What did you do first time caught teen with weed or weed paraphernalia?

[Anonymous]

I would be honest and say that all the kids I went to high school with who smoked weed became losers in life and they have all sorts of problems today if they are actually still alilve. Big believer that week is a gateway drug. For every normal person who can handle week the other 99 percent cannot and it is a one way ticket to a horrible life. My brother was one of those people. So I would be really upset even more than mad.

[Anonymous]

weed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I did not have to deal with this, luckily, but if I did, I would come down like a ton of bricks. I would say that the trust is broken, kid can’t be trusted, and I’d monitor everything. I’d search their room and read every text and take away car keys.

It’s just not okay. And I’d start laying all that out at age 11 or 12 and keep bringing it up now and then. The possible consequences are so severe,

Agree, not ok.
We tried this approach, 3 years ago, with my son. Nothing worked--took the phone, denied access to the car, basically had a police state in the house. Which was awful for everyone. He kept doing it. Sometimes I was calm, sometimes I was screaming. Nothing got through to him. The bottom line was that he wanted to make recreational marijuana use a priority. Long story short, he is now 19 and I think it's still something he enjoys regularly. He doesn't live with us. He has a job, and we're paying tuition for part time classes. We have basically agreed to disagree on the pot issue, but we get along fine. He still has a lot of growing up to do, and I still don't entirely trust him...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Confiscated, then thoroughly chastised him.

Then, when he was away for the weekend with his hockey team, dh and I smoked it.

LOL you just made my day. Loved that you did this.

[Anonymous]

Took it away, of course. Told him that if he was stupid enough to get caught, he was too stupid to buy weed.

Then sat on the deck and smoked it while he was at school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did not have to deal with this, luckily, but if I did, I would come down like a ton of bricks. I would say that the trust is broken, kid can’t be trusted, and I’d monitor everything. I’d search their room and read every text and take away car keys.

It’s just not okay. And I’d start laying all that out at age 11 or 12 and keep bringing it up now and then. The possible consequences are so severe,

Agree, not ok.
We tried this approach, 3 years ago, with my son. Nothing worked--took the phone, denied access to the car, basically had a police state in the house. Which was awful for everyone. He kept doing it. Sometimes I was calm, sometimes I was screaming. Nothing got through to him. The bottom line was that he wanted to make recreational marijuana use a priority. Long story short, he is now 19 and I think it's still something he enjoys regularly. He doesn't live with us. He has a job, and we're paying tuition for part time classes. We have basically agreed to disagree on the pot issue, but we get along fine. He still has a lot of growing up to do, and I still don't entirely trust him...[/quote

If he has money for pot he can pay his own tuition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1st time just talked about it
2d talked again
3rd-10th - still remained calm, maybe grounded him mildly, talked some more especially since they vape it, emphasized the dangers, my college age son told me there is not way he will never do it just try to convince him to do it rarely. Older son talked to him.

It's been a year and he is 18 now and I think he maybe smokes once a month at a party or a friend's house.

I'm not going to freak out because I don't think it will help.

You suck at parenting. Completely ineffectual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1st time just talked about it
2d talked again
3rd-10th - still remained calm, maybe grounded him mildly, talked some more especially since they vape it, emphasized the dangers, my college age son told me there is not way he will never do it just try to convince him to do it rarely. Older son talked to him.

It's been a year and he is 18 now and I think he maybe smokes once a month at a party or a friend's house.

I'm not going to freak out because I don't think it will help.

You suck at parenting. Completely ineffectual.

Wow that’s not helpful. My approach was similar FWIW. Older teen we’ve decided to agree to disagree he doesn’t really drink. At the end of the day, I worry about his health and brain but he’s not going to stop it relieves too much for him (and yes we’ve done therapy, meds, etc) and it’s his journey to figure out. I absolutely don’t agree with drastic measures like not paying for college , that only leads them down a far worse path.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did not have to deal with this, luckily, but if I did, I would come down like a ton of bricks. I would say that the trust is broken, kid can’t be trusted, and I’d monitor everything. I’d search their room and read every text and take away car keys.

It’s just not okay. And I’d start laying all that out at age 11 or 12 and keep bringing it up now and then. The possible consequences are so severe,

Agree, not ok.
We tried this approach, 3 years ago, with my son. Nothing worked--took the phone, denied access to the car, basically had a police state in the house. Which was awful for everyone. He kept doing it. Sometimes I was calm, sometimes I was screaming. Nothing got through to him. The bottom line was that he wanted to make recreational marijuana use a priority. Long story short, he is now 19 and I think it's still something he enjoys regularly. He doesn't live with us. He has a job, and we're paying tuition for part time classes. We have basically agreed to disagree on the pot issue, but we get along fine. He still has a lot of growing up to do, and I still don't entirely trust him...[/quote

If he has money for pot he can pay his own tuition.

Sure, we could take that approach but it seems unnecessarily nasty and spiteful. I'm not trying to make him resent me for totally refusing to help him out, just because I disagree with his substance use. Taking college classes is an activity that we support, and I hope it will eventually help him get set up to be a productive adult. I don't even know for sure that he uses now; I'm assuming it. If I told him that continuing to pay for his classes is contingent on him not using pot, how on earth would I enforce that? He can still lie to me, and I really don't want to set up our relationship to further damage the trust. It would also be hypocritical, as I was certainly smoking pot while I was in college at my parents' expense. Moreover, it would be pretty hard for me to sort out which of his tuition money is actually ours, and what was gifts from grandparents, which we forced him to put into the college account.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rehab, then coming home to weekly drug tests and loss of major priviledges (phone, car, etc)

Rehab is for real drugs, not weed. So if you want your teen exposed to meth, coke, heroin, etc, then by all means go to rehab.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would be honest and say that all the kids I went to high school with who smoked weed became losers in life and they have all sorts of problems today if they are actually still alilve. Big believer that week is a gateway drug. For every normal person who can handle week the other 99 percent cannot and it is a one way ticket to a horrible life. My brother was one of those people. So I would be really upset even more than mad.

Yep. I am an adult who uses cannabis (didn’t start until my 30s, for medicinal reasons related to chronic pain) and even I would agree. The ones who start young for recreational purposes do not turn out well. I would educate my child and also figure out why he is using it. Are you trying to medicate stress? Social anxiety? What do you like about the effect? There are other ways to get there: meditation, yoga, breathing techniques, confidence building. If it’s purely a social “I do it bc my friends do” play, I’d monitor the friendships more closely and work on his need for their validation which can lead down many roads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rehab, then coming home to weekly drug tests and loss of major priviledges (phone, car, etc)

Rehab is for real drugs, not weed. So if you want your teen exposed to meth, coke, heroin, etc, then by all means go to rehab.

And What about if they’re using every day? How is that not addiction?