[jbee]

ok, i know this is 'special needs adoption' but there seems to be the most people with crazy teenagers here.
17 fs got caught smoking, gets caught every time, keeps doing it and thinks he can get away with it. gets caught, lies, few hours later confesses. over and over. so i really gave him the business last time and he wasn't allowed to go outside with a friend that came over. so now he has decided he will not wake up in the mornings (which we've had big problems with in the past. solved by removing tv, internet, going anywhere until waking 5 days in a row by himself). but he has a roomate so it sucks for the other fs too with no tv.
so today i called him on his childish game and asked if he was sleeping in because he's been getting caught. i told him he will have a bedtime of eight oclock with the little bios, no tv or anything and will be treated like a little kid today. i plan on making him eat at the table with the little kids (i do daycare too) and not let him ride with the other fs to work, no helping fdad with manly things, cause little kids don't.
anyone have any other suggestions? after awhile the no tv and internet seemed to not work as well, so i am trying to find another motivation.
and then he said he will call his jpo and get moved. yeah right, because i make you wake up.
thanks for the vent. sorry so long. i am going to burst if i don't complain to someone other than dh!

[aMarylandfamily]

Please know you are welcome here ... and yes - many of us have "challenging" teenagers who do drive us nuts with their antics such as what you are experiencing!

Biggest thing with teens is consistency - make sure he knows rules and consequences of same if broken. The last child in our home is our infant adoption and sometimes he is harder to parent than those adopted at an older age.

Hang in there and keep posting ... whether bio, adopted or foster - we have lots of advice to share and welcome any suggestions with our situations too - sometimes the outisde eyes/ears offer solutions that are before our eyes and yet consumed with what is going on miss them totally (hoping that makes sense).

[lucyjoy]

(raising hand as mom of crazy teens)

My honest opinion? This won't work.

If this is a foster child, you might want to run these suggestions by the worker. If he's yours, let him call.

I never wake kids up-ever. If they oversleep and miss school or work, ooops. No school, no work, no privledges.

As for the smoking, it's a losing battle. If you can find out where he gets the ciggerettes, you can cause problems for the provider making them harder to get. I smash all tobacco products i find-causes smoking to be more expensive. I have fined kids for smoking on my property. None of the no smoking techniques were effective and I think a lot of times, that the fact that I tried so hard to stop it made them want to do it more.

Sorry son is being a pain.

[aMarylandfamily]

Once we ok'd the smoking - not on our property, not in our presence, and required receipts for all personal $ given to ascertain $ was not being used for cigarettes our teen smoked at the end of the street for about 3 weeks (one per day) and then stopped ... the thrill being removed made it no fun !

[jbee]

i know, its not so much the smoking, but that we told him he can't and does it anyway...i could care less if he gets cancer. and that he thinks he will not get caught. every time he gets caught. when will he learn?
he will be 18 in sept. but then we will not allow it on the property. we are allowed to say that.
the workers aren't really any help. they just say loss of privledges, but he dosen't do much. his last f home woke him up every day, and he's been here for 6 months. we are supposed to wake him and make sure he gets to school. frankly, i'd like to see him get in trouble for days off. but then i also have to babysit him all day. so i'm trying to find what he values. he values being an 'adult' and hanging out with dh a lot. i try to explain if he acts like a child and loses our trust it will take a time to get it back, to no avail.
thanks for the input. lucy, i know he wants to do it more because we say no, but i don't understand why if he gets caught. it can't be fun to get yelled at and punished. he isn't even sneaky enough to get away with it, so how does he enjoy it always looking over his back?

[chelspark1]

I have a soon to be 14 and 15 year old siblings that we are in the process of adopting. They have been here over a year.
I make them get up by themselves with their own alarm. We had some problems with this at one time but when I made them go to bed earlier since it seemed that they weren't getting enough sleep to get up, it soon stopped. I work full time and I refuse to have one of them make me late for work.
I recently took away my daughter's hair straightner and removed the door to her room for being extremely disrespectful to me. This has seemed to work with her so far. She has serious control issues - loss of TV, computer, ipod really doesn't do it for her. No door on her room is killing her!!!
You are right in finding something that really means alot to them and then taking it away.

[momraine]

I have a bio that has trouble getting up. He has lost all electronics before, that didn't really seem to be an issue till he got a girl friend two hours away and phones and computers are suddenly more important. I have allowed ds to be late to school, but it only works if the school doesn't feel sorry for them and make it excused. Since he is foster you have to be more careful and you have fewer options.

[lucyjoy]

From my experience, what a 17 year old values is proving that NO ONE can control them. And the consequences I gave them were just used to get people to feel sorry for them-which was very effective.

[MamaS]

I had a child who just could not get up. She would turn the alarm off without waking up and continue sleeping. I got two very LOUD, very annoying alarm clocks and set them 15 minutes apart. Then I hid them in her room. When the first one went off, she had to actually get up out of bed to turn it off. If she went back to bed, 15 minutes later the other one went off and she had to get up and find it. By then, I could knock on her door and say breakfast is ready and the bus will be here in 20 minutes and she usually got dressed and went.
By LOUD and ANNOYING, I mean like cows mooing, the sound of loons calling, etc. I still keep one for emergencies when I am going somewhere and HAVE to be on time. It says "Warning. Alien vessels approaching!" and it works every time.

[jbee]

when we were going through this stupidity the first time i made him put the alarm clock on the other side of the room so he would have to get up and get it. then he started getting up on time, but i think it was because his roomie wanted the tv back. then they had an argument and all of a sudden mr. smokey is unable to wake up again. eventually he just decided to do it. so i think this is a control issue. he is capable of doing it, it is just his stupid way of getting back at us for calling him out on his smoking, lying, etc.
but i don't get it. he gets woken up by pounding on the door, then gets talked at for five or ten minutes in the morning, then suffers consequences when he's home from school. is it worth it? it annoys me, but it really is no trouble for me to yell every morning, i'm up anyway.
so this evening he wanted to ride with other foster son to work and dh. i made him stay behind with me and the preschoolers, then loaded all the 'little kids' up in the van to go for pizza. i made a deal about yelling for all the kids to get in the van. he rode in the back and a little one was up front with me.
at dinner he wanted to walk across the street to his work to check his schedule. dh and i made him stay with us cause kids can't go by themselves.
after dinner he wanted to ride with dh in his car to go home. i told him he was coming home with me and the kids because it was his bedtime soon with the little kids. i made him take a shower. i usually let him decide when to, unless he stinks. i made sure he was lights out by 8.
dh thinks it made an impact, especially being denied his grownup time with dh. i could tell he was especially pissed after dinner. so we will see in the morning.
i think he has issues with mom figures a bit, so i will make sure its me waking him up if he decides to continue this silliness.
this stuff sounds stupid compared to some of the stuff you guys are going through, but here its a big deal. our other fs is no problem. he keeps straight, we leave him do what he wants. i am just afraid if i don't reign it in it will get worse. dh keeps me in line, though. he is always telling me not to push the kid too far cause he will run his mouth to his jpo, who is not always supportive. but i can't imagine they would move him over something so stupid. he is also the jpo of our other fs and knows us and that we run a tight ship.
ok, sorry so long (again) blah blah blah...
gotta get me one of those alien alarms to cut me off from rambling on here, lol

[AmyAnne]

Originally Posted by MamaS

I had a child who just could not get up. She would turn the alarm off without waking up and continue sleeping. I got two very LOUD, very annoying alarm clocks and set them 15 minutes apart. Then I hid them in her room. When the first one went off, she had to actually get up out of bed to turn it off. If she went back to bed, 15 minutes later the other one went off and she had to get up and find it. By then, I could knock on her door and say breakfast is ready and the bus will be here in 20 minutes and she usually got dressed and went.
By LOUD and ANNOYING, I mean like cows mooing, the sound of loons calling, etc. I still keep one for emergencies when I am going somewhere and HAVE to be on time. It says "Warning. Alien vessels approaching!" and it works every time.

WHERE did you find said item? Sounds like what my kiddo needs!

[aMarylandfamily]

Jbee - just so you know ... rambling here is just fine - I must admit I am queen of it some days! Think it is just very relieving to be able to 'talk' to others who do understand ... and whether your issue is simple or complicated it is an issue that sometimes talking about finds you to a quicker resolution especially when answered with lots of "have you tried this or that" ... sometimes that "that" is the answer .... so keep rambling!

[Indy]

But it works!

(raising my hand with lucyjoy...come on there are others out there too!)

I walk through the house, awaking those who have early morning buses. I am actually rather quiet when waking them the first time. I call their names and make sure I see open eyes and acknowledgment. I then go downstairs and wait (listening to quiet music and checking the a.com website).

If I don't hear major movement in the rooms within 7-10 minutes, I go to the kitchen and fill a large glass with water...I then walk through the house (quietly of course) and "share" the water with anyone still in bed. Usually the yelling of the first one caught in bed is enough to motivate the rest to move quickly to the exit!

I do not even allow sleeping in on the weekends. Everyone is up no later than 10AM. J4 can be as noisy as he wants at 8AM. I quit whispering around 8AM. There are always things that need to done around the house or at one of the properties.

Hmmm...smoking. That's a "cool" thing with teenagers. I know of at least a couple of mine that have done it. As my sons have started turning 18, I kind of changed roles. I focus more on future and less on settling guidelines I know they are going to violate. I liked amarylandfamily's approach. Remove the "cool" and kids make the right choice about smoking. I do get involved if they are doing around their younger brothers or smell of smoke. Several of my sons come from environments that involved drugs and alcohol, so even the smell of smoke makes them sick. I also encourage physical fitness, and its hard to perform well when you are coughing up a lung.

Aging out of the system is tough on kids. If he is not done with school, it will take a major effort to keep him there.

As far as the "jpo", I would encourage him to call. You need to eliminate the "power" he is trying to use over you by saying he is going to call her. If the "jpo" is not supportive or even worse actually sides with your FS, have him moved immediately. I would not offer this type of advice to a foster parent that was not using good discipline techniques. In this situation, I think you are doing a good job remaining consistent and strong.

Always come back...we don't bite (well at least I don't).

[Jo Ellen]

I do not know your foster sons situation with the school he is in but I have a friend who was having very similar situation with her teen bio son. What she did is communicate this problem with the principal of his school since the boy not being in school on time can cause the parents to be charged with the law for the child not being there. So the principal told the woman he would come to their house and make sure the child was up and ready to leave for school on time. Needless to say it only took one time for this to work and the child was always up on time the rest of the year. Just a thought and suggestion.

[jbee]

ok guys he woke up without incident this morning. i think i have found his trigger (for now, lol)
i wish i could dump water on him. although one of the reasons he got put into the system in the first place was his gma dumped water on him to wake up and he tried to choke her. great, right? but that was a few years ago. if he wasn't foster care i'd have my super soaker ready.
i like what the pp said about making them smoke out at the road, not on the property. once he is 18 i think he will look so cool out at the end of the driveway. he does not have a license or state id so far, and the jpo is pokey about that stuff too. so if i poke around and don't do it, or wait for gma to do it he will just have to buy the smokes illegally until someone gets it done.

jo ellen we had a friend of the family who had their kid taken away for a time because they couldn't wake him. i think eventually they tried something like that, but it took going to a foster home to cure it. but then he dropped out a month before graduation. i don't really think he won't wake up, he gets up once we yell, he hasn't tried to say no yet. so i guess the problem isn't waking up, its waking up without assistance. i think its a power thing.
and we told him to call his jpo, but he didn't follow through. when he was having waking troubles before the jpo acted like he would have to have a better reason to move him, and hinted residential would be the next step. its just sometimes the jpo acts like a softy..unpredictable...you know how workers are
thanks