I don't get it!

MommaK

Member
My best friend text me this morning to tell me her middle child found something on the daughters snap chat that I needed to know about. Daughter borrowed her friends phone last night while spending the night. Apparently after everyone went to sleep daughter and her friend began mixing "lean" or "purple drink" and posted it on snap chat. If you don't know what this is, it is sprite, jolly ranchers, and cough medicine(with codeine) all mixed together. I'm glad my friends kid told his mom who is close enough to me that she told me. I'm lost tho in what to do with the daughter. She is playing a dangerous game of mixing medications that could kill her. She is on seraquil to stabilize moods, which it is doing. She also takes focalin xr 10mg daily for ADHD. She is in therapy 5 days a week for partial on patient treatment. She never fails to get busted doing stupid crap like this, but she keeps trying. We are now going to have to lock up all medications whether they are prescription or OTC, because I will not give her easy access to it in my house. We will no longer be able to allow her to spend the night with anyone and I won't allow them to come to my house. What other precautions should we consider or take? I will be telling her therapist this today to get his take on it. I know even non difficult teens pull stupid stunts like this, but with her being bipolar and on medications this is more serious than a typical non difficult teen testing the limits.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
It may not just be codeine you have to worry about. Codeine cough syrup usually contains promethazine to prevent vomiting from the codeine. In addition, quite often, a few hydrocodone (Vicodin, Norco, etc.), or oxycodone (Percoset, Roxicodone) tablets are dissolved in it to increase the kick.

If you are in the U.S., codeine cough syrup requires a prescription. I know that it is OTC in many other countries, though, as are low-dose codeine/acetaminophen tablets.

So, if in the U.S., you've got the potential legal issues to worry about as well.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
What other precautions should we consider or take?
It isn't all about precautions. Yes, you need to take them. But she isn't a 5 year old. Older kids can and do find ways around almost any precaution you can think of.

What is she getting instead of sleep-overs and having friends in? If all you are doing is taking things away, it just provides more fuel to the desire to find away around restrictions.
 

MommaK

Member
Exactly! We are in the U.S. and in the pictures the bottle of cough medicine appears to be OTC. I will be talking to the parents where this took place also.
 
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MommaK

Member
We allowed her to stay with this friend because I know I can trust the adults. It's her that I cannot trust. She lies constantly and does stuff like this whether she is allowed more freedom or no freedom. I just don't know any more. I am so very lost and confused.
 

MommaK

Member
It isn't all about precautions. Yes, you need to take them. But she isn't a 5 year old. Older kids can and do find ways around almost any precaution you can think of.

What is she getting instead of sleep-overs and having friends in? If all you are doing is taking things away, it just provides more fuel to the desire to find away around restrictions.

She was being allowed to have friends over at the house, use my cell with supervision, and go to select friends houses because I can trust the parents. Now I don't know what to do or how to handle this.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Another worry with OTC cough syrup that is more dangerous with psychiatric medications is DXM or dextromethorphan. It is a cough control medication that in high doses is a potent psychedelic. It is extremely popular with both kids and adults.

The danger with DXM and psychiatric medications is Serotonin Syndrome, as both many psychiatric medications and DXM act on serotonin production and receptors in the brain. An overage of Serotonin can cause a variety of sx and can be lethal.

Google for more info.

As regards restrictions, try replacing what you've taken away with healthy activities that she enjoys. School should be out or almost out. If you can afford it, look into short-term day camps devoted to various subjects. Not school stuff, but perhaps horses, or art, or computers. Who knows, she may find an interest she didn't know she had.

If time allows, spend time with her doing fun things. Go to the library with her, take out the same books, read them at the same time and discuss them.

My mother and I used to do this when I was a child and we had a blast doing so. Gave me a great perspective on adult thinking, etc, AND gave my mother a child's perspective.
 

MommaK

Member
W
Another worry with OTC cough syrup that is more dangerous with psychiatric medications is DXM or dextromethorphan. It is a cough control medication that in high doses is a potent psychedelic. It is extremely popular with both kids and adults.

The danger with DXM and psychiatric medications is Serotonin Syndrome, as both many psychiatric medications and DXM act on serotonin production and receptors in the brain. An overage of Serotonin can cause a variety of sx and can be lethal.

Google for more info.

As regards restrictions, try replacing what you've taken away with healthy activities that she enjoys. School should be out or almost out. If you can afford it, look into short-term day camps devoted to various subjects. Not school stuff, but perhaps horses, or art, or computers. Who knows, she may find an interest she didn't know she had.

If time allows, spend time with her doing fun things. Go to the library with her, take out the same books, read them at the same time and discuss them.

My mother and I used to do this when I was a child and we had a blast doing so. Gave me a great perspective on adult thinking, etc, AND gave my mother a child's perspective.

The worry over her mixing the medication is why I'm talking to her psychiatrist and psychologist today.

We already do most of these things. Art, softball, crafting, one on one time doing things she likes, and girls trips. This is not a child starved for attention or not allowed to do anything. That's why I'm not getting it. I'm doing all of this and then some.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
I don't know how old she is, but if she is under 16 if she wanted to be with friends she would have to do it at home with her bedroom door open and your checks. No sleepovers. My daughter got into the most trouble at night when we were sleeping.

Not all kids do this and most are not are psychiatric medication to make it more dangerous.

I had a young drug abuser and while we could take steps to etop it when she was under 16 we fouND no way to stop her after that. She found ways to get out of the house usually when we were sleeping. Wish I'd known about alarms.

Try all you can think of before she gets oldee.

Hugs and good luck.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
Nothing changes unless something changes.
That's why I'm not getting it. I'm doing all of this and then some.

If what you are doing isn't working, what do you need to change.
It's so easy as a parent of a challenging kid to put the focus on getting them to change.

To get different results, the one who had to change first was ME.

Art, softball, crafting, one on one time doing things she likes, and girls trips.
Try doing something totally different. Like, different enough to be outside of your comfort zone and probably hers too. Break the cycle. Somehow.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Go to a "pet show". Cats. Dogs. Maybe even a horse show. Or, various "working" dog shows. Everything from obedience to the for fun stuff like agility or flyball.

Why not volunteer at an animal shelter. I did for years and loved it
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
IC, what's the competition where dogs do a sort of broad jump where they jump from a solid pier into a body of water or pool and are awarded based on how far they jump before the hit the water.

Used to laugh about this as I had GSDs and while they are excellent jumpers, and many really enjoy swimming and playing in the water, the breed does NOT have what it takes to be "water dogs". You'd have a shepherd making a big splash, sinking like a stone, and thrashing madly for the surface.

That said, many of them have such phenomenal noses that they can smell fish through several feet of water. I had one girl that would "point" pike for us in Germany. She would swim out in the river, sniff out the pike and swim in circles barking.

When she saw one of us preparing to cast, she'd back away to get clear of the lure, and if we hooked the pike, she had to be waved off of it, or she'd retrieve it, risking a set of treble hooks in her mouth.

Anyway, unless you have a known water dog, stick with putting a life vest on your dog. Some of the really drivey dogs, like Shepherds, will swim until they sink.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
I think it's called "Dock Diving".
And yes, it's a scream to watch.

I also love watching herding-dog competitions. And agility.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
I and a few friends at the Shepherd Club outside of Chicago, taught Gryphon agility. He loved it once we arranged things a bit for him, like placing the weave poles farther apart because GSDs just don't have real flexible spines.

When I moved up North, He and I joined the local tracking club, where Gryph was the only non-hound/spaniel member of the club.

He actually did pretty well against the hunting dogs once he figured out that picking up a canvas tube that smelled like a quail and bringing it to me was a good thing. The funniest was when the dogs were sent out to "retrieve" restrained quail (their wings had been rubber banded to their bodies, poor things), and Gryphon, who couldn't figure out what on earth he was supposed to do with a live bird, reverted to his German style training, and sat down next to his quail and barked his head off.

Despite being trained to having a pistol fired over his head, his first exposure to a shotgun caused him to levitate, still in perfect sitting position. They fired the shotguns and then sent the dogs out to retrieve the "kill"
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
There is nothing that herds as elegantly as Border Collies, in my opinion. In Germany, I saw GSDs working both sheep and cattle, and there are still a couple of lines that specialize in it.

These days they are most used as outcross to bring intelligence and stamina back into the breed. My last two were bred on those lines and were uncannily intelligent and could run all day. Both dogs also died of the same type of brain tumor, which has me wondering.
 
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