bugchucker
Well-known member
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
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
