Seems that the police walked the drug sniffing dog through the parking lot and school at my sons high school today. Thankfully, my son did not get in any trouble but one of the kids that he rides with sometimes the dogs "hit" on the free air around his car (or whatever you call it) and they searched it. All they found was a razor blade. He is now suspended from school and can't drive. He will have to go before a school tribunal to determine his fate and all this time his father is in the service in Iraq. It seems he can get in about as much trouble with the razor blade as the pot scent.

In talking with my 15 yr old son (who will be getting off of a 1 yr probation this month) I'm thinking he realizes how important it is to stay out of trouble after todays incident. Seems there were quite a few kids who got into trouble today. Personally, I think pot should be decriminalized like north of the border.

Hope your son realizes how important it is to stay out of trouble Plantman and I know how you feel.

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Jim

Don't you mean South of the border? Or did you mena north of the Florida borger in Geargia, where you happen to live?

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Enough about me, how are you doing?

as cscmc1 mentioned, there could be many other more addictive, and much more dangerous drugs your son could have been using.

4 years ago, pot was like alcohol. Present at every single party, in every single social group. Howwever, coke was nearly right up there, popular among many kids. And 5 years later, its stronger than ever... I circle in older crowds now, consisting of college students and people embarking on life after college- people starting businesses etc. Coke is rampant EVERYWHERE.... from the expected "high class" party to the trashy bar bathrrom, to the highschool and junior high parties.

If I were facing the issue of pot with a son or daughter, id definitely put my foot down. However, Id feel somewhat relieved that I wasnt dealing with a coked out kid or worse..... I see this as a time to re-establish the boundaries with your son, the rules, and the privledges. But it is also CRUCIAL that you dont push him away-

Military schoool may work for many people, but I have had numerous friends that had horrifyiong experiences.. not because of the discipline, but from abuse. Im not sure how big of a problem it is, but there seems to be a very high rate of abuse in youth detention facilities and military schools that crosses the line between strict and sometimes unpleasant discipline and flat out abuse of power. A good friend of mine was being physically abused in military school- he would write home telling his parents of what was happening. Most of the time, the letters never arrived.... He now is a much different person. Hes highly irritable, depressed, uses drugs, and is VERY tempermental. After his return home i found he was a hard person to be friends with. We still keep in touch however. 4 othher friends of mine between JR. High and H.S. had similar experiences in disciplinary school.

Another friend of mine had a very hard time maintaining a relationship bewteen himself and his parents. He was and is an exceelnt kid, very bright, very intellegent, and always pulled exemplary grades. However, from what he would tell me and what i observed about his parents was 100% true. They tried to control him in every way.. to the point that it was smothering him. They didnt take the time to listen to him, or actually hear what he was saying... he neeeded them to back off. they were very high pressure parents whom cared tremendously about him, but were a bit over-bearing, and rather ambitious about "his" goals rather than what his goals actually were. They were the perfect example of parents who tried to raise their son into somthing they wanted him to be, disregarding everything he wanted and had a passion for. Needless to say, he rebelled. He found drugs, would run away for days, his grades dropped, and his parents became volatiile. I lost touch with him after I became the 3rd wheel between him and his parents. I couldnt handle his parents irrationalities, and I couldnt handle seeing my friend F*#@ up his life.. regardless of any "interventions" that were tried bewteen me and my friends at the time or his helpless parennts. He eventuually went to re-hab and I havent heard anything more.

More recently, my family found out a distant cousin of mine put herself into re-hab. We dont really keep in touch with this part of the family. And I must say that theyre quite disfunctional. At any rate, we thought my cousin was doing fine.. she was awarded for being in the top ten percentile of her class in GPA, she was on the basketball team, swim team, and had a great head on her shoulders. However, her parents were absent from her life... they had their own problems. She seemed like the girl that was passionate about doing her best and getting away from her parents and building her own more successful life. Turns out her boyfriend got her into drugs, and she had found herself trafficking hard drugs into her town and school...... whhich is still shhocking to this day. Since this happend shhes made a 100% turn around, but it goes to show that drug abuse isnt limited to a certain social group, personality, or place, which can often tiimes be forgotten by parents, wether they are present in their kids life or not.

My point being is that I thhink it is HIGHLY IMPORTANT that a parent maintains a BALANCE in their methods of discipline.... not enough can lead to negative affects, and too much in various ways can lead a child down the same path.

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Nate

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Like I stated Pot tends to be a social drug.............I'll bet his friends, the ones he hangs with were doing it too. I would make sure they are never unsupervised......or at least talk with their parents.

As a teen a good kid will do things he normally wouldn't do in the company of said "Friends". I'm not so old I don't remember the pressure friends can exert.

__________________
Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

No doubt. The so called friend who introduced him is a kid from school whom I have never met.

That makes it hard to supervise his dealings with him.

He has been suspended from school for 10 days. They are also requesting that he be expelled so I will have to go and kiss some major ass in the morning.

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Enough about me, how are you doing?

Exactly right. I'm sending you my teenager, UPS. Just kidding Jen, I really do think you got it.
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If you are his dad and not his buddy, when he grows into adulthood he'll make a good friend for you. But if you start out as pals, I don't think he'll respect you much when he gets older.

I abused a whole pharmacopeia until I got old enough to own stuff and thus, to be scared of being caught. It's a dumb waste of money and risk, but some knuckleheads refuse to see the obvious stupidity of their own behavior. Hope your kid isn't that looney. But regardless, you have to stand firm. Your house, your rules, everybody obeys.

Like I said to him today, he can smoke all the pot he wants when he turns 18 and decides to move out on his own. Until then, he needs to realize that he has got to stay out of trouble.

Do you think it's normal to think " I don't want to be here" when you get caught?

I remember getting in trouble and saying, $hit, I better not do this again, but never suicide.

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Enough about me, how are you doing?

Why? Let him go kiss the ass. If not, let him suffer the consequences. That will either teach him that there are consequences to pay or he will just keep getting knocked around. If you help him out and take the burden for him, next time he will rely on Dear Old Dad to fix it.

As to him talking of suicide and not wanting to be here, the translation: Sorry I got caught. I don't want to be taking the punishment. Hopefully I can say enough crap to get Dad feeling bad enough to bail me out of this mess and not punish me too much.

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That's what I figured, but it's still kinda hard to take.

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Enough about me, how are you doing?

I was lucky (or unlucky) enough never to get caught.

People take drugs for a wide range of reasons. And the reasons may change over time due to circumstances. Most of my use was recreational. I preferred psychodelics and amphetamines, so I can tell you about them (or what I remember...). I never much appreciated barbiturates, narcotics and cocaine. I guess I enjoyed the introspection available to psychospelunkers, which the barbiturate and narcotics people seemed to want to avoid, even at the peril of losing their lives. Marijuana was just for fun and play. At least to me. When I quit smoking that crap it was nothing and I still don't really care one way or the other. Later I found quitting tobacco was far, far more difficult. I still want a cigarette occasionally and I quit coffin nails nearly 25 years ago. I haven't smoked dope since I quit and really don't care.

Like somebody previously mentioned (Carleton? Hatterasguy?) there have been lots of folks along the way who drifted-off into a eddy in life where they never did anything and didn't much care. To me, that's sort of like a little death, to become so anesthetized to life that you don't care about much except a buzz and something to eat.

From the sound of it, your boy is more of the recreational/social pressure type. He's probably lucky he got busted, but you have to figure-out a way to reassure him that you still love him and its disappointment, not hatred that you are expressing. He's just a kid and he needs a pathway for his behavior. The one he was on was bad but he doesn't see a more rewarding one yet. If all you offer is guilt and punishment, he may associate that with the path you want him to follow. So somehow you're going to have to temper your demand that he conform to house rules (which you cannot compromise) with a reassurance that he is loved and appreciated.

Being the adult and parent is a never-ending pain in the a$$. My Mother just had her birthday recently, nearly ninety years old and she says she still worries about her children. Great, huh? This is what you and I have to look forward to: a lifetime of angst over our kids. Hang in there.

Best wishes Plantman,

Bot

If you go kiss ass for him, where does he learn? Lets say he gets kicked out of school, is it the end of the world? No, he can do other things besides school or work his way back. When he has to worm his way in he will appreciate it all the more knowing how crap tastes in his mouth when he had to kiss ass the last time and will be less inclined to repeat such acts

__________________
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11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

I agree with you 100%. However, at this point he is persona non grata and I doubt very much if he will be welcomed back there witout a little intervention on my behalf.

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Enough about me, how are you doing?

Hello,

Yes that is a sad story. I went up north one time and left my 18 year old son at home alone. He was supposed to go over to a friend’s house. Well he had a party at our house instead. Some of my Daughter’s cloths were stolen "later we recovered them". We found signs of Pot in the downstairs bedroom. I went out and bought a drug testing kit. I made him take it in front of me. You can get an immediate reading and also for free send a sample to the company.

Yes not sleeping over friend’s houses and limited vehicle use. I am sorry I do not know all the answers. Just hope this may help in some way. Good Luck!

Where do you buy a drug-testing kit? I've never heard of them. Pregnancy yes, drugs, no!

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Enough about me, how are you doing?

It's your black vs. white approach again.

Taken at face value, you would be correct. Let the kid learn from his mistake and if he gets kicked out of school (a high level school IIRC), then so be it. He has to suffer the consequences.

The alternative is to have Dad go over and kiss some ass and, hopefully, get him back in school. This approach has the danger that the kid will see Dad bail him out, and, that he can use it as a crutch in the future, if necessary.

But, there is a risk with the former approach that your do not advocate.
The kid, due to the crushing effect of getting booted from this high level school, will not be able to get back into this school on his own (my opinion) and the fact that he is not booted from the school may have a devastating and lasting impact on him and render him unable to pull himself up. He may not recover from it as simply as you indicate. Things are not all black and white.

No, I support Plantman here in going over there and kissing some ass and getting him back into that school where he clearly belongs. Hopefully, this incident of being placed in handcuffs and hauled off will be emotionally traumatic enough to set him straight. He doesn't need a new school and a new environment (a bad one I'm quite sure) to add to this misery.