This is a tough call. What do you do if you’re a parent and you find d***gs that belong to your child?
Do you call the police? Try to have an intervention? Reason with them in the best way you know how? Send them to rehab?
One father took to Reddit’s “Am I the Asshole?” thread to inquire about his own situation.
The post from Reddit said:
“Daughter is 16. Her mom and I are divorced.Daughter has been caught smoking pot several times from the age of 14. Her mom and I have collectively punished her several times for this. The last time we caught her, I started drug testing her. Her mom doesn’t agree with it, but we have caught her so many times now that I think this is the best way to prevent her from doing it.
I don‘t normally go through her room, but the router for the house is in there, and I needed to reset it. When I go into her room, I found a mushroom cap on black paper hidden underneath her desk. I look up what the hell it is and it is a spore print for magic mushrooms. I go through her room further to find an entire damn aqarium filled with mushrooms in the back of her closet. obviously I am enraged, so I wait for her to get back from school, and I called the police. She was arrested, booked and released into her mother’s custody.
Her mother is pissed, and saying that I may have ruined the kids life for no reason, but we have tried to correct her drug abuse several times to no avail, and it has escalated. She now has a court date and can answer to the law since she doesn’t take the rules in my house seriously. I doubt she’ll get more than probation anyway.
My parents are also pissed though, saying that this could have been handled inside the home, and that’s why I’m here. I’m wondering if I over reacted and would like a more impartial judgment.”
Here are some of the responses that other Reddit users to this predicament.
“Getting your child a criminal record over mushrooms is most definitely not going to help her. Don’t rely on the criminal justice system to parent your children.”
Here’s another one…
“There are so many better ways to handle this situation. You could have first figured out why she had the drugs. A lot of teenagers who abuse drugs have underlying issues going on that need to be addressed. You didn’t try to do that. You could have found help with a family therapist, or even a personal therapist for her, that could have helped her through this time. You could have sent her to rehab. All of those things would have potentially helped her. You did absolutely nothing but make it clear that she can’t come to you if she’s ever in trouble.”
And ultimately… this is a MEDICAL condition…
“Drug addiction needs to be addressed MEDICALLY. What do you think will happen now? Jail or nothing. Well done. The police is not here to help you suck less at parenting.”
What do you think? What would you do in this situation? Would you call the police or handle the discipline in your own way?
Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
