<p>FOLTS - most crimes that are committed are done under the influence, so drugs may be involved within the group (not that we need to know that) and her D is not doing the drugs; zmom has said it is not drugs!</p>
<p>Whatever it is, it is much more serious than drugs. I can’t think of a parent here on CC who would kick their kid out if it was just alcohol or drug abuse. They’d stick by their kid through rehab, especially if it was a first incident, not kick them out.</p>
<p>First incidents rarely if ever need rehab. (unless we are talking oxycotin or meth)</p>
<p>zoosermom, so sorry to hear that you’re going through this. Just wanted to lend my support to what ever you decide is best for you. take good care.</p>
<p>Going to the authorities with evidence is very tricky business. Would it be better to have a conversation with the other parents? Will this put your daughter in a precarious situation and possible risk? Will this truly alienate her? Only you know the full details. But I would worry about how this will play out with my daughter.
You are showing great thought and composure, probably better than I would handle things.</p>
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<p>How dare you presume to tell me how to parent and how dare you misrepresent my posts?</p>
<p>May I suggest that you (re)read BayAreaDad’s posting about his daughter’s transgression and explusion just before graduation? While what you have described seems far more serious and D is older, perhaps some of BayAreaDad’s parental musings on how to deal with a difficult issue, how to talk to his D, and how to make her take responsibility for her actions might be of some help. If this is as serious as you say, it must have repercussions in other areas of her life and if she leaves.</p>
<p>Milkandsugar, I honest to God don’t know. I am acquainted with one set of the parents and they’re the type that is very free with alcohol, marijuana and sex where their kids are concerned, so I don’t think they’ll care. The other set of parents is the pair mostly involved and I don’t know them at all. If I thought I could have a conversation with all of them and come to an understanding, I would, but I’m not sure any of them will be receptive.</p>
<p>Tango, that’s great advice. I rememer that thread and will seek it out to refresh my memory.</p>
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isn’t that what every post here is for, and the reason you posted this thread?</p>
<p>zm, I’m so sorry that this is happening. I’m glad that you have the option of sending your D to your mother if it seems best to have her out of your house, at least for a while. It’s always more complicated when there are other siblings to consider.</p>
<p>You have some great advice. I have only a few thoughts to add.</p>
<p>First, I agree that you should not confront your D by telephone during her vacation, but I wonder whether she might be engaging in the dangerous activity whlie she is gone? In that case, you might consider taking her home early, if she is close enough that this is possible.</p>
<p>Second, I was struck by what sounds like a radical personality change after a long illness, surgery, and a bad reaction to medication. I wonder whether there might be a physical basis to her current uncharacteristic behavior. I know two people who have actually shown symptoms of mental illness after surgery/anesthesia. One of them, my brother-in-law, was actually hospitalized for a while. He has since recovered. </p>
<p>Third, I’m wondering about your D’s friends. Are these new friends? I have to say that I was shocked to hear about people who are “very free with alcohol, marijuana and sex where their kids are concerned.” I can’t imagine that these kids would be good friends for your D! Does your mother live far enough away that living there would make it impossible for these friendships to continue?</p>
<p>zoosermom, I posted my suggestion about BayAreaDad before I had read the whole thread. Here’s wishing you good luck, strength and success however you decide to proceed.</p>
<p>I agree with your H that much of this might be a reaction to all the trauma in D’s life and the anger she is feeling. So many kids who have pretty much sailed through life and school (good grades that come pretty easily, no health issues, happy family life, popular, generate a lot of high expectations on the part of others and for themselves) just don’t know how to deal with a reversal of fortune, and your D has had it in spades! Remember the high hopes that you both had as she headed off to college, and all that has come crashing down thanks to illness and a whole series of bizarre, unfair health events. You must have been terribly disappointed at this turn of events but were helped throughout it by your overriding concern for her health. For her, it must seem as if her whole world has come crashing down around her. </p>
<p>I hope counseling helps you help her get a handle on her feelings and find a counstructive way to deal with her issues.</p>
<p>ZM, I had a few thoughts about the legal aspects: if you tell the authorities about illegal activities of your daughter and her friends, there may be consequences for all of them including your daughter. If you confront the friends parents with this information, they may consider you as a threat to them and/or their children. Finally, if the friends or their parents possess photographic evidence of your daughter being involved into some illegal activity, they may use this evidence against her. If they choose to approach the authorities first, they will have time and opportunity to present (or hide) the facts as they wish and to negotiate with the authorities on their terms. You may want to consider this before you act. Also, be very careful to post any details compromising your daughter it must be easy to recognize you or her irl and someone may use this information against you. I am very sorry that you have to deal with these problems.</p>
<p>I just wanted to clarify that I am not suggesting that zm’s D is mentally ill, only to raise the possibility that her behavior may be influenced by continuing medical issues. Another example that I forgot to put in the other post is the known cognitive and behavioral changes that result in a substantial fraction of people who have been on the heart-lung machine during cardiac surgery. This has been proposed as an explanation for Bill Clinton’s recent behavior.</p>
<p>[isn’t that what every post here is for, and the reason you posted this thread
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No. It is to share advice and experience, not to twist my words and make pronouncements to me. It’s misrepresenting my position and statements that I object to.</p>
<p>NYMom, you hit the nail on the head on a lot of things. Radical changes after the illness, but I sincerely believe that she is angry because she has always led a charmed life and how dare this happen to her. I could be wrong, so I’m going to bring up your suggestion to the therapist. Much appreciated insight.</p>
<p>As far as the friends, they are newish friends with whom she works and nothing like our values and morals. I didn’t really understand that until this week. This is also on my list of things to figure out. They’re both going to school about 6 hours away (separately in the same city) so we can put a stop to that. I’m going to.</p>
<p>Traveladdict, thank you. So basically, we’re darned if we do and darned if we don’t?</p>
<p>zoosermom: It’s hard to butt in here, because I respect your desire not to share too much about your situation, and because I suspect our parenting styles differ radically. But this is a thought I have been having while reading this thread: I can’t tell whether what your family is going through is unusual, or if it’s completely, totally the normal experience of kids in their late teens as they finish high school and start college.</p>
<p>In many ways, of course, that’s irrelevant. You have a set of moral standards, and you expect your child to live by them, regardless of what her friends do. Behaving typically is not per se acceptable. You have every right to communicate that to your children.</p>
<p>However, surely the typicality or not of her behavior ought to affect how you respond, and even how much panic and distress you feel about the situation. Because “typically”, at least in my experience, what happens is that after a relatively short period of rebellion/experimentation – relatively short can mean a few years – kids wind up growing up to be the people they were raised to be. All your values, all your standards will be there. But your daughter has to accept them for herself, out of her own experience, with some sense of what the alternatives may be. There may be some variations you can’t control, and wouldn’t choose, but most people seem to wind up with the children they raised.</p>
<p>So . . . before you call the police, etc., I urge you to talk honestly with some people you trust whose children are 5-10 years older, and maybe with some of those slightly older younger adults. Get their read on the situation, how seriously they regard it, what kinds of responses they think may work and which ones may be counterproductive. Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill, even if you aren’t going to stand for any moles in your garden.</p>
<p>JHS, thank you for taking the time to post. Your thoughts are well and gratefully received and your insight is remarkable. THere is some (maybe a lot) of truth in what you say, but she has to step back beyond the point of breaking the law and endangering herself and others. If she can do that, I would assess exactly what you said – what is normal and usual at this age. Thank you again very much.</p>
<p>zm, just a couple other thoughts, which you are of course free to reject if they don’t make sense to you.</p>
<p>Lots of kids, including one of mine, manage to have significant problems despite living a “charmed life” - free of major problems, with many advantages. From what I remember, your D has always taken the bumps in stride and made the best of every situation. So, although you may be right that her response to the major setbacks of the last year is purely emotional, it seems to me that medical/physical causes should also be checked out. I know that you are going to mention this to the therapist, but you might also consider consulting her physician.</p>
<p>JHS, I love the comment about moles in the garden!</p>
<p>Personally, I find the idea of asking her to pay half her tuition a bit worrisome, regardless of whether you think she can actually do it. It seems a bit late in the day and also, from what you have said about what she did, not really a logical consequence.</p>
<p>I think if my mom decided to stop paying my tuition for some random thing that was not related to school, especially I had the difficulties your D did last year and for the first time was having to deal with my own and my family’s feelings of disappointment in school-related things, I might see it as her gratefully taking an opportunity to stop wasting so much of her money paying for an education for someone she thought was generally a loser and not really worth investing in anymore, like it was just the excuse she had been waiting for.</p>
<p>Of course, your D might feel completely differently, and you’d know more, but it just feels to me like what went on with her this past year makes everything so much more fragile. I hope it all works out OK for you.</p>