Can you choose your teenager's friends

I guess that’s what I expected. There is no answer. Don’t rush into having babies. If you can’t count on the father sticking around you might just as well not count on raising a well-balanced respectable adult. Single-parenting is a dead end… My son is lost…..

Hi Stressed Out— I don’t have an answer, but I have to tell you that I’m going through somewhat the same sort of thing with my 15-year-old son, and we are a solid two-parent household. My husband has been very involved in our son’s life since he was born. I have been and still am a stay-at-home Mom. We live in a nice area where there are quite a few boys his age, and he has friends all up and down our street. Our son has had every opportunity and all the “nice” things in life. Yet, he has been suspended from high school because of pot use and would rather “hang out” with kids from the “other side of the tracks” than his buddies in our neighborhood. He lies at every opportunity and basically thinks he can run his own life.

However, we love our son, and we will continue to talk to him about the choices he makes. However, we realize that, at 15 years old, we can’t manage his life like we could when he was a baby. I think your counselor is right— you can’t choose your son’s friends. We’ve tried that, and all it did was cause resentment and send him back to the drawing board to create more lies.

I’m sorry you’re having such a rough time, but don’t give up on your son. I don’t think he’s lost but just doing pretty “normal” teenaged stuff. But, at this age, I don’t think there’s a lot parents can do except keep talking and be there when they hit the wall which they surely will do when they’re into the risky behavior.

I hope others reply to your post who have better advice than I do— I could use it too…

CAmom,
Do you feel that trying drugs it a normal part of teenage life now? I have younger kids but reading some of these posts about teenagers is really frightening.

Stressed out,
I really feel bad for you. How are things going now?

Terry

I think drug/alcohol use is pretty rampant.

There’s a feeling of “well, there are worse things s/he could be doing!”

I saw other parents acting that way when mine were junior high age and it drove me crazy. Now that I have teens(one who is very popular and has far greater access than the older, unpopular one)I find myself thinking those thoughts too!!!

Dont get me wrong-I do my best to stay on top of it! I was looking through the 16 year olds closet for clothes to pass down to his younger brother, and discovered a bottle of Schnapps and 2 shot glasses; it was mostly gone. He was ousted from the basement bedroom up to one next to ours so we can keep better tabs on him in general. He was certainly grounded and restricted further even after he was ungrounded. I keep close tabs on his whereabouts the best I can but…..

do I stop him from going to high school football games? Thats a prime time and place for drinking although the school has started a “in the bleachers or off the premises” rule this fall

I suspect his after school and summer jobs have given him greater access to these experiences(there was an article in a recent Money magazine about this too)

I mean, who knew? Here I am TRYING to make him take some responsibility, trying to make him earn for some of his wants instead of ‘spoiling’ him, and instead I’m opening up access to 20 somethings who are more likely to provide him with alcohol and drugs

It’s frustrating…I didnt expect everything to be so easily available. It existed when I was in high school but it wasnt in my face! Nowadays, it does seem to be everywhere, including being sold in the bathrooms of nice, middle class educated communities. :(

MaryCas, I’ve been thinking about how to repond to TerryB—Thanks for doing it so nicely.

We’ve tried the grounding route. It certainly makes our son (and us) miserable for a period of time, but it changes nothing about the fact that, as you said, this stuff is in their face at this age and in our time, and it’s totally up to them as to whether or not they decide to follow along.

We’ve decided (and this isn’t a popular view) that our role as our son’s parents is to continue to talk to him about the values we believe we have instilled in him through the years, although understanding that these teen years are a time of experimentation, particularly in regard to those same values. We realize that we can no longer totally control his environment and activities, nor do we want to do so at his age— after all, we are trying to “grow” a man in the next three years or so.

I also have a suspicion that, the more we react and take personally his little side trips to, what we call, “the dark side”, the more of a target we make ourselves for him to rebel against (although we haven’t seen much or that yet).

And, all said, we continue to try to make our relationship with him top priority, trying to remember that his behavior at this time is only one very small aspect of the whole person he is.