Origami
Active Member
My younger difficult child age 17 has his driver's permit but not a real license. Night before last (actually at 4 a.m.) I heard the front door open and saw he wasn't in his room and the car keys were gone from the bowl where we keep them. My older son had driven and left them there, which is our usual spot to keep them. I called difficult child and asked where he was. He said he was taking his girlfriend home. She had apparently been in our house all night without my knowledge. (That's another story altogether, but I wasn't so worried about that part at the moment.)
I told him he didn't have permission to drive and she shouldn't have been over without me knowing. Then my mind started "thinking like a criminal" and considering all the things he might do if I lowered the boom right then, like driving around all over the place or not getting the car back in time for me to go to work just to be spiteful. So I texted that if he didn't have the car back within 30 minutes, I would call the police for a stolen vehicle. He replied "LOL ok" and I replied "LOL felony." He's terrified of that possibility since he really wants to join the military.
He did return within the 30 minutes and had parked in a space that had to be vacated by 7 a.m. I told him to move it to another place so I didn't have to move it that early, and he did. I also told him that he needed to find his own way to class that morning since I wouldn't be driving him. He said OK, then I'm not going. I said "fine." He takes classes at the same community college where husband and I work, and we drive in an hour early for his benefit three days a week (his classes start at 7:30, we have to be there at 8:30).
All this happened after he had been out with his skateboarding friends all weekend, slept overnight in a different town without asking or telling ("I thought you'd know where I was," was the explanation), and entertained me (not) with a drawn-out account of bragging how drunk he got with his friends and the stupid things they had done.
So I set my alarm to sleep an extra hour. He didn't go to class, but he did go to therapy in the afternoon and we dropped him by his friend's house later. I told him to take the bus home as we weren't coming to pick him up.
Anyway, husband and I decided that difficult child the younger can find his own way to school from now on unless he wants to ride with us on our schedule (two days a week when he has later classes), and the extra rides here and there are stopping. He has a bus card, and if he can figure out how to take the bus to God-knows-where doing God-knows-what, he can get to his classes on his own. We'd been taking him partly because he was working until midnight the night before his early classes, but he quit his job anyway, so that reason no longer exists.
I made the mistake of letting him drive his girlfriend home once last week by himself, so I think he felt entitled to drive whenever he feels like it. I told him it was a lapse of judgment on my part to let him drive unaccompanied, and he won't be doing it again. He can get his license in a few months when he turns 18.
Last night I had my older son bring the keys all the way into our room last night after he drove instead of putting them in the bowl so that younger difficult child couldn't get them. I guess this is another thing we have to think about.
Ugh. Driving + difficult children.
I told him he didn't have permission to drive and she shouldn't have been over without me knowing. Then my mind started "thinking like a criminal" and considering all the things he might do if I lowered the boom right then, like driving around all over the place or not getting the car back in time for me to go to work just to be spiteful. So I texted that if he didn't have the car back within 30 minutes, I would call the police for a stolen vehicle. He replied "LOL ok" and I replied "LOL felony." He's terrified of that possibility since he really wants to join the military.
He did return within the 30 minutes and had parked in a space that had to be vacated by 7 a.m. I told him to move it to another place so I didn't have to move it that early, and he did. I also told him that he needed to find his own way to class that morning since I wouldn't be driving him. He said OK, then I'm not going. I said "fine." He takes classes at the same community college where husband and I work, and we drive in an hour early for his benefit three days a week (his classes start at 7:30, we have to be there at 8:30).
All this happened after he had been out with his skateboarding friends all weekend, slept overnight in a different town without asking or telling ("I thought you'd know where I was," was the explanation), and entertained me (not) with a drawn-out account of bragging how drunk he got with his friends and the stupid things they had done.
So I set my alarm to sleep an extra hour. He didn't go to class, but he did go to therapy in the afternoon and we dropped him by his friend's house later. I told him to take the bus home as we weren't coming to pick him up.
Anyway, husband and I decided that difficult child the younger can find his own way to school from now on unless he wants to ride with us on our schedule (two days a week when he has later classes), and the extra rides here and there are stopping. He has a bus card, and if he can figure out how to take the bus to God-knows-where doing God-knows-what, he can get to his classes on his own. We'd been taking him partly because he was working until midnight the night before his early classes, but he quit his job anyway, so that reason no longer exists.
I made the mistake of letting him drive his girlfriend home once last week by himself, so I think he felt entitled to drive whenever he feels like it. I told him it was a lapse of judgment on my part to let him drive unaccompanied, and he won't be doing it again. He can get his license in a few months when he turns 18.
Last night I had my older son bring the keys all the way into our room last night after he drove instead of putting them in the bowl so that younger difficult child couldn't get them. I guess this is another thing we have to think about.
Ugh. Driving + difficult children.