Covenant House Vancouver

I don't know where to start. About 11 years ago, my son & I moved abroad. He was only 5 & 1/2 then. We were all right on our own at that time without his father's help as his favorite excuse was 'one can't draw blood from stone', so I vowed to go it alone and even stopped trying. Then he came back into the picture shortly after he got divorced from a woman he'd only met after 5 months of being married to her and wanted to be a part of my son's life. When my son turned 8 my son went back to Canada to live with his dad and had been living there since then. The plan was for him to come over during the summer & holidays which made it easier for me to let go of him. Only to find out that it wasn't to be so due to financial constraints on his part, and I have to admit from mine, too, which prevented him from visiting me as often as I wanted.

Now he is 17. Although, last year, he came to live with me supposedly for good, he only stayed for 6 months and was forced to fly back to Canada again because his dad thought it was cheaper to pay for an expensive flight than to get us out of a temporary hole allowing us to keep our flat which was close to his high school.

As you can imagine, my relationship with my son has dwindled and had been estranged for a while now. Somehow, I feel that he blames me for abandoning him and I certainly don't blame him for feeling that way. I am very disappointed at myself for having sent him to live with his dad at all, although my intentions certainly were good. But like they say, the road to perdition is lined with good intentions...

I have a niece who is 16, homeless, mentally ill (prob schizophrenic) and refuses to go to school, take meds etc. She is supporting her "street self-medication" (prob drugs and alcohol) by prostition. She "checks in with her parents occasionally, by phone but refuses any intervention such as group home, private mental health care, a room with govt. funds etc.

She is quite creative and resiliant (for lack of a better description!) at moving from place to place, and her parents have been assured that most likely she will have to experience several mental health hospital admissions until she takes the initiative to i) take meds, and ii)not flee to the streets.

Anyways, here's my question.... I have her cell phone number and have called her a couple of times, juat to chat.  Unfortunately, she at times is delusional (not unsafe, but not too much in touch with reality, lies a lot as to where she's at etc.) How do I "keep on talkin'" to her, not lose contact with her...she has succesfully "cut off" anyone who talks to her and disagrees with her, and yet I need some ideas as to how to balance this. I would appreciate ANY hints you could give me. Thanks so much!

OUR RESPONSE:

First and foremost, we want to make sure you are safe.  You should never put yourself in a situation where your physical safety is a concern, i.e. going to meet your niece in an unsafe neighbourhood, etc.  Following that, there are some things you can do to reach out to make contact with your niece. 

I just wanted to thank you guys. I think my friend Clark (name changed to protect privacy) is staying with you right now. I ran into him on the bus after not seeing him for 3 years, and after talking he eventually admitted he was homeless due to terrible family circumstances.

Although I couldn't offer him a place to spend the night, I brought him to my place and made him dinner and found some socks and sweaters. We talked until his bus came and he promised me he would seek shelter. For some reason I thought covenant house was for minors only but when he got word to me that thats where he was going i was and am so thankful.

I'm a supporter of covenant house because I was nearly on the street myself. luckily I had some friends that gave me a place to crash before I went for drug treatment at mercy ministries in Nashville. I believe in god and i support you guys cause I know what you're doing is changing lives. I dunno if Clark is there, but if he is I know you will take good care of him. Thank you covenant house, you are amazing.

How unreasonable is it for a parent to ask a child to check in with the parents to say where they are going after school, and to ask for the phone number of the place where a child is going in the evening, and to ask to speak to the parent who is supposed to be home when the child is going to a party? I am being told I make her look like a bad kid because I'm always checking up on her, but I'm not comfortable that she won't be in an unsafe situation, and I want to make sure the places she's going are safe and that the parents ARE home. She is 15.  

RESPONSE:

Not unreasonable at all! Reasonable request indeed...but let's look at the bigger issue...

What you want is to know your kid is going to safe place. What your kid wants is to not be embarrassed.

Where can you compromise?

Can you agree to limits that your daughter can have a say in? Be creative, what other ways can you get the info you want without causing embarrassment? Can you negotiate?

As with any negotiation, there is giving and taking on both sides....be flexible and say you want the same from her....this will give your daughter a sense of control....and that is a good thing.

Don't go in expecting to "win" the negotiation...so go high and expect to "lose" down to a level you can live with.....

 

We are very concerned about our 16 year old son and haven't heard you talk on the radio about this subject. Our son over the last year or so has been withdrawing from us as well as his friends. He won't have friends over any more and only sees one friend outside of school. Luckily they have an activity they do together twice a week or I fear he wouldn't see any of his peers. He stay is the basement most of the time or in his room. He prefers to play video games over everything else. I'm not sure where to go with our concerns.

Each month our crisis shelter manager appears on CKNW's The Christy Clark Show to discuss parenting teenagers.  Many different topics are covered and we can't get to all the questions from callers, so we welcome your questions and will do our best to answer them quickly.  To submit a question go to Ask Covenant House. We will pick the most popular questions/themes and the answers will be posted on the blog.