S
Soccer Mom
Guest
What is the name of your state? Connecticut
Background: Single mom, three teens: boy 14, girls 17 and 18. Good kids, good grades, plenty of mommy supervision and involvement.
This past weekend, my son had a friend visiting from Massachusetts. On Sunday night, the boys had a few friends over. I sent them all home at 10:30pm, check in on my son and his friend who were watching a movie and went to bed. At 2:00am, I heard noise and got up. It was my son starting up the computer. After a mommy lecture and revocation of some privileges for the upcoming week, I sent him to bed, making the mistake of NOT checking in on the visitor in the guest room. (If I did, I would've known he was AWOL.)
At 3:00am, I was woken up by two police officers ringing my doorbell. Turns out that after I went to bed, the two boys snuck out of the house. Unbeknownst to me, the Massachusetts boy had brought a paintball gun with him. (My son isn’t allowed to have weapons like that.) They went to a friend’s house down the street at 11:30pm. At 12:30am, the idiot mother let three 14 year old boys out unsupervised with two paintball guns in tow without notifying anyone. As you can guess already, the boys were firing the guns around the neighborhood and were hitting passing cars. Yup. The police caught them, and the boys split up and ran.
My son and the other local boy were given summonses and charged with Breach of Peace, Reckless Endangerment and Interfering with a Police Officer. The Massachusetts boy wasn’t so lucky. Although he was facing the same charges, because he was from out of state, they took custody of him immediately. He was held at the police station for a while and then sent to the local juvenile detention facility until he could get in front of a judge. Never mind what was going on in my mind about my own son, I almost couldn’t bear calling the Massachusetts boy’s parents. And then after dealing with the call, I watched those parents sit at the juvenile center crying all day waiting to see their son and, I might add, completely shunning me. I can understand them being mad at me for being negligent in not putting barbed wire around the house to keep the boys in, but come on! I’m not the one who put a weapon in the hands of a teenaged boy!!!
Unfortunately, this was not my son’s first brush with the authorities. We lived in South Florida for a few years. When my son was 11 years old, I had been hospitalized for two weeks with viral meningitis. My son’s only supervision was his older sisters and my 80 year old mother in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s. (Where was his dad, you ask? I think he took them out to dinner once or twice during that time.) The day after I got out of the hospital, I received a call from the Broward Sheriff’s office. Turns out my son had taken a goped out of someone’s front yard and hid it in some bushes until some “friends” from school could take it for themselves. At 11 years old, my son was taken out of the classroom by a uniformed officer, questioned with no other adult present and without notifying me, handcuffed, put in the back of a police cruiser and taken to the Broward Sheriff’s office. They called me and I came right down, but I wasn’t allowed to see him for almost three hours while they did the fingerprint and mug shot thing and held him in a cell for a while.
Evidently, my son didn’t learn from that experience. And he was fully aware of the possible ramifications for him if he got in trouble again. I lectured him incessantly about what could happen to him for just being with kids getting in trouble -- even if he’s not participating.
So here are my questions:
- What could the impact be on this of his previous record from Florida? (He did complete a probationary period satisfactorily.)
- What could be the ramifications if he gets in trouble again?
- If he gets off with a slap on the wrist and some community service, as I’m told he probably will, what are my options for insisting on something that will hit home with him? And what should that be?
And last but not least:
- HOW DO I STOP HIM FROM MAKING BAD CHOICES AND DOING DUMB THINGS??? I mean, I know boys will be boys and they will do dumb things, but most 14 year old boys haven’t been arrested twice!!!!
Background: Single mom, three teens: boy 14, girls 17 and 18. Good kids, good grades, plenty of mommy supervision and involvement.
This past weekend, my son had a friend visiting from Massachusetts. On Sunday night, the boys had a few friends over. I sent them all home at 10:30pm, check in on my son and his friend who were watching a movie and went to bed. At 2:00am, I heard noise and got up. It was my son starting up the computer. After a mommy lecture and revocation of some privileges for the upcoming week, I sent him to bed, making the mistake of NOT checking in on the visitor in the guest room. (If I did, I would've known he was AWOL.)
At 3:00am, I was woken up by two police officers ringing my doorbell. Turns out that after I went to bed, the two boys snuck out of the house. Unbeknownst to me, the Massachusetts boy had brought a paintball gun with him. (My son isn’t allowed to have weapons like that.) They went to a friend’s house down the street at 11:30pm. At 12:30am, the idiot mother let three 14 year old boys out unsupervised with two paintball guns in tow without notifying anyone. As you can guess already, the boys were firing the guns around the neighborhood and were hitting passing cars. Yup. The police caught them, and the boys split up and ran.
My son and the other local boy were given summonses and charged with Breach of Peace, Reckless Endangerment and Interfering with a Police Officer. The Massachusetts boy wasn’t so lucky. Although he was facing the same charges, because he was from out of state, they took custody of him immediately. He was held at the police station for a while and then sent to the local juvenile detention facility until he could get in front of a judge. Never mind what was going on in my mind about my own son, I almost couldn’t bear calling the Massachusetts boy’s parents. And then after dealing with the call, I watched those parents sit at the juvenile center crying all day waiting to see their son and, I might add, completely shunning me. I can understand them being mad at me for being negligent in not putting barbed wire around the house to keep the boys in, but come on! I’m not the one who put a weapon in the hands of a teenaged boy!!!
Unfortunately, this was not my son’s first brush with the authorities. We lived in South Florida for a few years. When my son was 11 years old, I had been hospitalized for two weeks with viral meningitis. My son’s only supervision was his older sisters and my 80 year old mother in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s. (Where was his dad, you ask? I think he took them out to dinner once or twice during that time.) The day after I got out of the hospital, I received a call from the Broward Sheriff’s office. Turns out my son had taken a goped out of someone’s front yard and hid it in some bushes until some “friends” from school could take it for themselves. At 11 years old, my son was taken out of the classroom by a uniformed officer, questioned with no other adult present and without notifying me, handcuffed, put in the back of a police cruiser and taken to the Broward Sheriff’s office. They called me and I came right down, but I wasn’t allowed to see him for almost three hours while they did the fingerprint and mug shot thing and held him in a cell for a while.
Evidently, my son didn’t learn from that experience. And he was fully aware of the possible ramifications for him if he got in trouble again. I lectured him incessantly about what could happen to him for just being with kids getting in trouble -- even if he’s not participating.
So here are my questions:
- What could the impact be on this of his previous record from Florida? (He did complete a probationary period satisfactorily.)
- What could be the ramifications if he gets in trouble again?
- If he gets off with a slap on the wrist and some community service, as I’m told he probably will, what are my options for insisting on something that will hit home with him? And what should that be?
And last but not least:
- HOW DO I STOP HIM FROM MAKING BAD CHOICES AND DOING DUMB THINGS??? I mean, I know boys will be boys and they will do dumb things, but most 14 year old boys haven’t been arrested twice!!!!