Thank you, everyone. No, I have not tried county services but my husband and I will talk about it. I am afraid that he will be labeled as something that will last for life before he even commits a crime....and we still have the autism component that makes me second guess everything he does. Sometimes he does something terribly odd, and then when I really get to the bottom of why he did what he did....it was some autism-logic, if you know what I mean, and less harmful than it seemed on the surface. I hate to stamp him forever just by making an inquiry.
One good thing: our oldest daughter who is away at college, has a lovely boyfriend who is in school down by us. We have known his family for a long time and he is a delightful young man. He heard that our difficult child was struggling, and offered to step in and do a "Big Brother" thing and come up a few times a month and take him out somewhere fun. difficult child needs this. We have been trying for two years to get a Big Brother through the program, but they are full. So, the young man does not know details of what is going on. Daughter is afraid that it will make him run, because they are talking marriage down the road, and she is worried that this is something genetic that will scare off boyfriend. These dynamics are so far-reaching. They affect the whole family, don't they? My difficult child really admires this young man, by the way.
I have to laugh when I hear parents of other kids complaining that they caught their kid up late playing video games or texting and they are all bent and worried about coming up with the right "consequence." Ha ha ha ha.
