Your son has made his choice. Better to have a speeding ticket on your record now, at 17, than something worse, later.
He made his choice.
You already explained his options.
He made his choice. Just as it has been his choice to flaunt house rules and whatever else he has done to get himself to this place in his life. As he is so young, I would talk with him about what you wanted for him from his life. I would talk with him about what you are prepared to do for him re: education, vehicle, living arrangements as long as he is traveling the path you believe is the right path. You are his mother. You have that right to choose for him until he is fully grown. I would make it very clear to him that you have always planned to make these things possible for him. I would tell him that, because he is young, you are continuing to walk the path he's chosen for himself instead of the one you chose for him for just a little while longer. But tell him too that the day will come when you are going to take him at his word. And when that day comes, you are going to let him go to that life he has chosen. That you will wish him every success, but that the things available to him now as a matter of course ~ education, living quarters, legal help ~ those things will all become his own responsibility.
Tell him you love him too much to watch him self destruct, and that, come a certain time, you will refuse to help him do that, in any way. That you will believe him, when he tells you through words or actions, that this is all he wants from his life.
Tell him that the day will come when you will stop trying to change what he seems so determined to destroy.
I don't know how we can help our kids wake up to what they are doing to their lives.
It is a hard thing.
Wishing you and your family well, Bluebell.
Cedar
