of him swearing at me and putting me down that getting out of bed every morning was getting harder and harder to do.   

As the belittling went on and on, I would say, “Just remember that the next time you want to go do something fun with me, that you called me an f-ing b**** the day before and then don’t even bother asking.”

It was an awesome summer.

The best part was his birthday.

The plan was that he and a friend would go to a movie during the day.  Then, that night, his father and I would take him and the friend to Chuck-a-Rama for dinner. It is one of his favorite places to eat.  I invited his sponsor as a surprise.  We were all looking forward to it.

At least I thought we ALL were.

Until, I was asked if his father and I could NOT go to the restaurant with him for his birthday dinner because when he was talking about it in front of some other friends, they invited themselves, but THEY didn’t want US (the parents) to go, too.  He said it would have been rude of him to tell his friends that they couldn’t come.

Oh yes.  So much more rude to tell your parents that THEY are un-invited to the celebration that they planned for you.

In the meantime, he said he wanted to have a Honey-baked Ham for his birthday.  I said that it would be okay, but that the ham was going to be his gift.  I guess he thought I was joking about that.  

We drove to the Honey-baked Ham store and I bought him a $40.00 ham.  He was so excited about it that he brought a plate and a fork with him from home and started eating the ham as soon as we got back into the truck.  Then said, “this is not very good.”

Seriously?

I said, "That is your present, so hopefully it will taste better if you heat it up or have it on a sandwich with some cheese.  That is all you are getting for your birthday this year.”

This must be when he realized I wasn't joking because he exploded with, “That is B*** Sh**!”

Well, he had already informed me that he wanted me to give him the money that I would have spent on the movie, and the money that we would have used at the restaurant with the original party plan so that he and these friends could use it to go bowling and then out to eat.  

I felt that giving him a portion of that money was more than enough for this birthday and I let him go with all of these wonderful friends to celebrate his birthday without us.

It was not what I thought his 17th birthday would be like.

But, then again, nothing was turning out like I thought it would anymore.

I didn't know for sure if it ever would.

FAKING SICK

The last 10 weeks of the school year were so frustrating.  

I wanted the judge to order my son to go to school and I hoped it would be enough to have him make a real effort. But, it didn't seem to make any difference at all to him, and I was still the only one who took it seriously.  I know I should have just backed off and let him handle this all on his own and I did do that to a point, even though it may not seem like it.  When he wouldn't get up for school, I would try to reason with him a couple of times and then I would just walk away.

There were just an excessive amount of days that he claimed to be too sick to go to school.  By the end of the quarter, he was hardly attending at all.

I am sure that he was probably legitimately sick for a few of those missed school days.  And, some of the days, he may have experienced side effects of medication changes that made him feel weird.  But almost every single missed day of school was a day that he really could have attended and chose not to.

The problem for me was that I did not feel right about calling the attendance office every time to excuse him.  It wasn't true and I didn't want to keep making excuses for his behavior.

It drove me crazy to see him sleep all morning, claiming to have "thrown up all night" and then get up and start making himself a big meal right about the time that school would be getting out—as if he knew that there was no way I could try to make him go at that point.   Or, he would stay home all day and then want to go somewhere with his friends, or pester me to take him to a movie, or to take him out to dinner.

As if, there should be no consequences for just refusing to go to school.

As the end of the quarter and another court date drew near, I decided to send this letter to his probation officer:  

“I just wanted to let you know how things are going.  I am not trying to get him into more trouble, I just don't know what to do with him anymore and nothing that we have done so far has made any difference in how he acts.

I liked how the judge told him that he wanted to see him making the changes that he needed to make until they became a habit, not that he was just making them until he got out of the court system.

But, to us, as parents, we don't see any of the changes becoming a habit and honestly, his behavior has gotten worse since we went to court, than it was before.  As we walked out of the courthouse this time, after he had been given the breaks on community service and told that if he passed his classes and got decent grades, he would get more community service hours, he said, "Well, I am screwed on community service."

We said, "What are you talking about?  You just got a bunch of your remaining community service hours handed to you on a platter.  You can easily pass your classes and could get good grades in them if you start working a little bit harder."  But, he was certain that it was impossible.

And since then, he has still continued to miss 2 or 3 days of school a week.  He has complained of feeling sick to his stomach and of throwing up on most of those days.  Then, usually in the afternoon, he feels a whole lot better--until the next morning.  And, he never seems to feel like that on the weekends.  

This game has gone on for too many years.  I know that if he just bucked up and set his mind to the fact that even if he feels a little nauseated in the morning, he could still go to school and still accomplish the things he needs to--but he won't.  If I try to make him go to the doctor to find out why he is sick, he won’t go.  His psych nurse practitioner thought that maybe, for a few of the weeks, it was a side effect of a new medication that she was having him  try, but for the two or three weeks before he was on it, and the last two weeks or so, he hasn't been on that medication anymore and he still claims to have this problem.  

My husband and I think that part of his problem is his eating habits. He eats ALOT, doesn't eat healthy food, and eats big meals at 10, 11, or 12 p.m. almost every night.  When we try to explain to him that eating a full meal at bedtime, playing the X-Box right up until he goes to bed, not getting enough exercise, etc. affects his sleep, he tells us that none of that makes any difference and that we need to stop telling him the same thing over and over again.

Last week, when I checked his school records, I saw that he had a few too many unexcused absences. When I don't think he is really sick, I don't call in and excuse him.  If he refuses to go to school in the morning and then wants to go to Nickelcade, or Sizzler, or to a movie in the afternoon, then I don't really think I should have to excuse him for being sick.  But, when I saw that he would have to go to attendance school or he would have "no grades" in the classes that he was actually passing, I called and excused the absences so that he wouldn't have to go to attendance school.  He had already stated that he wouldn't go to attendance school and he didn't really care if he passed or not because school is not worth his time right now and that he is not going to graduate anyway, so what difference does it make?  But, of course, I want to give him a chance to pass and I just keep hoping that somehow, something will encourage him to strive for being the best he can be instead of just not striving for anything at all.

His therapist told me that I should try to reward him for going to school for the last part of the quarter to see if that would provide some motivation.  I tried that, and it still didn't make a difference. He missed the next two days.  I don't know what, if anything, makes him feel bad in the morning, but it sure seems to be something that he could work through and get on with his day.

When I told him that he probably had not been sick at least 50% or more of the time, he got very upset with me and said that I was calling him a liar and a faker.   If I try to explain to him that he really needs to do what the judge ordered him to do, he gets really mad at me and tells me that school is his responsibility, not mine.  I am so tired of being told to shut the f*** up and that I am a f****** bitch, and that I should never talk to him again-- just because I try to help him, and try to fight for the best for him.

I am not going to do it anymore.  If he won't get up in the morning, then I am not going to try to make him.  I am not going to excuse him and I am not going to feel bad when he gets "no grades" in his classes. He could have passed Algebra, Language Arts, History, and Guitar, but whether he does or not, is all on him from now on. 

Today, he said that most of his classes were showing movies and he seriously wanted me to call the school and tell them he was sick.  I wouldn't and then he fought with me about it.  I told him that movie days are the best days to go to school because you get credit for being there and you don't have to do anything.  But, not for my son. No day is a good day to go to school.

I hoped that having the court order him to go to school would make a difference, but it hasn't.  Nothing has made a difference.  He won't go to school; he won't do community service; he won't call you on Fridays (even though we remind him to); and he won't act decent towards us.

Last night, on the way home from our weekend at our cabin property, he complained that we had forced him to spend the weekend with us against his will.  We pointed out that he seemed to have a good time with his cousins and he replied that it was better than hanging out with us.  My husband told him that it was good for him to get out of the house and good to see him having fun.  He came back with the statement that he would get out of the house and go have some fun a lot more if we would just give him all the money he needs to be able to do that.

We told him that he needed to get a job and that he could use that money to have fun and to get the things that he wants. And, he said, "I don't HAVE to get a job just because you tell me to get a job. There are no jobs to get anyway."

I told him that there are 100 businesses close to us that he could apply at.  He said that I was wrong about that, especially because he would not not work in fast food.

I am dreading the summer.  I am dreading every day of him getting up and asking me what we are going to go do for fun today (which he does all the time).  I keep telling him that if he doesn't do what he is supposed to do, if he acts like a jerk, and if he talks to me in the disrespectful way that he talks to me, then, I am not going to go do fun things with him.  He tries to put all the blame on me and tells me that it is just because I don't want to spend time with him. He is right about that in a way because when he acts like he does, I don't want to spend time with him.  If he acted decent and tried to do what he was supposed to do, then I would be more than happy to spend time with him.  And, occasionally, when I do decide to go to a movie or take him to get something to eat, he rewards me the next day with a super bad attitude and terrible behavior.

My husband and I are tired of the school battle.  He can go to school his senior year if he changes his mind about it and wants to, but if he doesn't, we don't want to have to spend another year trying to force him to do what the school system and the court feel is mandatory for him to do.  We really just want him to get a full time job or two part time jobs and work so that he is doing SOMETHING.

Right now, he doesn't do anything and his days are like this: 

Go to school once or twice a week, or sleep until afternoon. 

Play the X-Box or computer games. 

Sometimes takes a break and plays the guitar. 

Pesters me about going to do something fun. 

Once a week has therapy, and some weeks has doctor appointments. And that is it.  He rarely hangs out with real friends in the real world--only those who he is talking to while he plays games over the internet.  

He can't stand his parents and finds something to argue about with us almost every single day.

He has to bring his community service hours to you next Tuesday and probably only has about 10 more hours completed.  They are mostly therapy hours and a couple of AA hours.  He has made no efforts to do any other service and I haven't gone out of my way to find any for him. Before we came to court at the first of this month, almost every service opportunity that my husband and I presented to him was met with a no.

The more we try to encourage him, help him, and give him chances and opportunities, the more he defies us.

To end this long email, I would just like to ask that you find a time this week to talk to him about how it is going without revealing too much that you heard from me. He will really let me have it if he finds out that I have shared all this with you.

I know that the kinds of problems that we have are probably the same as a lot of parents have with their kids, but since our kid won't even make much of an effort to do what you and the judge have required of him, I thought you should know, so that maybe we can figure out how to get him on track.

As I said, I am not trying to get him trouble.  I just don't want him to get in MORE trouble.  I feel like we are running out of time.  He is 14 months away from 18 years old and then he plans to leave home and go do whatever he wants to do.

That scares me to death.”