A crisis of philosophy

As I have mentioned before, multiple times, my philosophy with Evan has been something like, "I'm not your mom, I am your mentor. I am not here to control you, but to help you when you ask for it."

Every now and then a voice in the back of my head starts screaming, "Are you crazy? What sort of naive idiot tells a foster kid he can go make his own decisions? You are just setting yourself up."

The other voice says, "No...give it a chance. If you jump in and try to control him you will loose him. He will be on his own at the end of summer. At that point he will not have anyone to control him. What he needs right now is a supportive environment in which is can struggle, fail, and hopefully learn to control himself. Breathe deep. Just stand there."

Not surprisingly, both those voices are pretty loud right now.

Evan has been abusing pain medication since before he moved in. He has been living here for 6 months and I had no idea. Now he volunteered the information. Now he is asking for help.

The quiet voice says, "See. It worked. You built up enough trust that he told you something he never told anyone before. He asked for help. So help. Get him in touch with the resources he needs and express confidence in him. Listen to the advice of the counselors and then let him make the decisions. If he is going to beat this he will have to do it himself. Let him struggle, even if he fails. If you do too much he will not develop the strength he needs to take care of himself when he emancipates."

The other voice screams, "IDIOT! You have not been monitoring and see what he has been doing?! This is serious. Sit him down. Tell him: if you want to live here you will submit to room searches, random drug tests and go to whatever counseling the assessment place recommends."

Hubby agrees with the quiet voice. I don't know if it is so much that he agrees with the philosophy or if he is just being pragmatic. When I am the buddha-like mom I am calm and his life is calm. Things don't tend to go well when I turn into the fascist parent -- not for anyone.

I am still in the middle...I have one foot in the calm green world of the buddha. I just can't quite make the fascist shut up.

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