When people make this absurd claim, I guess they believe it, but what a counterproductive load of melodramatic bullshit. I have a good friend that dropped out of high school, quickly came to regret it, took the GED, went to community college, got an Associate’s Degree, used that to get into the excellent state university, did well and graduated, got accepted into an Ivy League graduate program, and now has an Ivy League PhD and is a tenured professor. What has changed in “this day and age” that would make that path impossible? Nothing. We have more and better community colleges, so if anything, it would be easier.
And that’s not even taking into account that not pursuing higher education does not equal failing at life. Even if the kid becomes a barely-literate laborer, who’s to say his life has no value? Not being a doctor, lawyer, scientist, etc. does not mean someone is a loser.
The kid has parents trying to ditch him left and right, where he needs unconditional love. Dumping him is not an acceptable solution.
Makes perfect sense to me.
Anecdotes not being data, you realize that this isn’t the norm, right?
My own situation growing up was probably a little like your son’s. At 16, with good grades and no drug problem, I had full blown clinical depression and an absolute certainty that anything I did, at any given time, was going to disappoint somebody or piss people off. I moved out at 17 and the depression went away. I was, simply, sick and tired of being something people fought over. My future (as I saw it) depended on my being able to leave that situation behind and become someone else. I did that. The all-but-physical pain of those years, and the relief of the next few years out of that house and on my own, I can recall twenty-five or so years later with no effort. Driving an old beater car and having to eat macaroni and cheese a lot - big deal. Remember that teens see the future as being populated by the same people aggravated with them today; the Future is tomorrow at 7am and that’ll probably suck even more. The Future you’re seeing and the one he’s seeing could have very little in common.
Today I have teens of my own, and went through those years with the stepkids, and I can offer no simple solution to the problems that grounding and taking the iPad away won’t fix. Kids do dumb things kind of by default, but my Mom-radar went off at the request for opioids like morphine and oxycodone in the OP, and I’m thinking it might be time for rehab. Whatever it is and however it goes, I wish the best for you both.
I have seen the products of the “Let him do whatever he wants so he’ll like you later” school of parenting. They were worthless shits as children, and remain worthless shits in their mid-thirties.
I’ve seen the results of the “control everything they do so they’ll turn out exactly how you want” school of parenting. They became fucked up as kids, and remain fucked up in their mid-thirties.
If we’re going for generalisations here.
Almost no one is either an Ivy League Ph. D. holder or a tenured professor. You’re talking about the 1% of the 1% here. Further, the person in your anecdote did in fact finish his High School education, he didn’t graduate, but he did get his GED.
I never said failing to pursue higher education makes you a failure in life. You do need some sort of trade skill to have decent income/job security, but you do not have to go to a college to acquire that skill. But you absolutely do need a high school education. Very few people are going to make anything of themselves in the year 2013 without a high school education. Note this kid the OP is talking about is in danger of failing out of high school.
Most kids that fail out of high school never finish their high school education by getting a GED, and have very poor economic outcomes, criminal outcomes etc than their peers with high school educations.
Even blue collar factory jobs these days, when a factory hires a batch of people the ones who have no high school education will likely not even be looked at, and it’s possible the job posting itself will require a high school education to even be eligible.
I wish I could say I’ve seen the results of the “excluded middle” school of parenting, but it seems to have gone missing.
First, you’re 100% correct in disciplining about marijuana and making sure that stuff isn’t in your house. Second, I feel for your son. I wonder if he is depressed and, if so, what is making him so sad?
Nice.
I totally don’t think the OP should just do a “hands-off” parenting. I also think we’re way past controlling everything he is doing. If the kid was passing high school and still smoking pot those people might have had some grounds to stand on. But he’s not even doing that, and I agree it’s really important for him to pass high school.
Not at all, it’s not a generalization. You’re referring to concerted cultivation. Believe it or not, it is thought to be quite successful.
- Honesty
I’m with Qadgop and astro. Listen to the doctor and the man who’s been there.
Get yourself healthy – therapy, medication, whatever you need, and go to Al-Anon to share your problems and hear from other people dealing with the same issues. A family therapist would be a good idea, with your stepson if he’ll go, with your wife if she’ll go, by yourself otherwise.
Any resolution of this situation is going to be slow and long-term. What you need now are coping skills.
You can’t force motivation onto another person, whether they’re your child or just some random dude on the street.
No, but when they’re your responsibility, you CAN force them to behave in legal ways, to follow house rules, and to meet certain standards of behavior.
It’s called parenting. I’m sorry that yours were assholes and that you had a rough start, but the opposite of abuse isn’t neglect, it’s moderation.
Yes, I was countering the claim that “if you don’t graduate high school, you’re fucked and a failure.” It is untrue, since you can unfuck yourself any time you have the motivation to bother. Few doors have closed behind you.
It’s a tough situation and there are no easy answers. Mostly what you can do is try this, try that, and see what works for your particular kid. But don’t give up. Having a parent give up on them is the most demoralizing thing for a kid like this, whether they outwardly show that they care or not.
One thing that you could try, either with your wife or by yourself- take him down to the magistrate’s office. Speak with a juvenile probation officer (AKA “court counselor” where I live) and let them tell him what can happen to him legally if you decide to go down that road with him. They will lay it all out for him. Not as a threat, mind you- it’s more like he needs to know what the consequences of his actions could be if he continues to make the choices he’s making. You can have him charged with any number of things, including just being an undisciplined child- yes, it’s against the law. You could also get him into intensive counseling- this is usually where multiple therapists work with him and the rest of the family, including coming into the home and school, multiple times a week for 3 months or so. It is intensive, and very intrusive, but desperate times call for desperate measures. There’s also respite homes, where they can go for a few days at a time to give everyone a break, and they are at no cost to the family- usually paid for by insurance or sponsored by other organizations.
If all else fails, and you’d obviously have to literally try everything to get to this point, but in some states, including mine, you can put a 16 year-old out on the street. Probably not something I personally would do, but it is an option in some places for some people.
Yeah I was about to say, he DOES sound depressed, and ADHD is definitely a possibility.
I had some run ins with my own parents - not about drugs but simply being a bad student despite being supposedly smart (yes, I was very close to not gradutating my last year). School was too boring and had too many arbitrary rules for me, what can I say. Maybe he feels the same way. If they took away everything that made me feel better (games, books, internet, phone access) I wouldn’t think “They’re doing this for my own good and I better shape up” I’d think, “They’re punishing me far beyond what I am capable of taking” and “I have to do what I need to survive if they’re only going to punish me instead of help me” (forced therapist visits would have been the worst punishment for me, and I would have lied my ass off to them).
My depression combined with their punishments of taking away things that made me feel better combined into the totally predictable situation of doing everything behind their back so that I wouldn’t kill myself. Sound familiar?
Also, being powerless was the root of my depression. Once I was out from under the threats of “my way or the highway” from my parents, living my own life in the real world, I felt a hundred times better. Even just college made me feel great because of its flexibility - I actually made it on the Dean’s List multiple times (a huge difference from the suffocation I felt from high school).
They weren’t BAD parents…in fact, they seemed to trust me a lot (no curfews?!) while also subtly telling me all the time they didn’t trust me. It was frustrating. I couldn’t deal with living with them, and I still don’t maintain a “normal” amount of contact.
So, some food for thought. As Martin Hyde mentions, different children need different parenting solutions. Just sounds like what you’re doing isn’t working. In fact, it sounds like your whole family isn’t working. I’d get your own shit together before you tackle your son’s.
It’s that correlation != causation. Dropping out won’t necessarily screw you. But people who are quite frankly destined to be fuckups have a very high chance of dropping out.
As things stand right now, he is a threat to the other members of the family. It’s the removal of the threat that is paramount, not just ignoring the problem. The problem won’t go away until junior makes the decision to stop fucking up his life and the lives of those around him, or he kills himself with drugs.
Well said. Take care of yourself, Cognoscant.
This has been an interesting thread. Our household also has a stoned little underachiever (age 22) rotting away in his bedroom. I think it’s depression and ADHD. However, my thoughts on the matter are not welcomed.