This post is a more personal one but hey isn't that  the great thing about the Internet? It allows you to see what's going on in someones life while they are still living, working or surviving.
In March of 2010 my son went to a state rehabilitation center. What he did is no one's business and when I am asked I tell people that he needs to have the opportunity to repent in private. We as a society are judgmental and cruel having little or no patience or empathy if people cross a line that we have set in our own minds. I as a parent am judgmental and impatient so I expect nonetheless from other.

My son has spent his 16th and soon to be his 17th birthday in a facility. I don't say lock up or juvy because it wasn't like that. He had freedoms that he had to earn and wasn't nearly as intense as those places are. But he went through some intense therapy. Going through this experience and soon to be probation has taught me a lot about being a parent, especially a step parent. For you see I've been his mother for 11 years now. I'm 29 with a child soon to be graduating high school. I'm grateful to have him go through this now where they could get to the root of a lifetimes reasons for bad choices. And the cruel twisted hand of fate is all the problems stem from the abuse of a biological mother suffered as early as a toddler.

While I would love to be the prodigal son's father and love him without suspicion as he returns it's love for him and the probation rules that dictate that I cannot. In his absence he had learned about the simple joys that freedom and family give a person. He's learned to appreciate an education bringing his pitiful 1.9 GPA to a 3.8. When he's out will he forget those lessons? Maybe a little...he is human nonetheless. But that's where a wicked step mother comes in to help steer him back to the correct course.

What are you thoughts? Have any of you dealt with children \who were less than stellar?