Seriously tough love: What do you think?

[elenetxu]

I was reading my local paper which includes police reports. I read:

...a parent and resident of Main Street requested police assistance, after reportedly discovering that a teenage son was in possession of marijuana. The 17-year-old ... resident was arrested and charged with possession of a controlled drug believed to be marijuana.

The teen was fined $2,000 and givena court date.
What do you think? I know weed is not the worst of a parent's potential problems, but it's one heck of a way to punish a kid. What would you do?

[dulcemariamar]

I dont know what I would do but I actually agree with the parents. But I am a big believer in tough love.

[bugabean]

It seems harsh at first glance, but the chances are there's more to the story and this is not the first screw-up. Maybe they've caught him with it before, or caught him in other problematic activities, and tried to handle it themselves, but it didn't work. I can certainly think of cases where it would be appropriate and other cases where it wouldn't be.

[elenetxu]

I, too, thought that there's no way this is a "first offense."

[Cheesecake]

It must be because I'm from Amsterdam, but I seriously think those parents are insane. I'm all for tough love, but not for setting your kid up for a massive fine he/she probably won't be able to pay, thus setting him/her up for juve. It's been preoven time and time again that younger people who go to jail/juve for these sort of things usually come out worse then they went in.

Not a parent, but have seen this enough with friends/family members to know that if that'd happen to me/my kid, I'd sit them down for a stern talk. I'd try to figure out why he/she is doing it (peer pressure, curiosity, or something else (it's been proven that pot isn't addictive, but the cigarettes he/she might be adding are, so that's another thing to deal with).
Whether it's peer pressure or curiosity, we'll talk about it and then go into the yard to smoke it.

From all my friends family where I've seen this done, in 99 percent of the cases this worked marvelously. Parents allowing you to try it, makes it very un-cool. It also makes you stand above peer pressure, as you can tell your friends you can do it in your own yard. At the same time, smoking alone, in your yard, isn't very exciting, so the use stopped.

(Aside from smoking in the yard, said kid would be informed that if I'd ever find out - and my smell is awfully good in these things - that he/she'd smoke elsewhere than in our yard with me present in the house, he'd be grounded until he/she's 35 with bars on the windows and bedroom doors closed from the outside.)

[potatopie]

I like the idea, NLfoodie. We were brought up always having a glass of wine with family at special occasions and none of us kids ever got big into drinking with friends. It wasn't so mysterious! Equally with smoking and drugs. I always felt I could talk about it with my parents, so they'd be there if I had questions or issues.

And I think pot is the least of most parents worries. Unless it's a very regular thing and the kid is letting other things slide because of it.

[mrsukyankee]

I wouldn't let my kids drink or smoke weed with me/in my house under the age of 18, cause they've proven that if you have any possibility of addiction happening, it's if you start under the age of 18 - plus the fact that your brain isn't fully developed & it could effect it - and I don't want my kid learning to use substances for any purpose other than perhaps drinking to go with food (most kids I know drink to deal with stress/emotions/etc which is not a good thing to learn). I would definitely be talking about my expectations while also knowing that he/she would try drinking under the age of 18, especially in the UK. I'd really push them to put it off as long as possible so that they learn to deal with life in all ways w/o substances.

But unless the kids was stealing from me to do the pot, I wouldn't go the route of the police.

[popcorn]

Jun 16, 2012 5:42:03 GMT -5 bugabean said:

It seems harsh at first glance, but the chances are there's more to the story and this is not the first screw-up. Maybe they've caught him with it before, or caught him in other problematic activities, and tried to handle it themselves, but it didn't work. .

This is my first thought. I think they are probably trying to show their child that there are consequences for your actions before he gets himself into really big trouble. My guess is that they can see he is clearly going down a very bad path and are trying to nip it in the bud. Just my thoughts.

I do think that it is unlikely the kid will thank his parents for this for a looooong time (if ever) and it could completely backfire. But I knew a few kids in high school who, imo, their parents should have done something drastic like this instead of looking the other way because they grew up to be hardcore stoners (and taking other drugs) who flunked out of college.

[clogged]

I also think this wasn't his first offense.

Yeah, his record is screwed. But at some point you have to stop enabling the kid. He is old enough to know there are consequences to his actions, and most are a hell of a lot more than "mommy grounded me from the xbox for a week".

I would do the same in a heartbeat.

[aMrsin09]

I don't know if H would let me actually do it, but I would want to. In QLD if you know about and allow drugs to be on/used on your property you also get the $2000 fine and possible jail time.

I like his kids but I'm not forking out $2000 so they can get high under our supervision.

[ninjatofu]

First off, I think that is a massive waste of police and court resources. The police should be called for real issues, not minor crap like a parent that calls them on their own kid for having weed in their room. If I found a dealer's worth of coke in my kid's room, okay.

I also don't think that this is the kid's first offence, but the parents are getting desperate.

I first smoked weed with my dad when I was 14. He also made it clear that if I wanted to smoke it, he'd get if for me and I could smoke it at home in the basement, etc. which we did sometimes. Not often, but sometimes. His reasoning was that the first couple of times you smoke weed you get pretty out of your head, and he didn't want that to happen to me when I was out - he'd prefer that I'd be safe at home. I think that's reasonable.

My dad and I also had a 3 free passes agreement - bail each other out, no questions asked. I quite like this, and plan to do it with my girls when they are teenagers. The first time I tried acid (and last!) and ran out of a taxi into the woods because I thought the taxi driver was turning into a werewolf - I called my dad and he came to get me, no questions asked. I think the situation would have been much worse had I been afraid to call my dad, and tried to get home on my own.

I think that kids are going to do stupid things, it's part of growing up. Instead of working to prevent them from doing stupid things or sticking your head in the sand and assuming they're not going to do these things, do what you can to educate them and make sure that they are doing these stupid things in the safest environment possible.

As for the drinking, I completely agree that teenagers could have the odd drink with their parents over a celebratory meal or something. It removes the excitement and naughtiness of drinking, which often leads to binge drinking as soon as they are able.

I also think that with drinking it's helpful to show teenagers what idiots people look like when they are hammered, that there are limits and a big line between social drinking and crapping your pants in public and passing out. So for us, one family picnic back home should just about do it.

[fernane]

I think I would do the same thing as the parents. If you don't answer to my rules, you WILL answer to the law if you break it. Can't pay the price of the punishment? You can work it off. Kid's gotta learn sometime..

[ninjatofu]

And on that note, I think the twins are getting stoned right now. Their room reeks like weed. We think the neighbor's kid is smoking it in his room next door or something and it is getting in somehow. This is the same neighbor who's wife left the other day after we heard him beating her the other night, so we're not sure how to approach this.

All I know is that the girls are going to wake up wanting brownies and cheerios, for sure.

I swear we live in a good area.

[clickerish]

I think it's ridiculous. If you don't want your child to smoke weed, there are PLENTY of ways to deal with that issue without bringing in the police. If your child is growing weed on your property for dealing purposes, that is another story.

I honestly don't care about weed (although I don't smoke). But, if it were a huge deal to me, long before I would ask the police to arrest my own child which could lead to imprisonment and who knows what else, the first route would be to evict said child from premises for failing to obey house rules. This story strikes me as parents who are overboard.

[Waffles]

It's a ridiculous waste of police time to start with. I absolutely would never call the cops in that situation - repeat offense or not.

Although I don't smoke, I don't consider pot such a big deal and would be tempted to treat it like alcohol and basically allow it within limits (and from a certain age). I'm pretty sure it would take some of the veneer of coolness off. I would of course first have a serious discussion about drug use in general, peer pressure, why getting pissed/high isn't necessarily cool, etc.