Don’t you just love summer? Life feels more relaxed and not quite as stressed even though we don’t have any major plans. These last few months have really been stressful. Here is a partial list of what has caused the stress along with some of the milestones we have accomplished.
- The highlight was High School Graduation – even though my son finished high school in January we attended his formal graduation in June. I didn’t think he would want to go, but he was very excited about it and actually mentioned he never thought he would be in a formal high school graduation.
He completed his last few classes needed to graduate at a small private school, the graduating class consisted of 25 kids each with their own story. It was really a special ceremony, they were able to honor each student in a special way as they received their diploma. - I have one last teen to make it through high school, he will be a Junior next year. He is also a struggle. I just received his report card, we won’t talk about grades but I think he got credit for all his classes.
- I always thought that once they graduated from high school my job was over. Maybe that is true for some families when the teens have direction. But now I am seeing that this may be a more difficult time for my son than when he was in school. The structure is gone and now it is up to him to figure out how to make it in society. This could be a blog post of its own. We have had a lot of family turmoil over this subject. He attended one semester at the JC when he completed his high school units in January and did not do well. It is obvious if he does not get involved with services or support he will not make it at this time in college. He does not have the focus or the attention to detail.
Now he is “looking for a job”, which he really does not know how to do. From my point of view he is floating in nowhere land, no plans for school, no job and no real ambition.
- Family therapy, yep we are involved in family therapy again! UGHH. Since my youngest son is on probation they are giving us 16 weeks of family therapy. We have had so much family therapy I could spit, but this is the first time all four of us will be in therapy together. In the past it has only been my husband and I, or both parents and our son that went to the RTC. We talked to the intake person last week, and have not met the actual therapist. This may be the answer.
The nice part they come to our home, we don’t have to go to them.
Troubled Teen Blog also has a forum (which is different from the blog), a few comments have been written on the forum. To post a comment on the forum, you must first sign in or register, it is different than the blog. I want to direct you to one of the postings that I think many of you may be interested in. It is about parents being a united front when dealing with their teens. In most families one parent is known as the softee and the other as being tougher. This is one area that we struggle with in our house. Follow this link to read the discussion “When parents don’t agree“.
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Wow. Very nice.
Wow – families are a lot of work. I went out to a girls night out recently. All moms of boys about the same age, 17-22. Even though all the moms share a lot of the same values – our kids turned out differently. One example is my very own family: older son just finished junior year at a 4 year college with good grades and is doing a paid summer internship; younger son in RTC and is having ups and downs and still no real interests or direction. Seems that a lot of it just the choices the boys make along the way. They can choose to use what they’ve learned – or not. Our younger guy is in the “or not” category. I feel for you!