IM disaster, would you lend advice?
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| Thu, 09-06-2007 - 10:19am |
My 15 yr old son is a good kid, but he messed up today big time. First of all he constantly gets himself in trouble by leaving his evidence all over the place but on the plus side it makes it easy to help steer him in the right direction. For example I found a condom in his sports bag two days ago, he confessed that his friend (one of the four I'll get to in a minute) stole a package from our local 7/11 and assurred me he has no use for it, and kept it for reasons he does not know other than it's common for boys at school to have these in their backpacks etc...After much talking about it, I told him stealing it was so wrong and that having a condom at his age IF he needed it (I really doubt he does he has not had too much interaction with girls, that I'm not privy to and are always supervised)(but between you and me, he's just as culpable of taking it I hate to say) and I was troubled that he thinks this is no big deal especially since he didn't steal it, and so he was grounded for 1 week. In addition his attitude towards me has been rude lately and yet he and I have a good relationship, it's just that I'm stict, more so than any of his friends and he's having a hard time handling that, but as I've told him, he's my third of four kids, and I didn't just fall off the truck yesterday. And I tell him constantly that I do this out of love for him and am doing my best to raise a man who can be proud of himself not just today but in the future.
Imagine my disgust this morning when I found his IM exchange with a summer girl (who's gone back home). In it he brags about how he's sitting drinking Captain Morgan (can you imagine with us right there, he was actually eating an apple) etc... in addition, he calls her a bitch, asks if she's gotten any XXXX lately(use your worst imagination, and other really raunchy stuff. She hahaing to all of this and at one point he does say "sorry that was uncalled for". I copied it off the computer and called my husbad and we are both just completely disgusted and so very sad for him. And what do you make of this girl who seemingly comes from a nice family but must be really messed up to let a boy talk to her that way. Ugggghhh!
One side note, he has about six good friends. Two he hangs with separately because they do not hang around the other four (different grade etc) and it's THIS group of four that my husband and I do not care for. Why? Well it's mostly their families, they do not supervise very well. BUT, so far the kids have only broken two rules that we know of. First, this group got into internet porn which we stopped at our house for sure, but we approached the other parents and it was pretty much just "we will talk to them of course but boys will be boys". And secondly while they are polite for the most part, they act stupid and lazy (they do pretty good in school though and much of the time they ride bikes and play sport after sport after sport). But, they just bugs us, and we are always suspect that they could be a bad influence on my son, although honestly, he's doing a pretty good job on his own wouldn't you say? But we decided last year that he's known these neighborhood kids all his life and we'd be unfair to cut him off, but we put him on notice that one really bad thing and we'd intercede. And, we do not let him spend the night with them but on rare occaisions when the more supervising parents are hosting. This experience though is unrelated to them, but it has me wondering how much this goes on with them in their IM world and how accepted it probably would be. And my husband is really at a point where this is time to cut off his ties with them. I'm not sure it might not backfire, but I'm all for him having to really limit his time with them and find other options.
As for him immediately. My husband leaves for a business trip late today and we are hopefully going to hit the high school and grab him before soccer practice and have a talk before DH leaves town for three days. Or it'll be me alone (trust me, I'm not pushover, just very sad right now) and then my DH on the phone tonight. What DH and I've decided it IM is gone completely, forever, and anything else he might have Myspace, whatever...the computer (the family one and only)is in the living room smack dab in front of everything so no worries there and he's goinn to be socially grounded for an extra two weeks. Toss in a heavy dose of talk about this and how very sick it is to talk to anyone much less a girl like this...do any of you have any other advice?
What do you think about limiting his time with the four "just okay" friends. And what more can I do to improve his attitude toward himself and us?
Mostly here's what I think. He's a great kid but has self esteem issues to a degree. And lately while I think he's going thru normal growing pains he's been extra testy and sometimes angry or moody, but I think anyone who engages (even if he honestly thinks it's no big deal) in this behavior can not feel very good about themselves. Don't you agree? I mean it's so degrading not just to others, but to yourself.
We have a good family, and he's a good kid who needs to be reined back in, any other advice?
thanks so much.

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Way back in the day, long before I was old enough to have a real concept of the physical side of relationships, my mother used to listen to Conway Twitty sing "You've Never Been This Far Before."
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