I'm sure he doesn't have the right ones (tools) yet, too. His confession- because he was going to get in trouble for being out during the evening last Tues, he arranged with another boy to meet late during the night Thuurs. night. Even though PO came to school and warned him Thurs morning, he already had these plans so when the boy showed up, he met him thinking I would have been asleep by then but I wasn't- I locked the doors so he then ended up being out all night. Then after I called the police the next day he "knows from the boys in Department of Juvenile Justice" that being violated means an automatic recommitment to Department of Juvenile Justice even if it's for violating house arrest only and he feels sure that no matter what the parole violation was, the time is 6-12 months. So, he figured he might as well go out and have some fun before getting recommitted so he went to a party where there were drugs Sat. night. Then, he thought he would run away but now he's just accepting that he's going back iinto Department of Juvenile Justice and the PO will take him straight to detention tomorrow to await the trial for the judge to recommit him. All I could manage to say was "do you see anything wrong at all with that way of thinking?"
Stinking thinking.
I'm not sure if I should call PO and tell him this or wait for it all to play out- we already know difficult child is getting a drug test tomorrow.
Now that I think about it- I don't think this is EXACTLY the way things played out (this is the manipulation part) but my guess is that the specific actions are probably true. You know, Department of Juvenile Justice recommended substance abuse program as a preventative measure and I asked PO if he could get that for difficult child but he said he could not as a preventative measure- it had to be after a kid had a problem with it. Of course that means the kid gets busted for it and given difficult child's situation, they'll probably bypass the treatment. And it's not that I think he's an addict just on this short time period. It's the stinking thinking part that the treatment addresses that I think could help him. Maybe they can order him to substance abuse counseling and NA's version of alateen or something. I know nothing will help if difficult child doesn;'t want it to. But I'm convinced now that living in Department of Juvenile Justice where most the boys think this way or worse didn't cure him and I think more of the same is only going to make him worse.
ETA: BW, several has thought for a few years that difficult child needs good therapy. Unfortunately, no therapist has been able to accomplish much (if anything) for one reason or another and when I tried to get difficult child into Residential Treatment Center (RTC) and could have, the courts wouldn't agree- they said their Department of Juvenile Justice facility would do the same thing so he was committed to Department of Juvenile Justice.
Now difficult child is gone with his mentor, sooo....off to develop Plan B.