http://jobcorps.dol.gov/faq.htm
I went to the web site and checked it out. DON'T SIGN ANYTHING YET.
Read about it first. They only need to be 16. They need your permission (hence don't sign anything yet) and you are to go to the interview with birth certificate, immunization record, etc...
I'm not all for JobCorp, and if it's between getting treatment or learning independent living skills? It's a real toss up. Because I've had to make that decision this past Fall with my own son. Like you I had to come to terms with the death of many of my dreams. I've had to lower my expectations to literally save my health. I've had to come to grips with letting go and putting my son in God's hands. I couldn't keep him in MY hands any longer - they were busy wrenching from fret and worry.
I think about all the things I dreamed of for him before he was born, how I carefully chose a name I could picture on the door of an office looking sturdy. I pictured me helping out baking cup cakes for his class or putting together party bags for his birthday parties. I pictured school pictures in a neat 12 year frame, I pictured prom, learning how to drive, graduation - maybe even a little league type sports team and the pictures I would share with my parents. The pride = the joy - my son.
And I got nothing even close. I fought so hard for so long to try to make some part of MY dreams and visions a reality for ME I lost sight that difficult child had a brain, he had his own constitution, and he was NOT like other kids (except here). The dreams in his head for his life weren't what he thought either. So here we had me and him battling for different visions and each trying to enforce to the other that THEIR dream was what was RIGHT.
When I finally started to let go - it hurt, I thought my heart was being ripped from my chest. There were SO MANY THINGS that I, we didn't get to do as his Mom. I mean realistically I knew I wasn't going to have the school pictures or the little league games - and the days of putting prize bags together passed without the first purchase or group birthday with friends - but in the back of my mind I thought okay - compromise - maybe he CAN get a diploma. Those dreams were thwarted when he ended up in Department of Juvenile Justice. So compromise again - maybe a GED? And I cried.
I sat down and thought - later after being very angry at EVERYONE, God included and thought - my being angry over my dreams dying is NOT promoting anything helpful. So I started in therapy asking how I could learn to let go and helpful things I needed to hear so I could let my son - Go to a group home, get a job, work on school GED, and life skills. Hopefully he'll do those things. And just before Christmas - difficult child was going to be kicked out of the group home so I thought "A TREATMENT PLACE" and when this idea was presented to difficult child he flipped out.
Granted my son is NOT mentally well. The thought of him trying to learn life skills was nearly overwhelming for (((ME)) because what ((((I WANTED))) was....(fill in the blank. The truth be told - the day the caseworker came to get him he wasn't even off our property before he told the caseworker that he couldn't wait to get on his own. I couldn't believe it - I mean DIDN'T HE WANT to do what ((((I ))) had picked for him? ARGH.
What I have come to realize in the last 3.5 months is that at 16-17 he was sick and tired of locked down institutions. He was OVER tired of talking to psychiatric's for the last 11 years, he was glad to be in a school only 3 days a week, 5 days /6 hours a daywas too much stimulation for him. Living with 6 other boys and learning to run a house, pitch in, and some freedom seems to suit him more so than a place that locks him up and does group once a day, medications, and a psychiatrist once a month - with staff that are at best questionable and most don't have a clue. So....
I let go. I let go the best way I could - and gave him the opportunity to pursue what he has as his dream in his head or to form those dreams. I learned we can guide our children but when we start to make them live our dreams - we will clash every time.
I don't know you. I don't know your daughter. I have no clue what level of dysfunction she's dealing with nor do I have any idea what you've done for her in the past as her Mom -who loves her more than anything. I do know you want what is best for her.
IF Job corps is just out of the question for you, and she's balking at 16 for going into an Residential Treatment Center (RTC) - maybe there is a compromise you can reach? I don't know what that is - Maybe agree that she tries this treatment program and if she does well for x amount of weeks - then she can be medically discharged and GO to Job corps?
Or maybe there is a suitable therapeutic group home - split the difference - at a group home she would learn life skills, could make her own therapy appointments for mental health and a counselor - or not - go to alternative school, get a job. Most have pretty specific rules about what you have to do to maintain living there.
I wish I had a more solid answer for you. I would recommend that you yourself get into some type of therapy. It's really good for you, it helps to go into someones office and just blow a cork about your kid/life/work for an hour. I NEVER left a session feeling worse than I did when I went in. It was a great help to me to learn how to detach from a child who for every effort I gave - never came out of an Residential Treatment Center (RTC) better. He did learn things - which we HOPE will stick with him or that he'll fall back on to use in his life. And in the Group home he's finding out life is NOT easy or rosey without a job, skills, and people REALLY don't want to hire a kid with tattoos on his forerms - Mom wasn't lying, Dad isnt' a dork, you really DO have to pay people for rides here and there - and if you don't pitch in at the group home and someone else had to to your chores - you are treated like you are invisible.
I can't tell you that I made a better or right decision to send difficult child there - I can tell you he's learned more in 3 months there than he has living at home with all of us in an uproar.
Hugs to you -
Star
