Son wants to try LSD...

[BusynMember]

Dont beat yourself up. Plenty of kids get early therapy and still use drugs. Peers becone more important than any others at one point and if their peers use drugs, they must too or find other friends. My daughter told me the "bad" kids are the friendliest to kids who struggle to fit in.

 

[susiestar]

I do not know why you would feel bad for reading your minor child's texts. My kids know, and have known for years, that I reserve the right to read anything they post online anywhere, and any texts or chats or fb posts. They only have computers, tablets, phones etc... because I pay for them, therefore I have the right to see anything on them. I also have the right to see ALL of their medical and school records. In some states a child can keep parents out of their medical and/or psychiatric records if they want to. My kids know their world will stop cold if I cannot see their records, phones, etc... I pay for their stuff, and I have more experience with the world, and I am responsible for them, so if I feel the need or desire to look into what they are doing, then I will do so without guilt or hesitation of any kind.

My 21 yo daughter lives at home and still doesn't care if I see her texts or what she does online. I doubt she ever will, and she has more freedoms now, but under my roof means my rules and always will.

 

[GoingNorth]

Susie, I know where you are coming from, and I agree with you, but with the "right" kind of kid, you are setting yourself up up for estrangement as soon as that kid is out from under your roof.

Trust goes both ways, and a child who knows their parents don't trust them, can turn out to be a child who doesn't trust their parents.

I pre-date modern tech like cellphones and the WWW by many years, but when I was a child, my family enrolled the family in counseling and me in individual counseling. I was assured that the individual counseling was my "safe place" to talk about what was bothering me, and talk I did.

Only to find that, to the great damage to my family bond, my counselor was relaying everything I said back to my parents, who were NOT happy.

I STILL, 40 years later, cannot completely trust a therapist. Not only that, I lost trust in my parents, an issue which remains to this day.