Are all the other kids as screwed up as he is?
How many of them have started talking about going to college, or taking driving lessons, or working at Mcdonalds? ( or doing anything that makes a kid think about planning for his future?
Is there any chance you can work with the friends, get them to encourage him to act like they do?
lol
He’s 16?
I’m going to have to vote it’s time for step Dad to step off. He’s testing you, wondering, suspecting that underneath you’re the same flawed matter as bio Dad.
Please stop with the, you’re doomed, your bio Dad don’t want you, you’re just like him, last chance bullshit. It’s clear you love this kid, and a tiny part of you longs to have it done and over with. But you gotta know that’s not really the case.
He’s 16, with a fucked relationship to a Dad that beat his Mom, encourages his drug use, and yet whom he inexplicably loves and longs for, only to be repeatedly rejected by. That’s freaking complicated for anybody, no 16yr old is gonna sail right through that. There is going to be some rough water.
Hold firm to the things you believe, and the rules. Don’t let your frustration push you to say hurtful things, like you’re just like your Dad. You should be reminding him at every turn, “you’re not your Dad. You’re you, be you and stop being an imitation of him!” He’s trying to win love that won’t be forthcoming, from a source that should be a font for him. How heartbreaking is that? And you have to stand by and watch. Part of him needs to know someone cares if he runs his life off the tracks. Part of him wants it to be the other Dad.
You need to wrap your head around how hard the next couple of years are likely to be for him and have a little compassion for the hard journey of seeing his Dad with open eyes, whilst you take a lot of the flack. It’s not the ruin of him, it could prove the making of him and the making of your relationship. But it ain’t going to be easy. And it’s not going to all be done at 16.
And good luck!
My thoughts exactly. Yikes.
Well I don’t know shit so I’ll just shut up now. My point is just that if you set that up as a wall, and that’s a big part of his life, you’re not liable to get anywhere. There’s nothing wrong with recreational marijuana use; the problem in his case is abuse. I dunno, it was just what came to mind on my end. Maybe rewarding him with it is a bad idea. Then again, it worked fine for me…
You know what else fucks up your future? Not graduating high school because you’re too busy getting stoned since “that’s what teenagers do so chill the fuck out”.
My real mother was, and is, pretty much a waste of space. My family made it clear that I was shaping up to be just like her, that I was a useless waste of space as well.
Trust me, this did not make me want to excel. But of course they were saying this to a straight A student, so they were pretty crazy…still having a suck-ass parent is a horrible weight. At the core of you you are always convinced that blood will out, no matter how much people tell you otherwise, and that you will turn out to be just like the useless parent.
Hell, I’m almost 40 and I still occasionally examine my behavior to see if I’m behaving like her.
That being said, excessive pot use will fuck up his future, especially if he doesn’t graduate high school. Even if he could just get through that you could let him do some minimum wage jobs. I’m just going back to college right now. Life can be fixed later on. How to convince him of that I’m not sure.
Cog, you have my sympathy.
We went through the same thing with my stepson. He started on pot, went downhill from there. We went through hell with him, but we got incredibly lucky. He survived and he has recovered and made a good life for himself. That is incredibly rare.
What turned him around the most is that, of the dozen or so close friends that he had in his school days, only one is still alive. The rest killed themselves with drugs in some manner, either through ODs, wrecking the car while driving high, suicide, etc.
Your wife needs to stand with you, not against you. She’s enabling him. The next time he hits his sister, ignore her and call the cops. The next time he brings drugs into the house, ignore her and call the cops. Establish those as boundaries for everyone; you don’t cover up for junior if he does either of those two things.
You and your wife need to have a come-to-Jeebuz session with him and present him with a list of rules, such as:
Plus whatever else you might think necessary. He either agrees to it or he’s out on the street. If he violates any of the rules, he’s out on the street. No second chances - he’s already had them.
Make your wife understand this - he is a danger to himself, you, her and his sister. You need to do this to protect your family.
Good luck, my friend, you will need it.
While I agree with much of what you wrote, one can’t generally toss a 16 year old dependent out on the street. Provisions must be made for the necessities for a minor. Both legally and ethically.
Let’s be more blunt about this, folks.
If you throw a 16 year old out of the house and onto the street in the USA there are really only three ways to survive:
Most likely, he’ll wind up with a combination of the above. Definitely not an improvement over the already bad situation.
Sorry, you lost me at blunt.
Just so everyone is on the same page, the OP is the same guy that wants to leave everything to the Straight Dope Message Board in his will, so I’m not sure he’s the best person to be making decisions for anybody.
snort
Hey OP, from one stepdad to another: Damn, dogg. The basic situation in your OP is very much like my own except the kid is 11 and not into drugs (yet, but I know he’s dabbled in Teh Pot so he’s on the radar). Chromosomes aside, you’re his dad and he knows it. He also knows bio is a loser. It probably fucks with him on some level. Whether or not that’s what keeps him in the weed is not clear–he could just be using it as an excuse. Long and short, he’s your kid.
My folks had a lot of dreams for my older brother when he was young. By 8th grade he was drinking too much and he barely made it through his first year of high school for all the pot, booze and other stuff. By the time he was 16 he was living 300 miles away with his girlfriend and her (possibly his) kid. It was a damned shame because he was always smarter than me, if less wise. Eventually he “lost” some merchandise he was entrusted with for distribution, and his supplier expressed a degree of frustration with him. Shortly after that, he took a keen interest in the Alaska salmon industry. By the time he was in his mid-20s he was an incorrigible individualist and when he wasn’t working for the Alaska dept of fish & game, now monitoring the harvesting activities of his former coworkers, he was living at home drunk. Eventually he got laid up in an accident for a long time and couldn’t do much except punch buttons on mom’s IBM 386 compter. Taught himself DOS & wrote a few games, taught himself Pascal and wrote some useful programs. Eventually got hired into the tech industry and made bank. He’s in his late 40s now, I think he’s still smokin, but he’s got everything I never had: Nice property, lots of toys, memories of adventure, and the knowledge that he always has and always will live his own life. Me? The rule follower? Many, MANY regrets, a few blessings, and the knowledge that if you live for others they will drink all the blood you give them and it will never be enough*.
You can’t make your son be you, and you shouldn’t. But what you can do is not be his enemy. Ask him what he wants to do with his life, and listen. Abandon your dreams for him, because they are not his dreams. His pot use is certainly closing some doors for him, but it is not necessarily ending his life.
If it’s really getting destructive to you and the family, try an intervention or just go straight to inpatient rehab.
*appologies to MCR
He’s 16, not 6. You can be sad all you want, but at some point you have to let your son make his own way in life. Opening his mail and asking his counselor about his sessions are undermining his trust in you, and ruining any chances you might have had at maintaining a relationship with him as an adult.
BG, didn’t you already post that? You got short term memory issues?
I think ‘everything’ is a bit of an exaggeration, as he didn’t say that.
Fine, but leaving “anything” to a message board you’ve belonged to for less than six months is still a red flag on your judgement.
I glanced at the other thread. The OP seems really depressed to me, and I am not surprised. His stepson’s whole life is going down the tubes, he and his wife fight every day, and he’s being bullied and harassed at work.
He needs help, as does his whole family. Unfortunately I doubt he will get any good help…his situation is tough as hell and there are no easy solutions.
What part of having a hydroponics kit mailed to the house is deserving of trust? When you get caught breaking the rules, you don’t get to throw a hissy fit about how unfair it is that the other person caught you.