In need of help

[jasper1975]

i have never posted a thread here before, but i am in search of some real help. My stepson is 16 years old, just released from juvenile hall for assault, and also spent a good 90 days in a drug rehab center. His father (my husband) is deployed until May and his mom wants nothing to do with him (he has a twin who is too much of a handful for her and her other kids with current husband). My problem is my stepson basically doesnt care about rules. i have asked him to be home by 9 until he gains trust to go out till his probation curfew is at then. He went off on me saying that he has his rules with probation. He stayed out past 950, when he called me to pick him up (due to he had no way getting home by 10). It was my birthday and i had two beers with my GFs that came by and also my biological boys were asleep. Stepson informed the probation officer i was too drunk to pick him up. HE then skipped school due to he didnt want to go. After his probation meeting he just took off instead of staying in due to his consequence of not going to school. Then on Friday night he didnt come home till 10pm, his pupils were huge, and he was just rambling to me about many different things from his mom, his dads ex girfriends, his family etc. He smelled so bad of smoke thats even after his showr and you could smell smoke even when he was talking w gum in his mouth. Saturday came, he once again came in at 10, pupils huge. His dads contract with him is that i can drug test anytime. I informed stepson i will be drug testing him, so no water running etc. HE informed me he cant go due to he just went at his friends. So i decided we will wait till he can, he drank water, and around 3 hours later he started vomiting like crazy. His dad called and informed him to do whatever it takes to do a urine sample, my stepson put the water on in the bathroom, came out stated he urined. The jar was filled to the top, slight hint of yellow but more watery than anything.
I need help. IT seems like my stepson has no care about rules and consequence that i lay down and i am trying my hardest to keep the house balance due to i have my own teen boys living there too. I am just not use to a child having zero respect for rules from a guardian. I really dont know how much more i can handle.

[khaoskat]

If he is on probation, call the probation officer and also go down to Juvenile and file unruley charges against him. Part of his probation is that he follow the rules of the house.

I would tell the PO the following:
1) On your birthday night - You had 2 beers and 2 other sleeping children and were not able to go pick him up. That he was out past your imposed cerfew of 9 pm, and only called so he could get home before his Probation cerfew of 10.

2) That you suspect he has been doing drugs, and would like them to do a drug test on him. If the drug use is that recent there will be some residue in his system depending upon what he was using. And they wont give him the privacy to add water to his speciman sample.

3) Tell the PO that he is not following the rules of the house, and will not even follow the consequences of not following the rules.

Basically give her the information you gave above. He will learn that there are consequences. You have allowed him to follow the rules and he has continued to break them and ignore your authority. Now he will be back in trouble with Juvenile.

The PO can file Violation Of Probration and/or Court Orders against him, along with you going forward with your unruley charges.

[Smithie]

His mother is so far out of line that I don't even have words for her behavior.

Pack his stuff, put it in the car, drop it off at her house and inform his PO about his change of address. If she wants to throw him out of the street, that's her call. She cannot give away her minor child as though he were an unwanted kitten.

If your dss' father was home, this might be a different conversation and our household might have a different level of responsibility, but he's not and you are already struggling with that and you are being horribly imposed on. Draw the line. You did not raise this child and your children should not suffer the consequences of his poor rearing. He has a mother, presumably of sound mind and body, who is in-country. This. is. her. problem. Drop him off.

[katroshka]

And if the bio mom does kick him out? Then what? I knew a lot of kids when I was a teen that were kicked out of their homes and things went from bad to WAY WORSE. And in all likelihood your problems won't end there... a lot of these kids would break into parents' homes and steal their stuff for drug money.

I'm really, really sorry you are going through this, jasper. I was a troubled teen myself, though I had straightened out by 16 and gotten things under control. This was largely due to a change of environments. I had been living with my mom since I was very young, and she let me do whatever I wanted. She was depressed and in graduate school, so she didn't have the self-esteem to stand up to me, and wasn't home a lot of the time. Things got really bad. I was using hard drugs, skipping school, running away, all that stuff. Then, when I was almost 15 I was picked up by the police after running away, and assaulted the police officer. I was put on probation, and then vandalized a church and stole some property. My parents made a deal with my probation officer that if I moved to CA to live with my dad they would stop the probation and investigation against me (I could have been sent to prison, if convicted), so they told me I was going to visit my dad for two weeks, and when I arrived I was told the truth. I was then pretty much locked in my room for a couple of months, and I ripped up furniture, broke windows, got in physical fights with my dad... it was hell. I had a stepmom who was, of course, terribly unhappy with the situation. She often behaved very badly during all this, and refused to attend the parenting classes my dad took, because of an unrelated fight between them. But over the next year or so, my dad and stepmom just plugged away and set forth rules and boundaries that I had never had before. It was a very difficult time for all of us. I was put into an outpatient rehab program which I have to say was actually very detrimental to my whole family, for reasons which would take too long to go into here. I started attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings 3 days a week, which, although I have some issues with the program now, and don't think it was that great of a fit for me, was better than anything else I had gotten and did help. I spent some time in the mountains with my dad and stepmom, which gave me some much needed peace, quiet, and time away from the life I had back home. I started kayaking and attending Buddhist meditations. Over time things got better, I started to value my existence and work towards a good life for myself. My dad and stepmom made plenty of mistakes, and really some pretty bad ones, and it was awful for all of us. But eventually the love shown to me, exhibited by the willingness to go through this hell, won out. It doesn't for every kid in trouble, but it does for a lot.

Keep in mind that he has been incarcerated, which has lasting traumatic effects on people, especially young people. He may have experienced some really awful things in there.

This is a horrible thing to be stuck with, and it is absolutely not fair to you or your children. All I can say is that even though your stepson is acting like a jerk, he needs love and compassion. If you can give it to him, it may just save his life. As long as he is not posing a danger to you or your kids, you may find it worth while to stick it out. Take a deep breath, know that you are not ultimately responsible for his behavior (only he is), and just try to be his rock. It won't be fun, and you will certainly make mistakes, many of which will only become apparent in hindsight. But if you can stick it out and he gets better, you will have the reward of another loving member of your family someday. My stepmom and I have a good relationship, and she is a wonderful grandmother to my kids. We are each others family, and that year from hell, and the still tough year or so after that, are very distant for us.

I would say that khaoskat's advice may be a good one for you, if you haven't done so yet you may want to seek other avenues for help that may not be so permanent. It can be very hard to escape the system once you are in it, but sometimes that's the only thing you can do. I would suggest Al anon and Al ateen for support, there is Tough Love, too, although I have seen that hurt as much as help, so tread cautiously there. If you can get him into counseling that would probably be a good thing, and he probably needs a psych evaluation if he hasn't had one yet. Good luck, remember that you are not the first to go through this, there are many families going through the same thing, and it is not necessarily as hopeless as it may seem.

[~PurityLake~]

Originally Posted by Smithie

His mother is so far out of line that I don't even have words for her behavior.

Pack his stuff, put it in the car, drop it off at her house and inform his PO about his change of address. If she wants to throw him out of the street, that's her call. She cannot give away her minor child as though he were an unwanted kitten.

If your dss' father was home, this might be a different conversation and our household might have a different level of responsibility, but he's not and you are already struggling with that and you are being horribly imposed on. Draw the line. You did not raise this child and your children should not suffer the consequences of his poor rearing. He has a mother, presumably of sound mind and body, who is in-country. This. is. her. problem. Drop him off.

OH yeah! I agree. Since his father is out of the country, he is his mother's responsibility and you do not need this stress and danger in your home.