klmno
Active Member
difficult child has court tomorrow. The defense attny had requested a mental health evaluation and said he was going to ask for difficult child to be released on time served and any mental health treatment their evaluator recommended. Mind you, this is a person with our mental health dept but assigned full time to work with courts and kids in detention. Anyway, PO said he thought maybe this three weeks would wake difficult child up and he's ok with giving difficult child one more chance after that. And PO told me he talked to the person going to do difficult child's evaluation and told her what "he'd like to see and what he thought". (Another case of the tail wagging the dog, in my humble opinion, which is typical here- the courts people tell the mental health people what they think the diagnosis is and what they want the treatment to be.) Really, this has nothing to do with difficult child- it has to do with policy and how stupid they all look for saying Department of Juvenile Justice would be the same as Residential Treatment Center (RTC) but obviously, it wasn't too effective and now they don't want to automatically reincarcerate difficult child in a Department of Juvenile Justice facility- it looks too much like this jurisdiction failed. The defense attny said if I didn't want difficult child coming home on these terms, he'd need to get a GAL on board and get dss involved again. See- that is how they intimidate a parent into going along with their brilliant ideas.
As a side note- I finally figured out why they kept a GAL on board for so long before- I had thought I was showing the court people that I was not an overly-permissive parent and I had been trying to get a point across to difficult child so in the past, I would let people in the court system know that I might not hire an attny for difficult child and I might not welcome difficult child home if he didn't do certain things. Well, that's what did it- apparently in our jurisdiction the parent is supposed to show up in court and be the kid's best friend instead of a disciplinarian- oh, and you better let them know that you DO believe your kid should have an attny- even if the kid did something completely intolerable to you.
Ok- back on track- the mental health evaluator called last night and I ended up completely snapping on her. Somewhere between asking me what I thought difficult child n eeded (duh- it was them they refused to support or allow a psychiatric Residential Treatment Center (RTC) and everything else I even mention gets a response of "it's not available"), telling me that she had just spent a few mins with difficult child and just based on that and a review of his lengthy court record, she believes he has conduct disorder (well, we all know he has conduct issues but a thorough review of his MH hx and other factors including previous evaluations might reveal more than a few mins with him and a review of his court record), so the only recommendation she could come up with would be MST- with the same guy (the only guy they have that does it) that started this before and then later told me that maybe difficult child was this way and drew the knife on me because I had issues. Idiot. Yes, Mr. Behavior contract. So, I snapped and she got a piece of my mind about this system and how all these people who claim they can help really do no more than lecture until we aggree to try something, then they write it down and threaten non-compliance if we don't do it. Of course, she chuckled and they threw me further over the top. I don't remember all I said but it included a statement about there being a major disconnect between me and them and I really didn't see how a behavior contract stating that I'll cook what difficult child chooses more often if he agrees to quit breaking the law helps us at 11:00 or 12:00 at night when I'm calling 911 trying to get police here so they can call crisis center and determine if difficult child is to get TDO'd or incarcerated this time. And just because it's all they have available doesn't mean it's useful and I thought it was ridicualous. She agreed that it sounded ridiculous and then mentoined out-patient therapy. I told her our history with it and that I'd been told it wouldn't work unless difficult child gets to a point someday that he wants help for his issues- that if the issues are going to be confronted otherwise, I had been told be two highly credible psychiatric hospital staff that it would have to be in a therapuetic Residential Treatment Center (RTC). She pushed that a little and I told her that anyone who pushes us to go down that road again after we spent 3-4 years pursuing it and we all know how it ended up - so whomever thinks we should do it again and expect a different result is the person who belongs in therapy in my book.
Also, she said difficult child "identified too much with kids who got into trouble". Well, HELLO- the recommendations from the psychiatric hospital said Department of Juvenile Justice would do more harm for difficult child than good- you all put him there anyway and he's spent over a year in there with kids who get into trouble. Who do you think he's going to identify with? Did you think he was supposed to sit in there and think he's not like those other kids- or that the staff would even allow him to act that way?
Then, she says their MST program is much better now and it would be different (never mind that it's the same persdon doing it) - so I just told her that I'm not buying into it- period. She got off the phone pretty quick after that. I hate it when tdocs think it's all about a person buying into something- I don't want any therapist who manipulates, I want one who levels with me. If I am trying to get difficult child to be open and honest, the last thing I want to hear from a therapist is that difficult child and I have to buy into something- it just has manipulation written all over it.
Sooo- as far as difficult child- he was allowed to call alst night and I told him I might not show up to court because I don't think he he is ready to come home and try to do what he should. Tonight I went to visit and reiterated that if he is going to live in my house, it will be on my terms not his. He said after being in Department of Juvenile Justice for a year he didn't need me any more. (Yes, ladies, it's possible for there to be too much detachment when you're dealing with a minor.) He said he wanted to talk to his def attny before court tomorrow and discuss going to group home then because I didn't trust him or want him home and he'd ask the def attny to try to get him into a group home- as long as it was in this area so he could still hang out with these "friends". Ok-doke difficult child. (Well, I forsee a GAL and dss involvement again - and coming soon- and why?- because I expect my son to obey and be respectful if he lives at home.) Anyway, then difficult child proceeded to talk about how all he wanted was to do "wild and crazy things and he'd try them all as long as it hadn't killed the guy in front of him that just tried it." Then he talked about drugs and how much fun he'd had and how trying acid and some ither drug could be exciting.
I got up and walked out on him at that point.
As a side note- I finally figured out why they kept a GAL on board for so long before- I had thought I was showing the court people that I was not an overly-permissive parent and I had been trying to get a point across to difficult child so in the past, I would let people in the court system know that I might not hire an attny for difficult child and I might not welcome difficult child home if he didn't do certain things. Well, that's what did it- apparently in our jurisdiction the parent is supposed to show up in court and be the kid's best friend instead of a disciplinarian- oh, and you better let them know that you DO believe your kid should have an attny- even if the kid did something completely intolerable to you.
Ok- back on track- the mental health evaluator called last night and I ended up completely snapping on her. Somewhere between asking me what I thought difficult child n eeded (duh- it was them they refused to support or allow a psychiatric Residential Treatment Center (RTC) and everything else I even mention gets a response of "it's not available"), telling me that she had just spent a few mins with difficult child and just based on that and a review of his lengthy court record, she believes he has conduct disorder (well, we all know he has conduct issues but a thorough review of his MH hx and other factors including previous evaluations might reveal more than a few mins with him and a review of his court record), so the only recommendation she could come up with would be MST- with the same guy (the only guy they have that does it) that started this before and then later told me that maybe difficult child was this way and drew the knife on me because I had issues. Idiot. Yes, Mr. Behavior contract. So, I snapped and she got a piece of my mind about this system and how all these people who claim they can help really do no more than lecture until we aggree to try something, then they write it down and threaten non-compliance if we don't do it. Of course, she chuckled and they threw me further over the top. I don't remember all I said but it included a statement about there being a major disconnect between me and them and I really didn't see how a behavior contract stating that I'll cook what difficult child chooses more often if he agrees to quit breaking the law helps us at 11:00 or 12:00 at night when I'm calling 911 trying to get police here so they can call crisis center and determine if difficult child is to get TDO'd or incarcerated this time. And just because it's all they have available doesn't mean it's useful and I thought it was ridicualous. She agreed that it sounded ridiculous and then mentoined out-patient therapy. I told her our history with it and that I'd been told it wouldn't work unless difficult child gets to a point someday that he wants help for his issues- that if the issues are going to be confronted otherwise, I had been told be two highly credible psychiatric hospital staff that it would have to be in a therapuetic Residential Treatment Center (RTC). She pushed that a little and I told her that anyone who pushes us to go down that road again after we spent 3-4 years pursuing it and we all know how it ended up - so whomever thinks we should do it again and expect a different result is the person who belongs in therapy in my book.
Also, she said difficult child "identified too much with kids who got into trouble". Well, HELLO- the recommendations from the psychiatric hospital said Department of Juvenile Justice would do more harm for difficult child than good- you all put him there anyway and he's spent over a year in there with kids who get into trouble. Who do you think he's going to identify with? Did you think he was supposed to sit in there and think he's not like those other kids- or that the staff would even allow him to act that way?
Then, she says their MST program is much better now and it would be different (never mind that it's the same persdon doing it) - so I just told her that I'm not buying into it- period. She got off the phone pretty quick after that. I hate it when tdocs think it's all about a person buying into something- I don't want any therapist who manipulates, I want one who levels with me. If I am trying to get difficult child to be open and honest, the last thing I want to hear from a therapist is that difficult child and I have to buy into something- it just has manipulation written all over it.
Sooo- as far as difficult child- he was allowed to call alst night and I told him I might not show up to court because I don't think he he is ready to come home and try to do what he should. Tonight I went to visit and reiterated that if he is going to live in my house, it will be on my terms not his. He said after being in Department of Juvenile Justice for a year he didn't need me any more. (Yes, ladies, it's possible for there to be too much detachment when you're dealing with a minor.) He said he wanted to talk to his def attny before court tomorrow and discuss going to group home then because I didn't trust him or want him home and he'd ask the def attny to try to get him into a group home- as long as it was in this area so he could still hang out with these "friends". Ok-doke difficult child. (Well, I forsee a GAL and dss involvement again - and coming soon- and why?- because I expect my son to obey and be respectful if he lives at home.) Anyway, then difficult child proceeded to talk about how all he wanted was to do "wild and crazy things and he'd try them all as long as it hadn't killed the guy in front of him that just tried it." Then he talked about drugs and how much fun he'd had and how trying acid and some ither drug could be exciting.
I got up and walked out on him at that point.
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