Woo hoo! Got some police work for difficult child for community svc

[TerryJ2]

So, difficult child will be working 2 hrs a wk, serving food to the poor every Thurs night at husband's church, but that will take a yr to complete his court ordered community svc. He has to be 16 to work at the SPCA and his birthday is Dec. So the community svc worker got difficult child 5 hrs on Sat mornings from 8-1:00 at the police station. The first two wks are some kind of instructional thing, and after that, he will be washing squad cars and picking up trash. LOL! I love it!

difficult child brought his girlfriend to serve dinners last night ... ticked me off, because how hard is that when your girlfriend is with-you? Although the church was happy with-more hands. Then they took a break and husband had to discipline them because she was sitting in his lap and they were cuddling and texting and husband told them in was inappropriate. difficult child was surly all night after that. Too bad, so sad.

It will be a lot of driving for me but I'm just glad that difficult child has things to do that will keep him out of trouble. How to make him do this when his probation is over at the end of Feb ...

 

[TeDo]

Yea, that IS awesome. As for the girlfriend issue, is there any way that he can be told he won't be able to continue doing that if it happens again? And then ..... "you're community service won't be done on time and you'll be in violation of your probation which means .... ". Do you think that would work to keep him in line without the attitude? I AM glad that he'll be out of your hair. Now youcan breathe a little more?!?

 

[TerryJ2]

Yes, I can breathe ... a little.

We are going to have to put our feet down (foot?) about the girlfriend. It's getting ridiculous.

And in regard to difficult child not having an attitude, he always has an attitude. So I'm not even going to wish for a change there.

 

[InsaneCdn]

Terry... it's not about dropping the attitude, it's about slowly tweaking it. There are "attitudes" and then there are attitudes.

I've got two with... attitudes.

 

[DDD]

I've taken a few minutes to think about your post and I wonder if it would not be a better idea to have the church volunteer coordinator speak to difficult child or difficult child and his girlfriend. Of course I don't "know" the environment or the teens but in my years of dealing with difficult child teens the input of outsiders held more weight and also limited the resentment. If "the" leader quietly said "we appreciate your help and your girlfriend's too as we want to serve as many needy as possible" BUT our volunteers don't display affection on our property because it makes others uncomfortable" it would likely be absorbed but not personal. Just a sleepy thought this morning. DDD

 

[HopeRemains]

I'm glad to hear he's being made to do something constructive. =)

 

[buddy]

SOOO great. Would even be more cool if he started looking around and saw some kind of career goal in any of this. I hope he does, he has a lot going for him, if he could get past the nonsense!

 

[AnnieO]

I like DDD's thoughts... Church is so not the place for lap sitting, unless it is a VERY small child on a parent's lap. Ugh.

 

[TerryJ2]

Thank you, great idea!