drug testing ?

[willo0073]

Dr. Bradley,

I have purchased your book after a referral by our counselor and have read it twice. I only wish I knew about it earlier. My son is 16 and is more or less a pretty good kid, average grades very much the normal teenager. We suspected drug use (pot) after finding coke cans with numerous holes, which a friend told me is used by kids for smoking pot. He confessed and said he had been experimenting with it as well as alcohol. Your book talks much about not drug testing, which brings me to my predicament. I work in the medical company and have access to home drug kits at no charge. Last year I put out an mandate you fail the test you don't drive. It worked and gradually I quit tetsing. Even though I had no indications he had started up again my gut told me to check again after not checking for three months, and he tested positive. None of his behavior indicates drug use, and none of his other friends are tested, but because his Dad has testing at his disposal I can test. Should I stop even though I know he will continue smoking pot?

He did agree to the house rules of fail a test you cannot drive till you pass another one. He says he and his friends just use occasionally and that I am over reacting, just let him ride this phase out. I feel like I am not being consistent if I turn the other cheek. Now I know why so many parents chose to ignore the fact that their kids are doing it, it's easier to just look the other way. If I did not have testing at my disposal I probably would never know he was using. Are relationship is very healthy now, my wife feels we are doing no harm testing, and if we don't we are just letting him off the hook, who knows where it will lead.

I would love to hear your opinion on the subject.

[Mike Bradley]

Dear Dad,
Boy, these kinds of parenting dilemmas make Middle-East peace problems look easy, don't they?
Here are my thoughts for you as you make your way through this swamp.
First, most drug tests can be defeated. There are ways to avoid detection, particularly if a kid knows that a test is coming. If you go to surprise tests, some kids switch off to other drugs (often worse ones) for which you are not testing. So testing is not a fool-proof measure. Does it deter use? With your kid, probably it does, but at what cost? What does it do to your parent-child relationship to become your son's parole officer? What other critical issues will your son choose not to share with you because you make him pee in a cup? How do you guys restore trust and respect to your relationship if you are the spy? And exactly what is gained if he stops using MJ because you out-manuvered him?
You see, the end game here is for your son to eventually stop using because HE decides that drugs are dumb. Yet you also have to worry that he might get addicted or hurt if you "allow" him to use by trustung his word.
For now, unless you see signs of major drug use, or unless you have a strong family history of addiction, I think I'd look at other options to deal with the issues bigger than the MJ use, the ones that contribute to wanting to do drugs, namely trust, respect, and maturity. I'd ask for his word that he won't do these things, knowing that he likely will, hoping that he will feel bad about lying, and then start a debate in his head about why he needs to use drugs so much that he would lie to someone relying on his word. Ask him if he can agree that if he does use again, that is a sign that he is not ready for the responsibility of driving, and that the keys will be hung up for a period of time until he's ready to be straight-up with you and with himself.
Finally, I'd require one trip to an adolescent shrink for him to get the straight "dope" about dope. We adults have exaggerated so much to kids about the evils of weed that they have gone to the opposite extreme and see MJ as a non-drug. I find that when I talk realistically and scientifically about weed ("No, it will not make you shoot heroin; Yes, it is very addicting psychologically"), they listen and often rethink their position. This gets us closer to the "gold" of a kid deciding FOR THEMSELVES that drugs are stupid. That's the long-term cure for drug use.
Please keep us posted.