S
Signorina
Guest
Is there a way to accept and love your son or daughter while rejecting the part of them who is the difficult child? To extend a hand and your love to the child while not enabling the difficult child? I apologize if I am not making sense. I realize we all love our difficult children and I don't mean to imply that detachment is rejection.
I guess what I am trying to say - is can you detach from the difficult child part yet maintain a loving relationship with your adult child?
I meet with the therapist on Monday. And since I had made my initial appointment as a "parenting strategies session" - that is what we focused upon.
His advice was that H and I needed to sit down and decide where we stand. Decide what behaviors were not OK with us. And what our reaction to the "not" behaviors would be and to basically explore all of the "what if" scenarios and decide how we would respond. Finally, to write a script based on our strategy and stick to the script when we meet with difficult child. He definitely thinks that we should drive up to see difficult child before he comes home for Thanksgiving and break the ice yet at the same time lay down the "will not deviate from" guidelines for difficult child to rejoin the family home. (over the holidays and summer)
These are my initial thoughts: Drug use, underage drinking and dealing is NOT OK with us and never will be. And we will not support him financially so long as he is smoking weed and drinking alcohol. (which he does admit to doing, but he denies he is dealing) So long as we know he has the potential test + for marijuana in his system, he may not drive any of our vehicles. He is not welcome in our home if he is altered. He may never bring drugs or drug paraphernalia into our home. If we find either, we will call the police. Premarital sexual activity and pornography are not welcome in our home at any time. If he is staying here, we expect him home by midnight on the weekdays and 1:30 on Friday & Saturday. If he wants to stay out later, he needs to stay with a friend and notify us by 10pm that he will not be home. There is no place in our home for disruptive behavior. (which has never been an issue) We realize he is an adult and we would never dream of telling him what to do while he is living in his own apartment and supporting himself. However, this is OUR home and we have the right to set a standard of living here. If he does not want to follow these guidelines, he is not welcome to stay here. If he is staying here and does not adhere to these guidelines, he needs to leave.
Additionally, we are willing to pay his tuition if he maintains a B-Average, gives us full access to his grades online and completes 14+ hours a semester. We will not pay his room or board or send him living expenses so long as he is using drugs or alcohol. He is welcome at any time to live at home, work and go to school locally so long as he gets help and agrees to regular drug and alcohol testing. Once he passes two blood tests, we will reconsider allowing him to drive our cars.
As I said, we had a strained relationship over the summer, but difficult child has been disruptive only 3 times since toddlerhood, so that's not a major concern. He has never stolen from us. I've also never found drugs etc despite searching for them regularly. (Regardless, valuables will be under lock and key while he is home and he no longer has a key to our house and we've changed the alarm code.)
Can I do this or am I fooling myself?
I guess what I am trying to say - is can you detach from the difficult child part yet maintain a loving relationship with your adult child?
I meet with the therapist on Monday. And since I had made my initial appointment as a "parenting strategies session" - that is what we focused upon.
His advice was that H and I needed to sit down and decide where we stand. Decide what behaviors were not OK with us. And what our reaction to the "not" behaviors would be and to basically explore all of the "what if" scenarios and decide how we would respond. Finally, to write a script based on our strategy and stick to the script when we meet with difficult child. He definitely thinks that we should drive up to see difficult child before he comes home for Thanksgiving and break the ice yet at the same time lay down the "will not deviate from" guidelines for difficult child to rejoin the family home. (over the holidays and summer)
These are my initial thoughts: Drug use, underage drinking and dealing is NOT OK with us and never will be. And we will not support him financially so long as he is smoking weed and drinking alcohol. (which he does admit to doing, but he denies he is dealing) So long as we know he has the potential test + for marijuana in his system, he may not drive any of our vehicles. He is not welcome in our home if he is altered. He may never bring drugs or drug paraphernalia into our home. If we find either, we will call the police. Premarital sexual activity and pornography are not welcome in our home at any time. If he is staying here, we expect him home by midnight on the weekdays and 1:30 on Friday & Saturday. If he wants to stay out later, he needs to stay with a friend and notify us by 10pm that he will not be home. There is no place in our home for disruptive behavior. (which has never been an issue) We realize he is an adult and we would never dream of telling him what to do while he is living in his own apartment and supporting himself. However, this is OUR home and we have the right to set a standard of living here. If he does not want to follow these guidelines, he is not welcome to stay here. If he is staying here and does not adhere to these guidelines, he needs to leave.
Additionally, we are willing to pay his tuition if he maintains a B-Average, gives us full access to his grades online and completes 14+ hours a semester. We will not pay his room or board or send him living expenses so long as he is using drugs or alcohol. He is welcome at any time to live at home, work and go to school locally so long as he gets help and agrees to regular drug and alcohol testing. Once he passes two blood tests, we will reconsider allowing him to drive our cars.
As I said, we had a strained relationship over the summer, but difficult child has been disruptive only 3 times since toddlerhood, so that's not a major concern. He has never stolen from us. I've also never found drugs etc despite searching for them regularly. (Regardless, valuables will be under lock and key while he is home and he no longer has a key to our house and we've changed the alarm code.)
Can I do this or am I fooling myself?