Yes-Mom

Posted by Anonymous.

I wonder if my entire relationship with my son has been based on my saying yes to everything.

He's 17, a high school senior, successful student and generally a good guy, except I learned he's not so nice and we're not so close when I say no. When he was 9, he was diagnosed as having an Autism Spectrum Disorder, Asperger's, but was "highly functioning" which meant that he was intelligent, oppositional, argumentative, sweet, loving and exhausting to raise. We sought all kinds of social and occupational therapy for him in order to help him develop the social skills he did not intuitively have. We indulged him when he found an interest in the video arcade game, Dance Dance Revolution, and we drove him to tournaments up and down the East Coast just like other parents drive their kids all over the place when they are on travelling soccer teams. He formed friendships, built confidence, and figured out how to deal with his quirks. He became popular. His dad and I indulged him by taking him on these trips to visit his friends and to participate in DDR tournaments. We permitted him to sleep over at friends' houses in the city where the tournament was held. We hung out in the town and got a hotel room, so we could be close by.

This started when he was 13. As he got older, he told us there was drinking sometimes but he did not participate. Then last New Year's we let him go to North Carolina with a friend, without us, to visit friends. Yes, there was drinking and yes, he drank. He concluded that because we allowed him to go, we approved of his drinking. Then over the summer while his father and I were on vacation, he begged us to stay home and we let him. His response was to have his friends over for a party, with alcohol, purchased with the spending money we left for him.

Since then we have had many conversations about drinking. He tells us that we're punishing him for being honest. We tell him that we worry about him making bad choices. Now, he asked to go away with friends to a New Year's party this year out of state, and we said no. He's angry and is acting out. He says that he's much more honest with us than his friends are, and that we need to trust him to make good decisions, since he is going to college next year and will be on his own. We tell him that there are so many bad things that could happen, like getting into a car accident or having a run in with the police and getting charged with underage drinking. We won't be anywhere nearby to help him if there is a problem. He said he's not handling his anger better because we have modeled bad behavior when we're angry. He says we're being inconsistent and arbitrary. He's saying whatever comes to mind.

He's being so unkind and so impolite that I don't recognize this rude person. Or rather, I see him clearly for the first time. I've been far too worried about being his friend and not being his parent. I did not think that is what I was doing but now I see it all more clearly. And it's too late to change it. He's leaving home in less than a year. He's 17 -- a know it all and barely listens to me. He's grown up thinking that we'll always say yes and he's hardly ever heard us say no. I thought I was teaching him and I see that by indulging him, I failed him. It feels like our relationship is a sham. We are not close because he loves me; we're close because I always said yes.

Even Shady Pasts Can Lead to Bright Futures

Posted by Erin W.

This post has been a long time in the making. The story is hard for me to look back on and harder to tell, so please bare with me and be gentle in judgment.

In a lot of ways I'm like a first time mom with Kairi. There are a lot of very public ways, like that I breastfeed Kairi and I didn't with Gracie, I babywear, I co-sleep... There are a lot of very different mothering techniques (I guess) that I am using this time round. But there is also one very big, very private way that I am a first time mom...

When I was in high school I liked to party. I skipped school to go smoke pot until the principal threatened to suspend me for skipping one more time. Even then I still left campus to get high at lunch. Just after I got out of school Jason and I got together. I was 17 at the time and still smoking. He smoked then too. It wasn't a huge part of our relationship, but it was there. We moved in together after 8 months with no savings and crap jobs.

After a few months of living together, things were getting rough financially. The job Jason had been working for the past 6 years (on and off, mostly on though) refused to give him a raise. When the state raised the minimum wage from $5.15 to $5.85 his boss told him to consider that his raise. One day, Jason found an easy fix to our money situation. He had bought an ounce of pot off a friend for $80 and had another friend who wanted to buy half of it from him for $50. This friend had another friend who wanted to buy the other half for $50 as well. Jason made $20 out of the deal and went back for another. And that's how it started.

At first Jason and I both kept our jobs. Over time I traded up jobs and was making more money, and over time he was making bigger deals - eventually quitting his job and becoming a full time pot dealer. For a time it was fun. We constantly had friends coming over, we always had money, and we were always partying. But over time I began to develop an allergy to THC, so smoking was no longer fun for me. And the constant flow of people coming over was no longer close friends, but distant strangers who didn't want to visit and have fun - they wanted what they came for and then wanted to leave. Not only that, but they had no respect for any kind of house rules. Looking back, I don't know how I expected them to, but at the time I was pretty worked up over it. But we still always had money and I still enjoyed spending it. After a while Jason was making enough selling that I was able to quit my job and never look back. This went on for 3 years.

When I was 20 I got pregnant with Gracie. During my pregnancy I tried to talk Jason into quitting and getting a job. He kept saying that he was trying to save up enough money that we could make due on it for a while before having to go back to work, but the money kept getting stolen, or a deal would go bad and we'd be out $500 for it. It was always 1 step forward and 2 back where the saving was concerned.

Gracie was born in the end of January '05. While I was in the hospital my family asked me how we were going to make due. They didn't come right out and say it, but the urged me to try to get Jason to find a job, and for me to do the same once I was able to. I talked to Jason until I was blue in the face about it, but he had just lost a big chunk of the savings in a bad deal and thought he could for sure get it back within a couple of months.

I know what everyone must be thinking. I know what I am thinking in hindsight: Why didn't I just leave? Take Gracie and flee? It's not that I didn't love her enough - I just kept believing that Jason would quit after "this next deal." Finally one night in April I made a decision: if he doesn't get a job within 2 weeks, I'm gone. That's it.

10:00 am, April 12, 2005 - The next morning....

BANG BANG BANG BANG!

The loud, hard knocks at the door shot my out of my bed like a bullet from a gun. I had had it up to here with all these inconsiderate druggies waking me up! I didn't even put on my glasses. I looked out the window in the door and saw several people standing on the porch. As I went to unlock the deadbolt the banging on the door started again, this time shaking the house. I stepped back just in time to see the door fly open sending splinters from the door frame across my living room, one slicing my hand open as it flew through the air.

"Get on the ground! Get on the ground NOW!," screamed the 6'5" 300 lb policeman in the front. Immediately I was on my stomach with his knee hard in my back as he was putting handcuffs on me. I had just barely missed the swing where Gracie, then 2 months, was sleeping when I hurled myself to the ground. Within seconds there were 8 men in black in my house rummaging through my things. One policeman went to the bedroom and gently and politely asked Jason to roll over onto his belly on the bed so he could cuff him.

Almost right off the bat they took Jason to the police station. I stayed behind to stay with Gracie until a Child Protection agent could come get her. I begged the officer in charge to remove my cuffs so I could feed her and change her diaper. He said he was already doing more than he should by letting me do those things in cuffs, so it was definitely a no-go on taking them off.

You know those movies where there is an explosion and everything goes in slow motion? The ones where you see everything slightly blurred, debris flying everywhere, blinding light bending your perception on things? That's what those moments felt like to me. The only completely clear thing I remember from that whole morning was sitting in my rocking chair, holding my daughter who through the whole thing did nothing but smile at me. She had the biggest smile on her face the whole time, even as I handed her off to the social worker. The memory of that beautiful, bright, toothless grin will always be tainted by the hazy memories of that morning.

Immediately my mother made arrangements to move back to town so that she could become the guardian of her granddaughter. I thank my lucky stars every single day that my mother dropped everything in her life and spent her entire retirement to get here so Gracie wouldn't have to be in a foster home with strangers.

Gracie lived with my mom, her Mimi, for 10 months while Jason and I worked hard to complete the treatment plan laid out by the social worker assigned to our case. Jason had to go to rehab for a month, we both had to go to group counseling for drug addicts and abusers, I had to go to counseling to work through my enabling issues, we went to parenting classes and additionally attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings every night we were able. We worked hard to turn our lives around.

But our social worker was new - we were her first case. Prior to becoming a social worker she was a foster parent. She got the kids who were in the worst conditions and as such was out for blood on her first run. She needed to make an example out of someone, and we were that someone. Now, I'm not trying to play the victim here. We wouldn't have had to deal with her like we did had we not gotten ourselves in the position in the first place, and I will be the first one to admit that. That being said, the woman really was out for blood. She kept our case open for 2 years. After the initial 10 months of work we had to do to get Gracie back home with us, we were subjected to another 14 months of hoop jumping. She even removed Gracie from our house for a month again because we had it sprayed for bugs.

One night we were at a friend's house eating dinner when I got a call on my cell phone. It was Carol, our worker. She called to tell me that a woman within CPS, but not in her department had audited her cases and told her that our case was to be closed effective the following week. When we went to court to close the case Carol was not there, but her supervisor was there in her place. She apologized on behalf of CPS for keeping our case open so long (it is customary to keep cases open once the child returns home for 6 months. Some have to stay open longer, but only those who aren't cooperating.)

Since then we've been working hard to keep turning our lives in the right direction. We got a foot up in the process of getting Gracie back, but that was only the beginning. Since then Jason has stayed at the same job for 4 years, a job that gives him raises as deserved (for the most part). I got the first job I could get my hands on while we were trying to get Gracie back. I worked for over a year and a half at McDonald's, working to become a manager. Then I went to work at Chili's where I stayed for 2 years until I started school and found out I was pregnant with Kairi.

It's been a long, hard road and we missed a lot of the parenting experience with Gracie as a baby. She lived with my mom from the time she was 2 months old until the week after her first birthday and then for a month the following summer. A friend of mine is constantly laughing at me on Facebook because I'm always making comments about what new things Kairi is doing. "You sound like such a new mom!" she tells me.

And in a lot of ways I am. But I am loving the experiences I am going through with my kids. I have learned from my mistakes and because of them I know that I will never take my children for granted like so many parents do. I am cherishing every single moment I have with them because I know what it's like to go without. A friend of mine told me throughout the whole ordeal, "I don't know how you do it. If that happened to me, if I was separated from my daughter, I'd go crazy. I'd either be in a mental facility or I'd kill myself." At the time all I could tell her was that I knew I had to be strong for my daughter so I could get her back. Recently someone sent me an email with a picture in it. The picture said, "You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have."

In my life I have few regrets. In a way I don't regret what happened because the change made us better parents and better partners to one another. I think that we are amazing now. (Not to be cocky or anything, but I really do.) But the most heartbreaking regret I have is how the change came about.

I realize that my story will turn some people away. Some people just can't get past what we did to get where we are or how we've lived our lives. I would love to say that it's fine with me, that I don't care. But I do. In a lot of ways it makes it feel like all the work we've done to better ourselves for our family has been in vain, that we're still nothing but a couple of pot-peddling druggies. But in the same respect I can understand. A lot of people have not walked in the same neighborhood as what I've gone through, let alone the same path or shoes and it is hard for them to see what motivated me at the time. I'm in no way defending my actions at the time or trying to say that I had the right motivations, but I have always ALWAYS loved my daughters and so has Jason. We have lived through one of the most heartbreaking, life-altering experiences we will probably ever go through (fingers crossed) and we are better parents for it.

I appreciate you taking the time to read my story. I've tried writing this out time and time again and just have never found the right words. Even now I'm hesitant. But I over the past few years I have met families that have been in the same type of situation and sharing my story has seemed to help, to give hope or if nothing else to give a sense that they're not alone in the battle. I hope that maybe someone in need of help will see this and see that it can be done, it's not a never ending battle (even when your social worker has a personal vendetta against you) and in the end there is hope for change and strength.

A Little Piece Of God

Posted by Anonymous.

I have an autistic son who is truly a bit of God broken off and fallen to this earth. I am fortunate in a a million ways that he is oh... let's say autism-lite. He has none of the most challenging behavioral and cognitive elements of the disorder and his therapy is moving faster than anyone could have imagined. I am in no way brave about this, and his diagnosis did very nearly turn me to dust, but recently someone asked that I write a letter to her friend, a stranger, who is struggling with her daughter's recent diagnosis. So I gave it my best shot.

This diagnosis is a pointing finger and nothing more. And now it’s my turn to whisper the important words--words that flicker just brightly enough to keep you from falling the whole hard way down: Your beautiful child remains your beautiful child, regardless of where a finger points. Mothers of auties pass those words down to new mothers of auties like some families pass down silver, and it may well be that this one act and these few words are the single speck of autism that we mothers hold in common.

Autism is so many things, so many different ways of being. People will ask you “what is autism?” Believe me, they’ll ask you all sorts of things, but when they ask this particular question, they may as well ask, “what is skin?” How do you answer? How can you? But since no mother begins this trip with answers and since you cannot give what you don’t yet have, leave it, just leave it. . Also, it’s very important right now that you pack lightly, so you must leave other people’s stuff behind. This is your trip and that pointing finger is where you start.

Take this road through whatever terrain you must--anger, grief, frustration--and know that you will come out the other side a changed and stronger mother. Go ahead and take the long road with all the hills and muddy spots. Stop where you feel the need, think a lot about turning around, and understand that you will always bitch about why you have to do all the damned driving. But you will drive and drive. And then drive some more. You will keep moving forward, I promise.

Claim your place now among like-minded mothers and know that we are tough. We will stand with you shoulder-to-shoulder, stretch mark- to-stretch mark because we have all done the drive, in our own way, at our own speed with our own stretch of muddy spots.

My autie is a million kinds of magic to me. Just as he had no words for the first five-ish years of his life, nor do I have words to explain our bond. His everyday obstacles show up on time every day, but they loom only as large as we allow. So often, too often, we show off those obstacles—we set them apart and make absolutely certain that we can say, “That’s my kid there, and wow, will you just look at the size of his obstacles ? They are RIGHT THERE and THEY ARE HUGE.”
Let me be very clear now, that those same obstacles have no power over the magic, not the least little bit. Say that outloud to yourself right now. Good. This child sits closest to my heart and I can tell you that even in his worst moments, I can see tiny bits of my best self. He is unbridled joy. He has a lightness that comes in quite handy during the darks. And while my chaos is just boring mommy chaos, his chaos is—well, he’s often quite glorious in his chaos. My own road is occasionally strewn with his gifts of glory wrapped in sticky chaos Now, understand that these gifts are rare and precious, mostly unexpected and sometimes quite sticky. Some days you will have to look long and hard to find even the dullest one. Some days you’ll give up looking altogether. Again, please know that giving up on today can never, ever forfeit the gifts scheduled for tomorrow. Keep looking. You’ll see.

Daniel’s diagnosis shattered me like a rock hitting glass--a big ugly hard thing hitting a not very sturdy at all thing. We sat in that tiny room with the tiny chairs and filled out those very not-tiny-at-all pages of parent questionnaires and I cried. The whole time. Long pages. Lots of crying.

Not a good day, to be sure, but one that you’ve now survived. You remember the tiny room with those tiny chairs, and you surely recall filling out the stack of parent questionnaires. You might also recall that your answers were often limited to three choices: Often, Sometimes and Not At All. So do you bend your beautiful child to fit those tight little circles? Oh, you know that answer already. And when you worry that your daughter's diagnosis might change how you see her, who she is, and who she might become, that answer fits quite nicely into one of those circles.

That answer is Not At All.

Parental Guilt: Reluctance To Seek A Diagnosis

Posted by Anonymous.

I am usually very confident about my parenting decisions. I either confidently make the best decision or confidently accept that I cannot do the best thing and that what I’m doing instead is good enough. I think carefully about my choices and usually feel good about the ones I make.

But there is one issue where I waffle, where I feel insecure, where I get defensive, and where I feel guilt over possibly making the wrong choice.

My son is not normal. I hate writing those words. I hate writing them because I reject the concept of normal. Of needing to conform. Of needing to be like and behave like everyone else. That aside, by the standards of the world around us, my five year old son is not normal.

* He has always been a spirited child, by every definition of the term.
* He is an anxious kid. He cannot go to sleep without parental presence at night. He’s just manipulating us people say. But it is more than that. He is truly scared. He sometimes goes through periods of stress where he clears his throat constantly or chews on the collar or sleeve of his shirt.
* He has extreme oral aversions to certain foods and textures. He is not just a picky eater (although he is that too). He will literally gag and have a major panic attack if he puts something in his mouth that his system, for whatever reason, does not like.
* He cannot sit still and cannot wait his turn. Not at school. Not at home.
* He is not yet dry at night.

He could have an anxiety disorder, a sleep disorder, an eating disorder, a hyperactivity disorder.

He is genetically predisposed to this. My husband and his father both suffer from anxiety. I have always had sleep issues. My brother and I were the weird kids in school, the ones shuffled off to “special” activities for the socially inept. There could be other explanations too, not necessarily that caused the issues my son is facing (since these things do tend to be genetic), but that perhaps exacerbated them. Things like the amount of stress I dealt with during my pregnancy (two very traumatic events).

I know that mental illness is very real. I have friends who deal with it everyday. I have friends who have successfully taken medication to deal with their illness (be it ADHD or anxiety or other) and have gotten their lives under control. I have seen them on and off their meds and I’ve seen the difference it makes. I know the disease is real. I know medication can make a difference.

Yet I hesitate to seek a diagnosis for my son.

* I hesitate because of the label. I worry about how it would make him feel (right now he is confident, likes himself a lot and has no inkling that he might not be like every other kid in every way). I worry about how others would treat him. That worry comes from how I was treated when I was sent off to special activities at school. Believe me: the other kids knew the difference between the times I was sent out for advanced French and when I was sent out to learn how to be more normal. Maybe if I felt like I benefited from it, I would feel differently. But I got the label of being odd without the benefit of anything that truly helped.

* I hesitate because he is doing well in his school. Despite the fact that he cannot sit still in class, he is excelling academically, he loves his teachers and they love him, he has friends, he enjoys himself and they cater to his needs. However, it is a small school that does not have the resources to deal with learning disabilities and a label or diagnosis could result in him having to leave the school. Am I sure he would have to? No. Do I want to ask outright? No. I think that would draw attention to the possibility and result in them asking him to be assessed. I know he would not thrive in our local public school for many reasons and I don’t want to have to send him there because of a diagnosis.

* I hesitate because we’re making progress. He tried two new foods in the past two weeks. That may be more than he has tried in the past two years. We no longer have to lie down with him for him to go to sleep. We can now sit on a chair outside his room with the door open and read something while he goes to sleep without him having a major panic attack. He hasn’t had any episodes recently of obsessive throat clearing or other tics.

While I understand how medication can help other people (and have seen it help other people), I think that if he can learn to deal with his anxiety and his aversions and his hyperactivity, if he can get it under control himself with our help, then he will be better off in the long-term. I’ve seen people do well on medication, but I’ve also seen what happens when they go off their meds because the side effects get to them or because they just don’t want to anymore.

Could therapy help? Maybe. But I don’t have a lot of trust in the medical establishment and, as mentioned above, I worry about the label and what that would do to him personally and to his school situation.

Do I sound confident about my choice? If I do, I faked you out the way I fake myself out every day.

I hated being labeled. I felt restricted by it. As soon as I was out of the environment where I was the “special” kid, I excelled. My husband on the other hand has never had any treatment for his anxiety and still suffers from it today. It isn’t debilitating, but it does create challenges for him sometimes.

There are good days, where I feel like I am making the right choice. Days where we see progress. Days where he seems like a normal kid. But there are also days where I feel like I am making the wrong choice. Where he would be happier and feel more in control if he were medicated and able to control his emotions and his impulses.

I feel guilty about not seeking a diagnosis. But I would also feel guilty about seeking a diagnosis. I feel trapped.

Violent Thoughts

Posted by Anonymous.

I am really struggling with this. I have various mental health problems, including depression with bipolar tendencies (means my moods go haywire but I'm not actually manic), personality disorder (closest to Borderline Personality Disorder), Anxiety, Panic Attacks and the like. I get so frustrated with my kids and we've been working on changing my meds to compensate for that. The new meds I just started are helping but I still have one main symptom that is starting to scare me. When I get frustrated at my kids (which is always and over VERY little things) I want to hurt them. I don't think I actually would but I get the thoughts and I have spanked them (which I don't actually believe in.) I feel like an awful parent and I want the thoughts to stop. I'd never forgive myself if I hurt my children.

But here's the problem. How do I tell the doctor without having my kids taken away? I don't want CAS (Children's Aid Society) involved in my life. If I admit to having feelings of hurting my children, they will become invovled but I obviously need some kind of medication or something. It's starting to scare me but I just can't admit to having the feelings. Losing my kids to CAS is a big fear for me. We were involved with them once before only because I had a major panic attack and dissacioative episode right after giving birth the first time and they wanted to make sure everything was okay and kids were being taken care of. I can't take weekly visits and probing questions. I asked once what would happen if I was hospitalized or something, would the kids be taken away and they said no, as long as they were being cared for properly at home (like by husband or my mom.) But if I said I felt like hurting my kids surly they wouldn't allow them in the home with me until my thoughts were gone. That would make things a million times worse and there is NO way I am admitting to the thoughts if that could happen.

So I don't know what to do. How can I tell the doctor I'm having violent thoughts and not say towards whom or elaborate? Will that be enough info to get proper medication/diagnosis or whatever? I'm at a loss.

Redemption In A Baby Album?

Posted by Amanda.

it's sunday. it's sunday again, and again i have put off everything. i always look forward to the weekend, thinking of the many things i will accomplish - oh how productive i will be. friday rolls around and i make mental lists, plan my time; strategize cleaning, organizing, sports, time with my son, finally getting that baby album together (hey, he's only 6...). during the week i convince myself that my inability to accomplish much at home is because i am so busy (work, mom duties, errands, every after school activity under the sun) and that redemption will come in the form of a weekend well utilized. yet every weekend, sunday evening comes and i begin to panic, start beating myself up for having finished practically nothing on my list. the minutes go by and i think to myself "do something! the week is about to begin again and you will have no time until next weekend!" i let myself watch a re-run of "law and order" or "i love lucy" - the two shows which seem forever on, making it difficult to differentiate days and times. i know, i'll check my email for the hundred and third time today. procrastination. and now it's almost time to make dinner. i can hear my son building with legos in his room. i take a deep breath knowing that after dinner there will be games, stories, then bed. there will be no redemption this weekend. the list will wait. who needs a perfect baby album anyway? i think i'll go play with my son.

My Son

Posted by Anonymous.

My son will be 27 years old in a few months. Up until he was about 21 or so, he was a responsible, happy young man. His Dad and I never worried about him getting into trouble. He had many friends (mostly girls, but a few guys), held part-time jobs, life was good. The only area where there was a shadow was he never had a girl-friend (this bothered him, not us). When he confided this to us, we couldn't really figure out why, nor could he. People instantly liked him, including girls, but they always wanted to be "just friends", according to him.

He started to work at my husband's place of work about 4 years ago. He was doing well, getting lots of on-call work, making good money. Again, he seemed happy. He decided to move out with a girl he worked with (strictly platonic). It only lasted about 8 months. He wanted to live on his own, so he rented a small apartment. We helped him with the first/last month's rent. He again seemed happy. But he wasn't managing his money well, and got behind in his rent. Again, we helped him, with the promise from him that he would manage his money better. He decided to move in with a guy into a new apartment to save costs. Things then took a real turn for the worst, he started not showing up for work. This was so difficult for my husband (remember it was his place of work too), as we would get calls asking if we knew where he was, why didn't he show up. We would get worried sick wondering what had happened to him. Finally he would call us, saying his bosses were idiots and he didn't want to work there anymore. We bailed him out financially again. He started to work a string of minimum wage jobs, but claimed he worked for idiots and would finally leave. He told us he was very depressed. I tried to get him into counselling, doctors, he would have none of it. When I saw him he looked unhappy, worn out. I suspected drug use.

Finally, I convinced him to come home and get his life in order. He admitted there was drug use (mostly pot, but some ecstacy), introduced by his roommate. He also admitted he had been having suicidal thoughts, but had never acted on them. He often thought of hanging himself. His Dad and I were sick with worry. Again, tried to convince him to see someone. He refused.

Being at home seemed to bring him some stability, although the endless jobs continued. But whatever drug use there was seemed to stop. He was happy again, eating well and acting normally. He wanted to move out with two other roommates again. This was a year ago. We helped him out with money again.

In the last year it has been difficult because we give him between $300-$500 per month for living expenses. He finally agreed to see a doctor and counsellor and try anti-depressents. He claims they didn't work for him and he feels better just dealing with life on his on terms. He says he still gets suicidal thoughts and gets down but not as much. When he asks for money, I try and advise him on budgeting, etc., which he seems responsive to, but obviously doesn't implement because he needs money every month.

Part of his depression is the fact he can't meet someone. He says girls don't like him because he is only 5'4", yet he is an attractive, intelligent young man with a lot going for him. A few months ago he confided he may be bisexual. His Dad and I were very supportive of him and told him we fully accepted his choices in life.

Where have we gone wrong? Why can't he be responsible and act like an adult? My husband and I are very scared that if we don't help him financially, he will become depressed again and try and commit suicide. It feels like a Catch-22. His father and I have tried talking to him endlessly about being responsible with money, and he listens and nods but I guess he feels that we have always helped out so why bother. We do not feel he is doing drugs because he has held down a job in a coffee shop for a few months now and appears healthy and happy whenever we see him. He has also registered in a web design course at college (we have paid for this - it's $8,000) which starts in the fall. He is very excited and so are we for him.

So what do we do - continue to help him financially until he has completed the course and can look after himself? Although my husband and I do make good money, the monthly draw stills comes at a cost. I don't know what to do.