Teens Treatment and the Honeymoon Is Over

Their really is a  honeymoon phase when your kid first comes home from residential treatment. Everything is perfect and everyone is on their best behavior and it is amazing that I did thought it would be different for us. I am always asking when will my teen learn but when will I learn? Am I in that much denial?

The honeymoon phase is over for us, I would say it lasted maybe four weeks since we placed our son at a step down facility. Our teen has gone from a level 14 to a level 12, in numbers it does not sound like much of a step down, but when you think that at a level 14 they are at the facility 24 x 7 and the level 12 is a group home environment. Even though the level 12 is on a level system they have much more freedom and trust. When they return from an outing they are not completely searched, they just check the pockets and look in the bags.  Also as parents we are way more involved in the daily routine, we have a short daily phone call to check in with our son. This can be either good or bad, sometimes the more I know, the more I don’t want to know. We also have the opportunity to see him every week that he has been at this facility. The visits in the beginning were on site, then in the community and then he started coming home every other weekend. It is an hour drive from our home so this is much more time consuming on a weekly basis for us and this is ok, because we want to be a part of our son’s life. But at the same time we have had some slip ups and I can tell he was not ready to come home and I am beginning to wonder about his ability to hold it together at the group home.

My expectations I think were higher than they should have been. I don’t know why I thought he would just sail through with flying colors. I also thought after 8 weeks of Wilderness he would be a star client when he went into residential treatment. Wrong again! We have had a few set backs and at times I have wondered if he should have stayed at the level 14 facility. But then he is a teen and why do I think this would be trouble free? I guess I am just hoping.

The biggest test moving to a step down is to see if he can be independent and responsible and so far that has not played out. Maybe we have given him a longer leash than he can really handle. We have allowed him to have friends over, go into town without us and be responsible. To any parent with a normal functioning teen this may sound minor, but we have now caught him smoking and he took cigarettes back to the group home and got caught smoking in the bathroom. He has not followed our house rules for curfew when he has been home. These are all red flags, but do you send your teen back to a higher level of care for smoking cigarettes? I don’t think so, but I really do not want to babysit a 16 year old. He is at an age where he should be able to follow the rules and not try and see what he can get away with. Another area of real concern is weight loss, he has lost 10 lbs. since his return. As a health issue this is most serious, and this could be anxiety due to all the changes and expectations.

This is all troubling for me and I am trying my hardest not to be effected but it always does. He knows how to manipulate us and I don’t understand his motivation. I really thought we were getting along well and had a truly open and honest relationship.  He tells us he is ready to come home and then he sabotages it. Here it is almost Christmas and the plan was for him to be home for the two week break. But now it looks like it will be a few days here and a few days there, because I can’t trust him to be alone and responsible over a long period of time. Now the plan is to have successful visits not stressful visits. Sometimes I wonder what he really wants.

Since this has been much more stressful than I thought and with the holidays my blog posts have not been consistant. There has been some positives and I will update you on what positive changes we have seen not only in our son, but also in how my parenting has changed in dealing with issues.

Tagged as: Adolescent Residential Boarding Schools, Holidays, home visits