phone and his right to go out friday nights and his skateboard are the most effective consequences...and I do that...He's spent the last year doing bunches of community service, and now faces another 90 hours of it (for missing and being tardy to class too often - the abscences are mostly a case of getting to class too late to even be counted tardy...you get too many in our school district, you have to do community service and pay a fine.
I am just exhausted. He tried to commit suicide about 18 months ago, is on meds and has a counselor, has PTSD and ADD and SAD and now I am tired.
well that answers the counseling question. i have no experience with counseling, and bc of the extreme trauma of his situation, losing family members in that way etc. i would think it necessary, but it would need to be someone that wasn't going to permit him to luxuriate in self-hate and rely on the circumstances to avoid straightening up. i am afraid i am not too much of a softy when it comes to personal responsibility. i am a big believer in it and i would want a counselor that was going to preach from that same page. i don't blame you for being exhausted, it sounds unbearable.