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Substance Abuse
almost 18, talented, troubled
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<blockquote data-quote="AndSoItGoes" data-source="post: 664528" data-attributes="member: 19395"><p>I spoke yesterday with the psychiatrist who is doing my son's court-ordered psychiatric evaluation. To paraphrase, he scored high in verbal aggressiveness but low in physical aggressiveness, is impulsive and does not think about the consequences of his actions, disregards authority, makes stupid (her word) choices beyond those of a normal adolescent, yet takes "some" responsibility for his actions. He is smart, manipulative, and very good at getting around the system and pushing boundaries. He is a very challenging person to parent. The psychiatrist said that if she still did counseling (she doesn't) she would love to have him as a client. She thinks that DHS placement (juvie) would be a mistake and is recommending that he come come and receive both family therapy and individual therapy with an experienced therapist, which my son is willing to do (in fact he asked me to find him a counselor, which I have done). Because his juvenile treatment court (JTC) program requires a stable home environment, if we do not accept him back into the house he would be placed in juvie. My wife and I have had many heart-to-hearts on this, and have agreed to take him back as long as he adheres to a set of explicit and implicit conditions, including no drugs or alcohol, we can search his room, web history, phone etc, no social media, and so on. JCT will continue to do urine testing with real consequences for positives. He now knows that we will provide evidence of any illegal behavior to law enforcement. While in detention, expresses a sincere desire to turn his life around and make us proud of him (his words; I've told him it's more important for him to be proud of himself). Both the psychiatrist and I believe that this is sincere, but both know that it's difficult to do a 180 degree turn on a dime. That's why family counseling and personal counseling for him will be important to him in the honeymoon phase. I'll also be getting counseling. I didn't mention it before, but my wife has cancer, which certainly doesn't help the stress level in the house. I'm expecting that tomorrow the judge will allow him to come home (2 weeks since being detained), possibly with in-home detention and/or a GPS anklet. One of the biggest challenges will be that he's not yet expressed willingness to end relationships with his friends who use drugs, including his girlfriend, who he says he wants to marry. She's moving out of state in August for college, so that may take care of itself. His other friends are a different issue. Of course most of his non-using friends have distanced themselves from him over the past few years, but at least one of the "good kids" reached out to him in the weeks just before the last <img src="/community/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/2012/censored2.gif" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":censored2:" title="censored2 :censored2:" data-shortname=":censored2:" /> storm. He says that everyone his age smokes weed. We hope that the restrictions we place on him and his counseling will lead him to accept that he can't keep hanging out with the bad crowd and avoid bad choices. I hope that he ends his relationships with those making bad choices and builds new relationships with those who make good ones. We shall see.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AndSoItGoes, post: 664528, member: 19395"] I spoke yesterday with the psychiatrist who is doing my son's court-ordered psychiatric evaluation. To paraphrase, he scored high in verbal aggressiveness but low in physical aggressiveness, is impulsive and does not think about the consequences of his actions, disregards authority, makes stupid (her word) choices beyond those of a normal adolescent, yet takes "some" responsibility for his actions. He is smart, manipulative, and very good at getting around the system and pushing boundaries. He is a very challenging person to parent. The psychiatrist said that if she still did counseling (she doesn't) she would love to have him as a client. She thinks that DHS placement (juvie) would be a mistake and is recommending that he come come and receive both family therapy and individual therapy with an experienced therapist, which my son is willing to do (in fact he asked me to find him a counselor, which I have done). Because his juvenile treatment court (JTC) program requires a stable home environment, if we do not accept him back into the house he would be placed in juvie. My wife and I have had many heart-to-hearts on this, and have agreed to take him back as long as he adheres to a set of explicit and implicit conditions, including no drugs or alcohol, we can search his room, web history, phone etc, no social media, and so on. JCT will continue to do urine testing with real consequences for positives. He now knows that we will provide evidence of any illegal behavior to law enforcement. While in detention, expresses a sincere desire to turn his life around and make us proud of him (his words; I've told him it's more important for him to be proud of himself). Both the psychiatrist and I believe that this is sincere, but both know that it's difficult to do a 180 degree turn on a dime. That's why family counseling and personal counseling for him will be important to him in the honeymoon phase. I'll also be getting counseling. I didn't mention it before, but my wife has cancer, which certainly doesn't help the stress level in the house. I'm expecting that tomorrow the judge will allow him to come home (2 weeks since being detained), possibly with in-home detention and/or a GPS anklet. One of the biggest challenges will be that he's not yet expressed willingness to end relationships with his friends who use drugs, including his girlfriend, who he says he wants to marry. She's moving out of state in August for college, so that may take care of itself. His other friends are a different issue. Of course most of his non-using friends have distanced themselves from him over the past few years, but at least one of the "good kids" reached out to him in the weeks just before the last :censored2: storm. He says that everyone his age smokes weed. We hope that the restrictions we place on him and his counseling will lead him to accept that he can't keep hanging out with the bad crowd and avoid bad choices. I hope that he ends his relationships with those making bad choices and builds new relationships with those who make good ones. We shall see. [/QUOTE]
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