My son is 14. He was not a problem child when he was younger - not perfect, but no major trouble. Two years ago - when he had just turned 12, he was "showing off" and took his air soft gun (a plastic gun that shoots plastic bullets) to school. He had it in his backpack, showed a couple of freinds on the bus. He didn't take it out or act theateningly to anyone. Another boy told the principal, and he was expelled for 1 year. We felt this was extreme punishment, but stressed to him that he made a bad decision, and the consequences were a result of his actions. He retuned to school last January. The only real problem we noticed was that he didn't seen to socialize alot. Mostly stayed at home, or hung out with freinds from church youth group. Then, the beginning of this scoolyear, he started hanging out with alot more "new freinds". One day he came to me very upset, saying that he was having problems with "everyone", arguing with freinds, etc. I made an appointment with a mental health counselor for him, but before the appointment, we found out that he had been smoking pot, taking triple c's and drinking some. We went to the appointment, and talked mostly privately with the counselor, and we scheduled another appointment, but it was not scheduled for almost a month. During that monthy, things got worse. He started sneaking out in the middle of the night, and I suspect he smoked pot in the house. By the time the appointment came, he was very angry with us because I had done everything I could think of to try to keep him away from the kids he was smoking with - including sleeping outside of his room to make sure he didn't sneak out, and talking to the other kids' parents to make sure they knew what was going on. We had another appointment with the councelor today, and I am getting the impression that the counselor is only interested in talking about what we, as parents have done to "cause" our son to act this way. I know we are not perfect parents, but I think my son needs to take ownership of his own choices. I don't have a problem with some family therapy, but I feel like the focus needs to on my son's destructive behavior first. Opinions please?????????