Busted

I have busted my son (15) doing a few things . . . sneaking out, drinking a couple of beers that his friend stole from his dad and brought to my house (drinking in my son's room, two beers each), and smoking pot at a friend's B-Day party, among other things.   

While I had my suspicions and was able to bust him out without letting him know how I knew for sure that he had done these things (for instance, when he and his buddy snuck out, they woke me coming back in at 5:00 a.m. and I did not realize that was what had awakened me, but going upstairs to use the restroom I saw their shoes with wet grass and ants crawling around them, and my son did not make it into position on the couch in time to pretend that he was asleep, as his friend had done), the way I confirmed any suspicions that I had was through MySpace.  I had given him fair warning that if something was done on our computers, we COULD know about it.  I installed software on the computer, but it was much easier to use the software for gaining his passwords and then just follow him around in real time on MySpace.  Both of our computers are in my office, and he had no idea that while he was on one computer I was logged onto his MySpace account at the same time as he was and was following his every move. 

It was a good thing that I was monitoring him so closely.  What happened is something that we never thought would come so close to our family, right into our own home.  A sexual predator was posing on-line as a teenage girl and was convincing the children that, in order to earn *her* love and trust, they had to allow her good friend to perform a sexual act on the children (first asking that they allow him to perform oral sex on them, and if they seemed too uncomfortable with that would *reduce* the requirement to manual stimulation.  At least two of my son's friends were duped into allowing this to happen, believing that they would get the girl if they did this.  Her pictures showed that she was one of if not the most beautiful girl that they had as a MySpace friend, and *they* (the ghost girl and her great friend) would also use the church and God to convince the children that they were trustworthy, telling the children to come to the Wednesday night youth meetings at a huge (10,000+ member) church where this *friend* had been volunteering with the youth for about two years.  Of course, in such a large church, it was easy to *miss* each other and the girl was never seen (in fact, when *she* verbally jumped all over my son for not attending on May 20th, for a short time I believed that he had not gone to the meeting, but he had gone). 

Of course, when a meeting was set up and they found themselves alone with a 26-year-old MAN, it was too late and things went much further than the sexual acts that I mentioned above.

The message:  There are some things worse than smoking pot.  PLEASE, PLEASE, watch your children on the Internet.  My own son was not a victim, and the monster that invaded our home is now behind bars, but who knows how many victims there are or would have been.  I'm providing a link to the story that aired on our local Fox News station, where my son's friend's mother and I were interviewed (they cut me out).  The police were not going to release that this HUGE church was involved, so I was really glad that I had called the media and got the information out. 

P.S.  I have made it clear to my son that I believe that pot should be legalized, although I do not think that minors should have access to it.  We have discussed that a large part of the reason I feel minors should not have access is because their brains are not fully developed, and that I believe eating it would be better than smoking it.  He knows that I consider alcohol to be much more dangerous and damaging than pot.  I feel that he is making better decisions after having rational discussions with him about the dangers of his behavior and what he was experimenting with -- his grades are great and he is a smart and beautiful human being.  He is a teenager, though, and he thinks like a teenager.  That is what I am here for: to help him make his own path and be his own person, while being a responsible citizen and a humble, compassionate, respected, trusted adult. 

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• DS smoking pot last night. - Busted
  • Busted - (sm)
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      • Easy to get jaded - Pugmom
      • For real... - sm
        • When I was in high school............... sm - m
        • Um ok...that should be.. - sm
    • I know right.... - sm
  • Good job! sm - allie
  • Well done.... - !!!!

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