Need advice...non-heart related

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bugchucker

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 16, 2009
Messages
170
Location
Reno, NV USA
Hello fellow valvers. First let me apologize as this is probably not the place to post this, but I have a great deal of respect for your opinions.

My son is 15. I have had a hard time with him in the past 12 months or so with problems around honesty. I realize he is 15 and some of this is of no surprise, but looking for any parents out there to chime in with different ideas on how to deal with this. Tomorrow he has a track meet which will require us to get up pretty early. He had gone to bed, or so I thought, and I knocked on his door to find out what time he wanted to wake up. There was no response so I entered his room and called his name, again no response, I tried to gently nudge him awake, again no response. I turned on the light to find that he had placed pillow under his covers to make it look like he was sleeping. I called his mobile, he answered, he said he was at Moss Lake, a popular place for kids to hang out, also a popular place to escape, drink, do drugs and generally get into mischief. I was furious and he could tell and he told me he would be right home. I said that I didn't want him driving with anyone else and would be there to get him. On the way home I asked if he had been drinking, he said no, I asked if he had done any drugs, he said no. I asked for his phone and asked if I would find anything of concern, he said no. When we got home I had him provide a urine sample for a home drug test, and again asked him if there would be any surprises and he said no. As I suspected it showed positive for marijuana.

As I said, I have been having issues with honesty for some time now. His mother and I have tried everything we can think of from taking away privileges, taking away his phone, not allowing him to see his friends, etc, etc...The previous incident I took a different approach as nothing seems to be an incentive or disincentive for him. This time we sat down and made a contract revolving around his school performance and abstinence from drugs and alcohol. I offered some pretty generous incentives should he follow the contract (sending him to surf camp and paying for him to have private guitar lessons). I asked him to come up with the consequences should he not live up to the contract and he said his phone and tablet were the most important things to him along with being with his friends, so he suggested that he lose those privileges. I was very open and honest with him in discussing my youth, as I was a nightmare child to say the least. I told him stories about the awful things that had happened to me as a result of my poor decisions. It was a very emotional conversation with tears all around, for the first time in a very long time he seemed genuine and sincere. I told him that there was nothing he could say to me that would affect my love for him, that if he ever felt the temptation to experiment that he was safe in talking to me about it. Also I told him how damaging it would be to our relationship should he continue to be so dishonest and deceptive. Since then I have asked very broad and open ended questions in an effort to get him open up.

So I'm at a loss. I don't want to come down too hard on him as I know if I were in his shoes (and I was) I would not respond well to having the "hammer" dropped and I would (and did) revolt and become even more isolating. And I realize that this is not the end of the world, but I also know that the brain continues to develop until around age 25, and that drugs and alcohol have significant impacts on neurological development.

So, long winded request, but again any insight or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Phil
 
Sounds like he is desperate to fit in. This probably stems from low self-esteem. I was an unhappy kid too.

Spend as much time as you can with him. Talk, cry, go for walks. Tell him how scared you are. Teach him about honour and help him find something that inspires him, for me it was books and music.
 
Thank you Agian, I think you may be right. Sports, specifically ski racing, helped me to remove my head from my rear end. My son doesn't really seem to gravitate towards anything other than electronics...I agree 100% about being transparent about my feelings.
 
Try loudly blurting out crap when he's gaming online with his friends. Embarrasses the hell out of them.
I have to remind 14 yo son to put on his glasses.
 
bugchucker;n874537 said:
So, long winded request, but again any insight or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Phil

My two sons learned early on that "I may not always be right.....but I'm always the father" and they played by my rules so long as they lived in my home. BTW, one grew up to be 50% owner in an aircraft components business and the other is VP sales/marketing in a specialty wood products business........and both have been successful in their personal lives......and both still speak to me.
 
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This audio-CD based program REALLY helped me with my teenager - google "Total Transformation James Lehman." I listened to the 7 CDs on the way to work. It teaches you to give consequences in a very specific and matter of fact way as well as how to coach and dialogue with your kid. I loved the format because I got specific phrases that stuck in my head and were effective. It also exposes the manipulations kids do which were SHOCKINGLY accurate. That helped a lot.

My son was oppositional (from birth really) but when I did this program when he was 14, it helped change things and he and I have a great and respectful working relationship today (he's 21, in college, lives at home and commutes every day). If he does get nervous or avoidant and reverts to lying, he fesses up quickly and there's no BS or power struggles any more. Well worth the $$$ and in my case . . . I got my money back for doing a detailed evaluation.

Also, do you think your son could have an emerging addiction? What benefits does he see from using and could he meet them another way that doesn't put his employability and school success at risk? He can't get a job next year if he's smoking weed . . . everybody drug tests. And what about track, he could also get disqualified from that. Maybe counseling or a sobriety group treatment are in order.

You got this, good dad . . . . just keep trying until something sticks!
 
Be thankful that your son didn't lie to you and told you the truth on where he was and was willing to have you pick him up.
We too had our son sign a contract, gave him responsibilities around the house - at the age of 8, if he didn't make his bed that was 1 hour earlier he had to go to bed or be home when he got older. We also stated that this our home and there rules to be followed as long as he was under our roof. Of course we love our children, but we also stated in the contract, that IF there was a time a police officer came to the door with him in tow we would tell the officer to keep you till the next morning at which time we could talk calmly about the situation. I believe kids need to face the consequences no matter how much it hurts us.

​​​​​​When our son was 14 he had p/t job working Friday's and Saturday nights and held onto that job until he finished High School.
 
I had an epiphany. I took advantage of our prepaid tuition for my son. If he is able to graduate with a 3.5 gpa or better he will win one of Nevada's millennium scholarships. I told him if he does and stays drug free I will let him have the tuition money for a down-payment on a house. That seems to be a motivator for him!
 

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