Sorry so long but the ending is soooo worth it!

[TeDo]

It has been a pattern that when difficult child spends the night at a friend's, he coes home the next day tired, crabby, and with an upset stomach. I have always attributed it to unhealthy food (we moderate in our house) and not enough sleep (we have a bedtime even on week-ends). That is why I only allow him to sleep over when I am in a "sane", for lack of a better word, place to handle the aftermath.

Last night, difficult child spent the night at a friend's, first one since school started. I sent his pill box with him and told him to take his medications when he was going to go to sleep and then again when he woke up in the morning. So, today when he comes home at 9 am, he looks absolutely wretched. He looks tired, pale, and complains of feeling "pukey". I told him this happens every time he sleeps at a friend's and that we won't be doing that again for a very long time. I told him to go in the other room, leave the lights off, and lay on the couch. I figured it was more of the too much junk food and not enough sleep syndrome. At about 10 am, I looked in on him and he was sound asleep. Three hours after that, he still hadn't moved.

So, he woke up about about an hour ago. He still looks tired but he said he was hungry. As he was getting something to eat, he came up to me and in all seriousness said "I'm sorry. I've been lying to you for a long time now." I curiously asked "about what", thinking that he was lying about feeling sick so he didn't have to go to Sunday School or Church today. Boy was I wrong! He confessed to me that he has never taken any of his medications when he has slept at a friend's. He admitted he has been flushing them so I wouldn't know. He admits that he doesn't like taking them with his friends around, even though he's told me they all know he takes them.

My response was to ask him why he told me this time. His answer was "now I know that when I don't take them, I feel sick." I told him thanks for telling me and then told him that some medications can have even worse things happen if you don't take them. I wanted the lesson to stick so I picked the worse case scenario for stopping some medications abruptly.

I am so proud of him for finally coming forward and I let him know that. Maybe he really IS growing up. He still isn't going to go to a sleepover for quite a long time. hehe

 

[smallworld]

Wow, this is huge! Glad he owned up to the truth.

My kids have a really hard time taking medications in front of friends. We practice scenarios for when they go on sleepovers (for example, pretend you have to go to the bathroom and bring your medications with you). Maybe you can do that with your son the next time he earns the privilege of going on a sleepover.

 

[Marguerite]

How old is he now? We had tis problem with difficult child 1 from about age 11, until age 15 or so. He kept trying to 'prove' to himself first, so he could then say to us, that he didn't need medications or to avoid caffeine. But eventually he had to accept that we were right. The problem for us - difficult child 1 couldn't see the difference in himself when he didn't do the right thing. Everyone else was crabby, though! He couldn't see that everyone else was crabby with him, because he was out of control.

You had a really good result. Now you need to talk to him about why he doesn't want to go to Sunday School or church. We went through this with easy child, and then easy child 2/difficult child 2. To a certain extent now, difficult child 3. Their reasons were generally because they felt excluded, or disapproved of. I remember easy child 2/difficult child 2 bringing her new boyfriend (the ex, now) to church one day. They actually arrived towards the end of church (not a big deal for us - they had only just got back to the village for the day) and I was horrified to hear how some of the other girls, one in particular, were speaking to my daughter. "We all know what you've been doing with him," the girl sniffed loudly. Whether or not she was at that time sleeping with him (and I don't think she was at that point, although I think it was the final straw - "might as well do what we're being accused of anyway") was not relevant and certainly not something that should have been said loudly in public. It was perhaps the last time easy child 2/difficult child 2 ever went to church with us.

When difficult child 3 was little, he was the only boy in our church congregation kids. We had about 20 girls, and only one boy. difficult child 1 is ten years older. So the girls used to gang up on him. They would have "boy-free zones" and actually barricade various places and only let adults through, or girls. Very mean.
Mind you - when difficult child 3 finally started school, these same kids who had ostracised him at church and Sunday School became his champions. It was OK for them to be mean to hi, but not for anyone else. They stopped being mean to him at about that time, too. Our church congregation is much more like family than most churches, these kids behaved more like squabbling siblings than casual friends. This is perhaps why it hurt easy child 2/difficult child 2 so much, to be treated like dirt when she introduced her new boyfriend to people. Looking back - I think it was a combination of jealousy, plus easy child 2/difficult child 2 was always more physically demonstrative and extrovert than most, she was coming across as almost manic in her determination to depict happiness that day. I think one mean girl wanted to publicly burst her bubble.

Sadly, it worked.

Marg

 

[TeDo]

Marg - My difficult child is 12. He only did it when he spends the night at a friend's. He did not want to be different than them while he was there. I am happy that he figured out that going without was worse than his friends seeing him take them. He has never liked Sunday School/church. He considers it a waste of time and something he can live just fine without. He'd rather be anywhere and doing anything than sitting through "all that boring stuff". He sees absolutely no point in it, never has.

SW, I like your idea about talking to him about ways he can still take them without having to do it in front of his friends. I will be giving that a shot "if" he earns the privilege back. In the meantime, I will drop reminders here and there so he doesn't forget this lesson by then.

 

[svengandhi]

My oldest son used to take a medication for bedwetting when he had sleepovers. I used to give it to the mom and tell her to please make sure that he got it because it would help him sleep. I never told them it was for enuresis, I always called right before his regular bedtime to say goodnight and to remind the mom to give it to him. I never had a problem with him.

As for Sunday school, I finally let my kids quit Hebrew school after I got tired of the fights over going. Only the 2 oldest had a bar/bat mitzvah, the youngest 3 got/will get nothing because they refused to put in the effort.

 

[susiestar]

I guess we avoided these problems. For some reason all of my kids' friends' parents (and us, of course) give medications to the parents when a child is going on a sleepover. If the guest needs medication for anything else the parent always gets a call before anything is given - even tylenol or advil. It wouldn't occur to me to give the medication to my child and not to the parent simply because we haven't done it.

Wiz never saw any use for church either, except as a way to show off for his friends (claiming to have been scarred by a burn from the holy water at baptism - and having had extensive plastic surgery to cover up the scar), claiming his skin feels like it is burning if he enters a church, even claiming that we have had to put him through several exorcisms. Blah blah blah.

He was always so hideously behaved in church that we stopped making him go when he was quite young - it simply was not worth the aggravation and embarrassment of having to sit in the cry room with a 7yo child who acted worse than the 2 and 3 yo's there!!

It is awesome that he came clean with you and realizes how dangerous his choices were.

 

[AnnieO]

I am with Susie... Never occurred to me to have the kids tote their medications. Of course, Onyxx didn't like taking hers, but I would give them directly to the mom, and so would husband. Couldn't trust her to take them, and Jett would lose his...