I am pretty sure they are only a JC now.

Cut off the money supply. No car, no phone, no internet, no cable, get a job, etc.

I guess I should have given more details. He is actually my stepson. I married my wife when he was 2. We have raised the kids in church and try to set a good example for them. I know that this in no way guarantees that a kid will turn out like you want, but we did the best we could.

His dad can't stay at a job more than a year and lives in a dump because he drinks most of his pay check. Quite often, when it was his time to come get him, he would call and say he couldn't drive because he already had too many. But he let's him do whatever as long as it doesn't bother him, so now that he is older, he likes the freedom over there. When we first caught him dipping at 14, his dad said "if that's t he worst thing he ever does, he'll be ok."

This constant back and forth between rules and freedom is the biggest problem. We have cut out most of his friends, and that helped, but did not solve the problem. He is not a terrible kid, but I just don't want him to grow up to be a waste like his dad. He has potential if he would just get it together.

I try to constantly remind all our kids that life is a series of choices, results, and consequences. Right now, he just has really bad judgment.

Thanks to all who have prayed and offered advice.

The last I heard the state was going to help fund them. I guess that was just the JC part. Shame, it did a lot of good for some kids. I wish the JC would start back playing football. They used to play AUs JV and the Miss. JCs.

I just graduated high school last year and can say that almost if not 100% of his problem will be in his friends. And I know this could sound extreme, but is a military institute ever thought about. I know a kid who was troublesome and his parents were going to do that.

im 21 and my parents would take things from me when i messed up like my phone truck tv it was a book and lay in bed that was all i could do that got to me worse than anything else i would have rather done yard work than be stuck in the house all day

Under no circumstance do this. They will simply wait for him to trip up, arrest him and put him in the system. This will probably end any chance you have of achieving the result you want.

At the very least, I think it's time to have a talk about boundaries. Explain to him that in a few short years, he'll be on his own and can do whatever he chooses. You cannot watch over him for the rest of his life. That's a fact. At the same time, explain that living under your roof has a different set of rules that must be followed. As far as consequences for his actions, you know the kid better than we do. Good luck man. My last bit of advice is don't treat it like a terrible crime. While it is against the law in this state, it is rampant and he's probably just experimenting with it like a lot of kids his age. Let him know you disapprove and it's not welcome in your house, then move on.

When I was that age I really needed someone to come beside me and explain that I needed to be running with guys that were smarter than me and with people that I could look up to. These are the type of people that will eventually pull you up to their level rather than the moron buddies I had that occasionally pulled me DOWN to their level. It took me a while to figure out that if I ran ran with dogs I was gonna get fleas. We were so dumb that we were all just swapping fleas and getting no where fast. Be deliberate in talking and teaching responsibility to this young man. You have more influence over him than you think.Spend authentic, quality time with him. He needs a stable, responsible adult male to invest in him now more than any other point in his life. Pray with him and constantly over him. Live the lifestyle that he should emulate rather than the one his birth father leads.
Just my two cents worth....

You have been given some good and bad advice. At the end of the day it comes down to just you and your son, talking. Fortuanately, I haven't had to endure your situation but, with my job I have seen it more times than I want to like to think about. Here is what I did for a very dear friend of mine, I had our Chief Correction officer to single out someone in our jail that had been down this road and was willing to speak with his son. I sat the meeting up, at our office. No scared straight type thing, someone closer to his age, the inmate was 19. This young man had a terrible up bringing and unimaginable experiences, both inside and outside of jail. They talked for 45 min. Now the change wasn't immediate with my friends son, but he began to, let's say, pay attention to the signs that the inmate told him about, both with his friends and himself. My friends son began to spend more time with his father, hunting and other activities. Church being one of those activities. He is now a senior at U.T. Martin fixing to graduate with an Agri-Business degree. What would it hurt to reach out ? I will be praying for you both, for him, conviction, for you, wisdom.

How about something like this?
mash

Get involved with the teachers at his school email them and ask how he's doing. Does he listen well. Get involved in his life. Find out who his friends are. And are they doing it too? If so contact their parents. If they stop he should stop too. As a kid I dipped with my friends when I was about 14 or 15 and they ended up stopping so I stopped and got involved in church. Get him involved in the things you do. Taking him on a 2 day fishing trip. Take him hunting. A sport will really help also. At my sons school if you play a sport you get drug tested and if tested positive you pay the price. The coach sure will make you run, workout, and other crap for weeks. A sport should help and get him involved in church. In a youth group. Making friends there. Find a church that has people that will pay good attention to him and help him also. A parent can only do so much. He needs another "family" to help him. Other adults that care. That's all i can think about.

I have had 5 kids and I really wish I knew what to tell you... Every kid is different and all of them require different motivation techniques.

My stepson [Adopted by my wife] has always required constant supervision, serious discipline, had poor grades, and I thought we would never get him through high school. He was actually quite smart, in a criminal mastermind sort of way, and we [He and us] had planned for him to join the military after we busted our asses to get him though an expensive private school with a super high teacher to student ratio. But after he graduated, he had other plans... We ended up having to kick him out of the house and he eventually pissed off everyone he ended up living with after a few short weeks, because he was such a self-centered asshole. He now lives in Portland, Oregon as a vagabond.

My wife rarely hears from him anymore and it breaks her heart knowing all that she has invested in him. I can't stand the little turd now because of all the work that my wife and I have put into him only to see him turn out like he did. He came from a really bad family situation with generations of welfare and I have come to the conclusion that he is just one of those where as the old adage says, "You can take the boy out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the boy." We put 10 times the effort into raising him that we did with my youngest son, almost to the point of neglecting my youngest son emotionally...

In contrast, my youngest son [3 years younger than the adopted stepson] got into smoking pot for a while and his grades dropped and I instituted a program of paying for grades. [We tried the same program with the stepson to no avail.] His grades came up, but he used his report card money to buy pot. I never made a big deal out of him smoking weed, because I smoked it back when I was his age. Of course I had certain rules about him not having any around the house, etc... I even let him have a drink at the house with me and his stepmom if he wants, my theory being that I would rather him have a drink at the house where he is safe than drinking with his buddies out on the road. I think both of those tactics have served to demystify and de-taboo pot and alcohol and kept him from going over the edge with either one.

The main thing with him is that I have always stressed a total honestly policy, being that if he always told the truth he would get in a lot less trouble. He's actually told me a lot of stuff that I rather would not have heard [Sex, etc...], but I feel better knowing than not knowing. I have always stressed love and understanding first and discipline last.

And guess what? He ended up quitting weed and rarely if ever even wants a drink even if we offer him one during football Saturday or sitting around the campfire, etc... He now has a 3.5 gpa and is going to UAB next year to study physics. He does his chores, doesn't complain, and consequently he has very, very few rules around the house and has learned to self moderate in almost all things.

So my example is of two totally different kids, two totally different approaches and two totally different outcomes. With the stepson we tried all the same approaches that we did with my son, but instead of responding to them he just took advantage of every situation [Give them an inch and they'll take a mile.] and we had to end up changing tactics.

The point being that there is no panacea when raising kids, and you need to try different approaches until something works. Unfortunately there are some kids that are just going to be hell bent on destruction and you just have to kind of wait them out and hope they wake up one day and mature enough to start thinking straight before it's too late.

I hate you're having to deal with this situation. Praying for ya brother.

I have threatened and really thinking about taking my kids to Ethiopia or somewhere and show them how children are starving to death. I have no trouble out of my kids but they are ungrateful most of the time and don't realize how good they have it.

You dont need to go that far to find what you're looking for.
Have them serve at a soup kitchen during the holidays.

This...

Thanks again guys. There's a lot of good advice here. We just have a lot of thinking and praying to do.I think the big thing with him is gonna be finding some good activities to keep him busy and some good influence type friends. I'm trying to get him into the archery club with my youngest, but he doesn't seem interested. Any ideas for that kind of stuff?

He's not going to be interested in anything dad suggest because you are coming between him and his dope smoking buds. I'll bet his group is a group of 3 or 4 and they split who buys the dope. One will buy one time then the next will buy the next time. The only way to splinter the group is to alert the other parent ( if you haven't already ). Then your sons friends will get mad and he will probably be the outcast. If that happens then maybe he'll realize that they are not his true friends and come to the realization that you as parents have his best interest at heart. Prayers to you and his mother.

Buy him an old piece of junk car or truck that he helps pick out and let HIM restore it piece by piece and tell him it is his if he does a good job. That should occupy him for awhile if he is a normal teen boy. If he doesn't take an interest in it, resell it and get your money back. Hopefully, nothing lost.