High Anxiety

This morning is a high anxiety morning for me. No matter how many times we go, court makes me nervous. Too many people in a child protective situation with two many differing agendas who can twist my words around and make me feel inadquate, or harsh, or lenient, or over-protective or neglectful, or too focused or distracted -- just depending on what I say.

Fortunately our son is doing very well in this placement (the ranch). He has been there almost three months and hasn't had a single major episode of anger. He is due for his first home visit this weekend and all of our interractions with him have been pleasant. One of the things that I have been impressed with is the fact that not once in this whole year of struggle has he ever blamed us.

As soon as court is over, we then have a meeting about our other son who is living in the RTC. We are having a meeting because nobody knows what to do with him. He is absolutely refusing to do what they say and has made no progress in three months. We feel trapped becuase we have told him he has to complete the program, but he is regressing every day. The reason why he is is because he is trying to prove the place isn't a good fit -- but how much do we make him stay there with no progress just so that he doesn't "win?" IT's a tough call.

And, in addition, he is the opposite of our son at the ranch. We are the entire reason for every problem he has. We put him there and we can take him out at any time (according to him -- not exactly true) and therefore his suffering is because of us. He says he doesn't even want to come home any more. That he wants a new family (highly unlikely -- anyone interested in a 16 1/2 year old with 3 recent juvenile offense charges who is unable to complete the first level of his residential treatment program even though he's been there 8 months? - - didn't think so. I mean I can match kids, but not even I could find a family for a kid like that).

So, I don't want to live this morning.