Disappointed

1 year ago my kids moved down to Florida to get away from their home situation with their mother in Illinois and focus better on school. Their grades improved and my daughter is even taking advanced classes next year. Best of all I got to spend a lot of time with them.

Back in Illinois my son was making all the wrong friends. He admits to smoking pot once but he talks an awful lot about getting high. A few months ago he started talking about wanting to move back to Illinois and then changed his mind. About a month ago he decided again that he wanted to move back there. Now they have gone there for summer break and he has no intentions on coming back to Florida. My daughter will be coming back and thats great but I'm affraid that my son is following the same path I did. Hanging out and smoking weed with his friends all day is more important to him than setting himself up for a successful future.

I contacted their alcoholic mother just before they left for Illinois and expressed my concern for him and how he has big plans of getting stoned with his loser friends and she told me "I got this". Apparently she doesn't because I've recently learned that on top of her being a jobless alcoholic, she too is smoking dope...no help there.

The biggest problem I have is that my son will be 18 next month and while the eyes of the law see him as an adult, I don't. He is far from being an adult but there is nothing I can do. One of his favorite things to say is "I'll be 18, I can do what I want."

He wants to get into photography and I was planning on saving money and buying him a DSLR camera for Christmas but not now, not if he stays in Illinois and smokes his life away.

When they moved down here last year, I bought them both iPhones but when my parents go to pick up my daughter, if my son still plans on staying there, he will hand over the iPhone. I would have been happy to continue paying for the service if he stayed here in Florida until he got a job.

4 or 5 years ago, I told him I would pay his monthly subscription to World of Warcraft as long as he kept his grades up and until he turned 18. I never canceled the subscription even though his grades were poor but since he is choosing to stay in Illinois and get high with his friends, he will no longer be able to play after July. Again, if he would have stayed here, I would have been happy to continue paying for it until he got a job.

We had many conversations about his future and how decisions he makes now can and most likely will affect him in the future and every word went in one ear and out the other. What can you do when you give your child all the information needed to make the right decision and they completely ignore it? This has been causing me so much stress lately and it's killing me.