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Child Behavior Community
This patient support community is for discussions relating to child behavior, discipline (behavior management), parent-child communications, and social development.
Need help with teenager
by myproblem, Oct 01, 2007 11:12AM
I have custody of my brother who is almost 17. I am almost 32. I also have a husband - age 32, and 2 girls - ages 4 years, and 8 mos.
He has been with for almost a year now. He and my mom were fighting all the time about his schoolwork, and chores etc. They would hit each other, and she is also a bit nuts. I had been trying to get him since he was 12. Since he's been with me, he's been mostly good, and has made a lot of progress. I had to home school him last year, and he had no friends where we were living, so I did no have to worry about him much.
We recently moved to a bigger city. I have enrolled him in school, and got him an Rx for Adderall XR 15 mg for ADD. We keep the bottle hidden in my room, and watch him take his pill every day. Today while my husband was looking for a book in my brother's room, he found a baggy with 26 of his Adderall pills in it. He had been saving them in his mouth, and then stashing them in his room. Some of the outer capsules were partially disolved. I do not know how to punish him, because if we take away everything (TV, computer, friends, allowance), then we will have nothing left to hold over him for obedience. I have been letting him spend the night at friends houses. That will for sure be the first thing we take away. He already lost internet indefinately for looking at porn. He really isn't a bad kid, just has bad ideas, and wants to try things that are bad.
He was saving it to abuse it. He has talked about wanting to use drugs before. That's why we kept it hidden in my room. He wanted me to get him Ritalin originally because my mom got it for him, and he said it made him high. If he did not want to use the medicine later, or trade it with friends, he would have thrown it away. He has been very irritable lately, and had a cow when I asked him about why he never brings a friend to spend the night here. That's why I'm upset. If he just didn't want to take it, I'd get over it.
His other minor offense that my husband found in his room was a CD that he was specifically not allowed to have. For that I think I will just confiscate all his music for 2 months.
He gets an allowance of $10 a week, plus an extra $5 if he attends a religion class each day. I definately will stop his $10 allowance for a time, and he has to pay back the Rx co-pay for the pills he saved. I just need opinions on what else to do, and how long you would punish him for.
He has been with for almost a year now. He and my mom were fighting all the time about his schoolwork, and chores etc. They would hit each other, and she is also a bit nuts. I had been trying to get him since he was 12. Since he's been with me, he's been mostly good, and has made a lot of progress. I had to home school him last year, and he had no friends where we were living, so I did no have to worry about him much.
We recently moved to a bigger city. I have enrolled him in school, and got him an Rx for Adderall XR 15 mg for ADD. We keep the bottle hidden in my room, and watch him take his pill every day. Today while my husband was looking for a book in my brother's room, he found a baggy with 26 of his Adderall pills in it. He had been saving them in his mouth, and then stashing them in his room. Some of the outer capsules were partially disolved. I do not know how to punish him, because if we take away everything (TV, computer, friends, allowance), then we will have nothing left to hold over him for obedience. I have been letting him spend the night at friends houses. That will for sure be the first thing we take away. He already lost internet indefinately for looking at porn. He really isn't a bad kid, just has bad ideas, and wants to try things that are bad.
He was saving it to abuse it. He has talked about wanting to use drugs before. That's why we kept it hidden in my room. He wanted me to get him Ritalin originally because my mom got it for him, and he said it made him high. If he did not want to use the medicine later, or trade it with friends, he would have thrown it away. He has been very irritable lately, and had a cow when I asked him about why he never brings a friend to spend the night here. That's why I'm upset. If he just didn't want to take it, I'd get over it.
His other minor offense that my husband found in his room was a CD that he was specifically not allowed to have. For that I think I will just confiscate all his music for 2 months.
He gets an allowance of $10 a week, plus an extra $5 if he attends a religion class each day. I definately will stop his $10 allowance for a time, and he has to pay back the Rx co-pay for the pills he saved. I just need opinions on what else to do, and how long you would punish him for.
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As to the CD, I'd ground him from his music for a month not two. That's just me. I'd also go through all of his music to make sure it's all clean. Again, I'd explain to him your rules and what you will or will not allow in your home. Tell him that "Garbage in, garbage out." What he feeds his mind is what he will dwell on act on. Music can have a powerful message, so if it's music that degrades women, glorifies drugs, sex, violence, etc., then you are correct to take the offending material and tell him that it's offensive.
As to the porn, I think a lot of kids try it because they're curious, and let's face it, teens hormones are going crazy. When my son looked at porn, my husband and I sat him down and talked to him about how degrading that is to women (and men) and how God meant sex to be something beautiful not dirty and taken lightly.
I would not be paying your little brother for taking religious classes. That troubles me a little. I think it sends the wrong message. You have to pay him to learn about God? I am a Christian and our family goes to church and talk about God at our house. My 19 year old son has a lot of questions so we look up scriptures together and have debates sometimes. I think that's good. I think they should be allowed to have questions and learn at their own pace. We can't push it on them. I do ask that my kids go to church with us as a family each week, but I never have to drag them kicking and screaming. I believe the Bible verse that says to train up a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it. If you train them in your beliefs when they are young, they may stray for awhile but usually come back to the faith they were raised in.
As to the allowance, I personally don't think $10 a week is enough. Actually, I think at the age of 17 he should be allowed to have a part time job as long as his grades are good. My son got his first part time job at 16 and I think it teaches them responsibility. Once he started working, I stopped the allowance. After that, he paid for his own entertainment, etc. I did pay for his clothes and his car insurance. He had to save up and pay for his own car and pay gas and tune-ups. I really saw him grow up a lot in his senior year. You've got to start letting him have more responsibilites. He'll be out on his own soon and he needs to be ready. I hope any of this helps. I know it's not easy raising a teen. I have two of them, so I understand! :) Feel free to write me anytime. I would be more than happy to talk again! God bless!
First off, I doubt your brother was planning on committing suicide. I can tell by the fact that he is going against rules you have set that he is keeping himself content with his life. It means that he is being a normal teenager- breaking rules he sees as pointless to get what he wants. But if he does seem like the kind of kid who would attempt such a thing, nearly any attempts with Adderall XR would not work. I've read that there have been cases where people took like 700mg and were fine. shaky, but fine.
Now the music. I honestly don't see the point in keeping him from listening to music he wants to listen to. I'm not saying I agree with him listening to music with.. questionable themes, it's just that if he wants to listen to it he will find a way (Once again breaking a rule that he sees pointless to get what he wants). You should still punish him though, because you did specifically say he couldn't have that CD.
The porn. I honestly do not watch porn, but I did at one point. He should definitely not be permanently restricted from the computer- watching porn is something that all teenage boys do. It can't be stopped. In my opinion it should actually be considered a minor offense- he wasn't having sex. Now sure, he may have been imagining himself having sex, but at least he wasn't for real.
If you have to pay your brother to take a religion class, then clearly he does not support the religion enough to actually WANT to learn more about it. Same with church or anything, Don't bribe or force him to go- he should make the choice. I am religious, yet I don't feel that Ii need to go to religion classes, or even church every week for that matter. I follow the religion and I feel that's what matters.
Now as for the pills, are you 100% positive he wanted to abuse them? Supposing you are, then follow what the comments before tell you to do. However there's a chance he might actually just not like taking them- they have negative effects as well. I for example lost an extreme amount of weight, and I haven't been able to gain it back. It's embarrassing to be this skinny- my waist is no more than 28 inches around, and I'm 6'2". All I'm saying is that don't go jumping to conclusions- alot of people are too embarrassed to tell the truth as to why they do things, so they something else even though they know it will only cause more harm to themselves. I got grounded all of last summer because I went on vacation to a beach house and didn't want to swimming with everyone else. They thought I was trying to bring down the family and ruin their good time, but I just didn't want to take off my shirt because of how skinny I am. They still don't know that was why, and I don't plan to tell them. Maybe your brother is doing the same (a very big maybe though).
By the way, if he's been irritable it's possible he's only taking his medicine on some days- I know that when I go a day without mine, I can go berserk at the littlest things. One way you can tell, is if you pay attention to his energy level. If there are days that he just wants to sit on the couch, watch tv, and just be left alone (or else he gets mad at you)? and I don't mean slightly doing that, I mean to the point to where he doesn't even shift his position once all day. It's likely those days he didn't take the pill. When I don't take my mine, I fall asleep anywhere. I've fallen asleep on our kitchen table once.
Pay close attention to his behavior and you'll start to learn when he does and doesn't take the medicine.