I once asked my friend for advice about parenting.  In essence, "What would you do if one of YOUR kids ____?"  She replied, "Well, that's not a fair question, because MY kids never would."
I felt so angry and offended at the time, but in order to preserve our friendship, I just laughed and said, "Yeah, you're probably right," and changed the subject.  Later in the conversation, I think she sensed my irritation and half-assed apologized with something like, "I just meant that I'm a stricter parent than you, that's all..." and tried to back pedal.  Again, I changed the conversation, rather than trying to hash things out, since I knew there was no way of really coming back from something like that.
Interestingly, two years later, when her kiddo was the same age as my kiddo was when I had asked the question, her kiddo did pretty much exactly the same thing.
Funny how that works.
Weirdly, she came to me and thanked me.  Because I had come to her with my question, she had cooked on it and really thought about it so she was actually somewhat better prepared for what she would do - although she was still VERY shocked because she still firmly believed her kids WOULD NEVER...
We don't mean to be hypocrites.  But I guess we all are, sometimes.  It makes me so sad when I hear someone say, "My husband would NEVER..." or "I would NEVER..." those are the people who are least prepared when opportunity does come knocking because they believe it could never happen to them.  Those are the people who often fall apart and who often never truly recover and who often never truly trust again.
Anyway, I bring this all up because the situation I had asked about was about my middle kiddo.  He (we?) are in a mess of a situation, and I know people will judge when they read this, but I just hope that folks will say a little, "There before the grace of God..." before they get too judgmental, ya know?
He has been struggling for years.  He says, "No! NO I'm FINE.  I'm PERFECTLY happy!" But he is too angry and too spun out of control to claim that and have us believe it.  Regardless, due to a recent blow up at home, he's now been sent to juvenile hall and has no choice but to attend family counseling.  I'm glad.  Even after one session, I feel more hopeful, and all we really did was throw down some background stuff.
In some ways, my heart breaks for my "baby" because this has all been hard on him and I see him hurting.  In other ways, I am angry and resentful that he thinks he has a right to feel so hurt.  HE CREATED THIS SITUATION.  He is the one who did thousands of dollars of damage.  He is the one who has chosen to smoke (and we suspect deal) weed.  He is the one getting high on mushrooms and other hallucinogenics.  He is the one who chooses to skip school, be belligerent, avoid homework, and narrow his choices so severely.  But he doesn't see it.  He just doesn't get it.  I felt we had no choice but to let him see rock bottom, or at least as close as he can get while still living with us.
At first, he spoke of how GREAT juvie was.  Everyone there is so caring.  At least there people cook for him. That one hit me in the gut, but he knew it would.
I have begun to refuse to cook for him.  I don't refuse him food, but I will often tell him "I'm cooking dinner in 30 minutes, so go ahead and fix yourself something before I get started.  The reasoning is because he will throw entire plates of food in the trash because, "I don't like the sauce," or "I don't feel like chicken tonight."  That, or he will complain and make disparaging comments all through dinner.  No one else complains about my cooking, but alright, I'm a terrible cook.  That's fine.  Learn to cook for yourself, dude, you're 17. 
Interestingly, for as "great" as he claims juvie was, I think meeting some of those other kids  sort of opened his eyes.  He related a conversation he had with one kid in which he complained about how I don't cook anything good.  The kid he was talking to said, "At least your mom and dad are together.  I haven't seen my mom in three years and my dad is gone for days at a time.  No one ever cooks for me."  There were other examples, too.  He feels so "abused" because we set boundaries and say no, but what he doesn't get is that it's our JOB - and whether he likes it or not, we're doing it for his well being.
It was also eye opening when the public defender told him, "You don't get it, kiddo.  I see SO many kids who come in here ALONE.  You can be pissed at your parents all you want, but never think for a second they don't have your back." 
The public defender wasn't all helpful, though.  She offered up the suggestion that our kid be allowed to just leave the house when his temper gets the better of him and go on a walk for an hour.  Ummm... hello, he's on house detention.  He's not allowed to leave the house (except for school) without an adult present at all times.  While I agree, a cool down period/time out is perfectly acceptable, leaving isn't an option at this point.  However, when he got home and got angry at me for asking him to do his daily chore, he tried to leave.  "MY lawyer said I could leave anytime I wanted if I was mad!" Uhhhhh...  I told him he was free to go - but that I'd be forced to call the sheriff department to come out since he'd be breaking house detention - so he might consider cooling his heels in his room, instead.
Still... I have seen progress. Baby progress.  Not enough to get me hopeful.  Besides, my kid has a way of letting me build up, get hopeful, and then smack me down to the ground (figuratively) just as I think things are going well.  He tested clean on drugs for MONTHS.  I really had thought he'd outgrown it. Nope.  He was just using stuff that wasn't showing up on the tests.  Great.  I'm scared to be optimistic, because I'm too used to being let down.
We'll see.  We started family counseling today.  We talked about including my daughter, but she's situated with her own counselor right now, and I feel like we have WAY too many issues to work out with our son to try to include her in the mix, as well.  Last time we tried family counseling, she would just sit and cry the whole time and not participate, anyway.  Once we get things settle with our son a bit more, I would like to include her, at least sometimes.  We'll see.
Our daughter seems to really like HER new counselor, though I haven't noticed any major changes with her. She missed the bus TWICE this week.  Then again, at least she's not outright refusing to go to school, she's just dinking around and being late.  It's been really hard to keep her on track with everything since I've been so sick.
Yup.  Bronchitis and laryngitis.  Woo.  Because, I'm so good at coping I just fall apart when I'm under stress.  Ugh.  I think it may be going into a lovely sinus infection, now, too.  I should have gone to the doctor - but when?? Between two hearings for my son, two counseling sessions, driving my oldest son back and forth for work, and pretty much collapsing in between... sigh.  I'm not very good at this life thing.  Clearly.