
Parenting Teenagers (12-18) Support Group
This community is focused on the joys, challenges and concerns faced by parents of teenagers (12 to 18 year olds). The major areas of child development include: physical development, perception and sensory development, communication and language development, cognitive development, emotional development and social development.

deleted_user
I have a son aged 15, he has been smoking pot and guess i turned kind of a blind eye. yesterday he came back home and had esccasy. I'm really trying to cope. I blew up really bad and hopefully now that i'm setting solid boundaries it will help.
How would you handle this type of situation? Maybe you have. What happened?
How would you handle this type of situation? Maybe you have. What happened?
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If he does have an underlying issue (depression etc) that can only be determined once he's off the drugs. Self-medication (drugs or drinking to feel better emotionally) is common when people have some mental health problems.
Please search his room. Do whatever you can to get him arrested. File an unruly report if he loses his temper or doesn't come home at curfew. Even though the process of getting the true help through the courts takes months (in our county it's very slow) this is where you will get the support you need, whether your son is abusing or addicted. **Because he's a juvenile his record will go away once he turns 18, if he gets arrested and charged.
Don't sit back and wait. Do whatever you can. My best to you....
My Mom went through a lot of this stuff with one of my siblings, who is now a great, productive person. Her best advice is to keep the relationship as good as possible so that when we all come out on the other end, we will be close.
Good Luck.
Call the a therapist who works with teens and drugs for advice before you tell him. It helped me help my daughter. He needs your help and love but he also needs to know this is self destructive behavior. Hugs
Whatever you do do it fast before it gets harder
And remember your not just fighting his addiction your fighting his peers also. It's almost impossiable for a kid his age to stop when all his friends are doing it.
Joe
First and foremost, your son cannot get clean or stop doing drugs unless HE wants to. It doesn't matter what you want him to do, he'll just do it behind your back. I know because I was there. If he can get his hands on it, he'll continue to do it. Punishing him makes it worse. Taking away his freedom will make him hate you. HE has to have the willpower to quit abusing drugs, or he'll never quit. For most teenage boys, peer pressure plays a huge role in drug abuse.
Getting the law involved is a stupid choice. You don't want your 15 year old to have a tarnished record, just because he made a few bad choices. As he ages, he'll find motivation to want to quit. I found music was my motivation. Music and writing was my escape to the horrors that went on at home. When I found I was able to escape the horrors without doing drugs, I weened myself off them.
Having said all that. When he does decide to get clean, it is VERY VERY important that he doesn't stop cold turkey. That could make him suicidal. What I did, was I used less intense drugs to ween myself off of the harder ones, eventually working my way down to pot only. And then from pot I worked my way to cigarettes. And then, finally, I did neither.
My advice is that you don't listen to the first few responses. NEVER make fun of your child. EVER. My dad used to make fun of me, and it made me want to kill myself. NEVER make your child feel like a prisoner. That'll make him hate you. Don't send your child away. Don't threaten to make him leave. Honestly, if I was 15 and my dad told me to leave or stop doing drugs, I'd leave.
And there's not always a psychological reasoning behind why kids do drugs, so therapy might just be a waste of time. It could just be peer pressure. Hanging out with the wrong kids. But you can't stop him from hanging out with his friends, or he'll hate you as well. It's a hard road to go down. But I can tell you it gets better. Because, like I said, he'll change when he feels he needs to.
about 90% of the kids in HS have done drugs. they are like candy. most kids smoke pot before school, during lunch and after school and they may pop a few pills during the day. the peer pressure to do drugs is incredible.
and it ticks me off because we have a DARE program in our school district and they start talking to the kids when they are in 5th grade. then they talk to them in 6th grade, 7th grade and 9th grade.....
the kids don't even have to buy the drugs, people just give it to them. my son had a meltdown this week because of all the peer pressure to do drugs.
my son can't drive if he does drugs. and they have testing now, so you can buy tests at the drug store. they are about $20 a test which is kinda pricey. but, using the incentive of driving has helped my son to make some better choices.
i spoke with my son's guidance counselor this week and she is aware of the drug problem at the school and she told me that the boy's have a very rough time their freshman and sophmore year. my son will be 16 this summer, he is a sophmore.
anyway, my heart goes out to you. i just try to keep as open communication as i can with my son. i see and hear him tell others now, but i know it's hard for him because he is surrounded by it on a daily basis.
best wishes!