Initial

This is day 10 of Caelan's AWOL adventure(s).  I have difficulty calling it "running away" because he's just sleeping over with some friends without permission and not telling me who the friends are.  He's not actually running or awaying or even experiencing any privations.

Well how did this start?

Well we've been having discussions about the house rules and to make a long story short we came down to:

"if you want to live in this house you can follow the house rules.  The adults pay the rent they get to make the rules."

It seems this is a very common conversation to have with a 14 year old.

Since his mother and I don't live together I get to add:
"If you don't like the rules you can live with your mother."

Sunday Sept. 30:

On Sunday night I spoke to him and asked him if we was going to be supervised during his second period on Monday.  He said hes that Ms. Schirfey told him he had P.E.

Dad:  OK I'll be there just to make sure you supervised (let's just say I was confident he'd have an excuse for not making it to class).

Monday morning:
I'm wandering the area around SOTA trying to figure out where the kids go to get high (which was really easy) then trying to figure out why the counseling dept. would tell me they don't know when all I had to do was watch some kids between classes for a few minutes.


Monday at 10:45:
So the bell rang and the halls cleared and who should I see at the end of the hall but Caelan.  He walks over to me.

Caelan:  What are you doing here?

Dad:  I'm jsut here to make sure you go to P.E. like you said you would.

Caelan:  I don't have P.E.

Dad:  That's OK you can just hang out with me and Gregory.

Caelan:  I think I'd rather go to P.E. (and he bolts)

So I followed him to his P.E. class and unfortunately his P.E. teacher said

Teacher: yes Caelan was here but he's not on my roster

Dad:  Well I spoke to Ms. Schifey and she said he had been added to your roster.

Teacher:  We'll if you can get me something from her I can add him to attendance

Dad: OK

So we went to the office and got a printout that showed P.E. as Caelan's second period class and handed it to the P.E. teacher but Caelan didn't show after that for another hour.
I realize now that I didn't clarify that he is no longer "missing".  He was "missing" for a weekend and then after the "P.E." incident went missing for another day.

Now he's staying with his mother but their mutual problem is he wants to live in S.F. but she lives north of Mt. Shasta.

Lastly why am I posting this?  Well receiving a text from my 14 year old that said.  "I'm never coming back it was never my home".  Was really a traumatic experience.  Once I started talking to people though I'm hearing all kinds of "runaway" stories where kids are already 600 miles away before they stop.

I'm hoping by sharing my story I'll help some parents avoid that trauma.

Thursday ~ Oct 5:

Talked to Alison Lemons today.  She told me that they had caught Calean smoking pot with A.J. on Sunday night.  It seems the climbed out the window and went to a local supplier.  Could explain Caelan freaking when he saw me with Gregory.#
Monika,

I appreciate your asking about Caelan.  He's really troubled right now and I don't think a holiday gift will be received well by him at all.  He thinks he's smart enough to control his drug use while failing school.  So whatever a 15 year old needs when he thinks he can outsmart his parents and has one of them fooled, that's what he needs.

Sorry that's my best answer.

yours in peace