Parents, 14 year old, drugs
Throwaway for non identification but can anyone provide general info about legal obligations, rights or options available to parents in the following circumstances? We’re seeking to understand relevant Victorian laws and processes before deciding how to proceed.
We have a 14 year old boy who is going to a “girlfriends” house and smoking marijuana. As far as we know, the girl has only a mother and the mother has said, when we have picked him up once at door, that “she doesn’t supply them with weed” but “can’t stop them from doing it in her house”. The mother obviously smokes herself and we don’t believe her or find this remotely acceptable.
Son has come home several times reeking of it and obviously under the influence and argues with us about going over there. It’s causing several issues at home, at school and just in general. His mother wants to go to the police but his father says it’s going to cause other issues because of “girlfriend“ and even son gave threats, saying “you will ruin other people’s lives” while we tell him he is our responsibility, it’s illegal and they are ruining his future by allowing this.
Other issues are is he leaves school and goes straight to this house (it’s halfway from our home and school), doesn’t come home until 9:30 or 10 pm during the week. He says at their house on Friday nights, comes home stoned on Saturday nights. He doesn’t eat properly.
Issues started in Year 7 and older kids at the school got him vaping and he’s been addicted since then. We also got a family dog when he started high school and we feel he was jealous the puppy got attention when we trained him at such a delicate time in his life. We (parents) had him in therapy for two to three years now, he lies to therapist and the therapist just wants to put him on ADHD medication and completely bypasses any acknowledgement of addiction (vaping and weed). Parents now go to family counselling (for family violence) because son put his fist through a window when he had his bike taken away after getting suspended for the 3rd time in 5 months at a new School. (in all honesty, it wasn’t actually taken away, his father was removing the tyre to replace it but saw it as his father trashing his bike so proceeded to smash doors, tv and other stuff in house in addition to the window). We don’t beat him, or hit him. He is hardly home to even have a conversation. We, parents, aren’t getting any support quick enough and it’s spiralling so fast. As son has been suspended 4 times since beginning of the year, and we are meeting with the school tomorrow to discuss “how to move forward”. Just dreading the school holidays as difficult to go away because of a major work commitment one week in.
We love him and desperate to get our son back.
Other than chaining him to his bed, what can we do? Will police do anything to give a warning to this mother and help keep him away from the house? Can we get a restraining order? Has anyone gone through similar circumstances and found successful steps to take?