Anonymous wrote:OP again. I looked throughout his room and found more evidence of weed smoking. An empty baggie and two with weed, two empty pill bottles (smell like weed), juul, rolling papers, lighter. I am freaking out because I have never used drugs. However, I don't want to be extreme in my response. I know he will likely try the "I'm holding it for a friend". How bad is this?!?

You need to talk to him. Not punish him. What are your family values? Ours include not doing illegal things. Also have a talk about how heavy marijuana use can trigger schizophrenia and other mental health issues.

If it’s occasional, don’t be worried. If he has known mental health issues or ADHD, he could be self medicating,and that is bad. Address those first.

Anonymous wrote:OP again. I looked throughout his room and found more evidence of weed smoking. An empty baggie and two with weed, two empty pill bottles (smell like weed), juul, rolling papers, lighter. I am freaking out because I have never used drugs. However, I don't want to be extreme in my response. I know he will likely try the "I'm holding it for a friend". How bad is this?!?

You need to talk to him. Not punish him. What are your family values? Ours include not doing illegal things. Also have a talk about how heavy marijuana use can trigger schizophrenia and other mental health issues.

If it’s occasional, don’t be worried. If he has known mental health issues or ADHD, he could be self medicating,and that is bad. Address those first.

If you feel you need to confront - don't freak out. Just ask around to see if DC will fess up - both of my teens told me with little to no provoking what they had tried. Now they are in college and we discuss openly. I always stressed things like the dangers of getting out of control, peer group, bad judgment, NOT driving while impaired or with others that have used, NOT posting stupid stuff on social media and being careful. I made it so unfun but they both are excellent students and active in many things and seem to party responsibly so I feel open dialogue was a good approach and a relief to us all to have things out in the open (and for better or worse I get to hear lots of stories too)..

At 15, I'd put my foot down. Based on what you describe in your second post, this is a frequent smoker and they are just too young to be doing that to their developing brain. I'd ground for at least a week and review their phone/text messages for additional issues. I'd also make it clear that it stops now and escalate from there as needed. (I say all this as a frequent weed smoker in my late teens and early 20's and an occasional user now.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again. I looked throughout his room and found more evidence of weed smoking. An empty baggie and two with weed, two empty pill bottles (smell like weed), juul, rolling papers, lighter. I am freaking out because I have never used drugs. However, I don't want to be extreme in my response. I know he will likely try the "I'm holding it for a friend". How bad is this?!?

If he lies or gaslights you ... you ground him.

If he fesses up you have a heart to heart. What about your spouse? are they involved/level headed?

Is there a safe person he can talk to ... aunt/uncle/best family friend?

This term is so overused that it's become practically meaningless.

You clearly don't have a teen that will lie and call you crazy to save their a$$.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again. I looked throughout his room and found more evidence of weed smoking. An empty baggie and two with weed, two empty pill bottles (smell like weed), juul, rolling papers, lighter. I am freaking out because I have never used drugs. However, I don't want to be extreme in my response. I know he will likely try the "I'm holding it for a friend". How bad is this?!?

If he lies or gaslights you ... you ground him.

If he fesses up you have a heart to heart. What about your spouse? are they involved/level headed?

Is there a safe person he can talk to ... aunt/uncle/best family friend?

This term is so overused that it's become practically meaningless.

I'd be more concerned about the juuling

Anonymous wrote:OP again. I looked throughout his room and found more evidence of weed smoking. An empty baggie and two with weed, two empty pill bottles (smell like weed), juul, rolling papers, lighter. I am freaking out because I have never used drugs. However, I don't want to be extreme in my response. I know he will likely try the "I'm holding it for a friend". How bad is this?!?

Not that bad. It's just weed. It's not like he's abusing a truly harmful substance such as pills or liquor.

Anonymous wrote:OP again. I looked throughout his room and found more evidence of weed smoking. An empty baggie and two with weed, two empty pill bottles (smell like weed), juul, rolling papers, lighter. I am freaking out because I have never used drugs. However, I don't want to be extreme in my response. I know he will likely try the "I'm holding it for a friend". How bad is this?!?

If he lies or gaslights you ... you ground him.

If he fesses up you have a heart to heart. What about your spouse? are they involved/level headed?

Is there a safe person he can talk to ... aunt/uncle/best family friend?

OP again. I looked throughout his room and found more evidence of weed smoking. An empty baggie and two with weed, two empty pill bottles (smell like weed), juul, rolling papers, lighter. I am freaking out because I have never used drugs. However, I don't want to be extreme in my response. I know he will likely try the "I'm holding it for a friend". How bad is this?!?

No, not going to happen, not before legal age. It's not okay.

1st offense: Talk to him about it. If it's very rare experimentation, not much

2nd offense: Talk again. Has frequency increased, if he is getting caught by me it's obvious he is not being discrete. Possibly look into friends he is doing, lack of positive outlets, etc

3rd offense: Obviously this is frequent enough that he can't not get caught. Possible grounding... depends, did he come home totally stoned? are grades affected? I would have a therapist check it out.

I have done up to #2 with one child and all they way to #3 with another.

I don't go at it with anxiety and fearmongering. I keep the conversations in the tone of concern, this is my job as a parent and educational. They will be off to college before you know it, they need tools to navigate this.

I’m more middle of the road on this than I thought I would be. If all is otherwise well, I would very likely have a chat about harm reduction. E.g., knowing (or not knowing) what’s in your weed, where it comes from, set and setting, and by the way, your brain isn’t done maturing, buddy, and this isn’t legal for you (yet...my speech these days includes being somewhere where this is legal). I wouldn’t be cool with this going on in my house, but I wouldn’t go overboard, either.

If nothing else is going wrong, I’d ignore it. If I was concerned about waning grades or if they often seemed out of it I would dole out restrictions and order testing kits. Basically, I could go to either extreme. I’m not recommending that to you but I smoked occasionally as a teen and it didn’t effect anything. I also know of others who were careless and could have used some intervention.

Anyone found weed in dc's room? How did you handle? I found an empty baggie in 15 yo dc's sock that smells like it had weed inside. Before I approach dc I would like to hear from others that have had this issue .