Is anyone's kid involved in bitcoin exchanging? Basically my son is exchanging bitcoin(crypto) for cash online. He makes 5.00 an exchange. This is what he tells me (he's probably lying)He is also gambling with bitcoin and is on a messaging app called Telegram to exchange crypto. He also sets up cash app accounts for kids online. He probably has hundreds of email addresses. We are at our wits end with it. He has stolen from us and probably others over the past 6 months or so.
He completed a cannabis addiction program back in October and is sober from that. He's never used other drugs ( he was tested and continues to be) I think that addiction has formed into a new one online. I also had a neuropsych test done and he just got an IEP at school. He wasn't diagnosed with conduct disorder, but I will retest him in 2 years.
We have spoke to a police officer about his online actions and told our son that his online activities are illegal and could result in criminal consequences.
He sees a therapist for this (the same one from his addiction program) and is on Concerta, abilify and Sertraline. He seems flat on these meds, like no emotion or remorse. I am considering cutting back one of them.
We have had numerous conversations with him. We have taken the phone away, computer away, outings with friends, you name it, it doesn't work. He says he feels good when he's exchanging bitcoin/money. He's on the basketball team at school. We are hoping his love grows for it and he feels good about that.
Last night my husband got fed up after I saw a message from him on Telegram (I try to subscribe to the online groups to keep tabs, but I am always behind) for "buyers" of bitcoin. My husband smashed his cell phone in front of him and got very angry. It's hard because his cell phone is his connection to his friends and basketball team. And we do the dance of taking it away and giving it back. We want to trust him but we can't.
Add to all of this, that he is VERY smart with tech, using VPNs from other countries to gamble, and god knows what. There's much more to this that I can't explain techwise.
We are considering a residential school because this is tearing our household apart and we constantly live under the threat of him getting caught and the stress is so so high. He is a kind and sweet kid. I do not get why he feels like this is ok after being told 100xs that it's not ok.
I know this is a long shot, but hoping someone knows something about this on this site.
Thank you for reading this. I appreciate all the help I get here.
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N3v3rgiveup
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When my eldest daughter was a teen, we did deal with a lot of conflicts and behavioral issues, but that was long before she had a doctor who suggested that she might have ADHD. (She fits the Hyperactive-Impulsive traits, but never had any Inattentive traits. She probably had a Conduct Disorder or Oppositional Defiant Disorder [ODD].) She's 30 now, and has grown into a very responsible parent & provider for her kids. But in her teens, she had multiple issues including:
• stealing
• drug and alcohol use (mostly smoking, which she only recently quit, but she experimented ... thankfully she didn't try anything that was highly addictive)
• sneaking out (a lot more often than I was aware of)
•she even ran away a couple of times
She admitted much of this to me over the last several years, long after she had turned responsible.
There were two periods of time when she was charged with juvenile offenses and put on probation.
~~~~~
All this poor conduct is difficult to deal with as a parent. I was afraid for my daughter's safety a lot, and in hindsight I realize that she could have easily become a drug addict the way a couple of her friends did.
Stealing can land your son in some serious trouble. (I had a high school friend who got charged with grand larceny at 16 or 17, and while he was released from juvenile corrections at 18, he was still on probation until he turned 20. His movement was monitored and he had to check in with his probation officer regularly about his job hunt, but his job opportunities were limited by his geographic area permitted by his ankle monitor.)
• My friend eventually became a security guard, and was an ace at preventing the kinds of trouble that he used to cause.
~~~~~
What you're going through is incredibly hard for a parent, and your son's tech savvy makes it harder.
Gambling is highly addictive, and is more easily addictive for people who have ADHD. (Scamming/stealing money is also like a kind of gambling.)
His treatment definitely needs to address this behavior.
However, he's responsible for his own character development, and that's the most concerning thing from a parent who has gone through something similar to what you're going through, though definitely not the same.
There's no treatment that's guaranteed to help with that. There are intensive programs like youth camps, but sometimes they are just a step below prison in that worse offenders might groom lesser offenders to become more like them.
~~~~~
Is there hope? Yes, there is.
Does it get easier? Sometimes...but sometimes it gets harder. With my daughter, it went back and forth.
I am glad for my daughter and my friend, and how they both turned things around. I'm hoping that your son gets the intervention that he needs to get through to him. With such a clever mind, he could have great potential to do good with his skills.
I wish I had some great wisdom to pass along, but unfortunately I don't. Just the reassurance that it's possible for a kid to outgrow such behaviors. (In the case of my daughter, it was after she turned 20 and was already a parent to my granddaughter. In the case of my friend, it started at 18 but took a few years to develop fully.)
Thank you for your story and kind words. It's so helpful to know that he can and will turn it around. I am so glad your daughter is doing well. You had a big part with that. The back and forth is so difficult. It's like you just know there's a shit storm around the corner coming at some point. It takes a mental toll on my husband and I. We have all been to therapy together and separate. It helps things but my son isn't the greatest sharer. The stress is less right now because he doesn't have a phone and can't badger me to get it back either. But then I can't see where he is and he can't contact friends. But I guess that's where he put himself through his poor choices. Tomorrow he takes a flip phone to school. 😆
I want to just be mom. I want to enjoy my son without the lack of trust hanging over my head at all times. I tell him all the time that I will never give up on him.
That's good that he knows how much you love him, and that you'll never give up on him.
Yes, my daughter had to do the most work on her own behavior, but I always made sure that I loved her and that I believed that she was capable of good things. I tried to be consistent from her youth to adulthood, though my ADHD often made it hard for me to be as consistent as I wanted to be.
(For the record, I'm her stepdad, and I raised her as my own daughter from the age of 7. I learned most of what I know about parenting from raising her. Again, she's 30.Her siblings are now 21, 11, and almost-9 years old. Her kids are the same ages as my youngest two. So, I've been around the block a couple of times as a parent.)
Can you try to get him into cybersecurity? Lots of teen opportunities and high earning potential. Sounds like it could kill two birds with one stone: niccs.cisa.gov/education-tr.... Alternatively, could you get him involved with stocks and trading? The Stock Market Game, Wharton school and others have great competitions. globalyouth.wharton.upenn.e...
There is an adrenaline rush and power and social connections in what he does. It would be great if he could get the same and use his great CS skills for job readiness. That’s a hard situation. I hope others have good ideas.
Thank you so much for the resources! The community college in my area has the cyber security program. And I am definitely going to check out the Stock Market Game. I agree about the adrenaline rush. I never thought about the power and social connections but it makes a lot of sense. He's very social and it seems like most kids like him.
It's so hard to explain. Basically crypto/bitcoin fluctuates in value. He has crypto ( probably from stealing money from us) and "exchanges" it like a trader would with stocks. He makes a fee 5.00 for the exchange. I probably didn't explain it correctly here. My husband works for a well known tech company and it has taken him days to understand what's going on. My son has been scammed by scammers online too. Our credit cards have been scammed as well because of his actions.
My concern would be your son getting involved with others online who could pose a risk to him and his wellbeing. Right now it seems he’s operating with some control, but it would be important to better understand. Another resource for supporting healthy online engagement is the digital wellness lab at Boston children’ hospital. They do require an initial assessment in person, but then can work with clients virtually. childrenshospital.org/progr...
Thank you so much. I appreciate any resource as therapists looks at us like we have 6 heads and they don't know what to do besides take the phone. His therapist now has an addiction background and I feel she gets him and most of what's going on.
We have an appointment on Dec. 19th in Boston with Digital Wellness Lab. Do you have experience with them? I would love to know a little more. Thank you so much for the information. I am so grateful to find a place that will understand.
Update since I last posted: we have gone 1 week without a phone for him. He even acknowledged that he shouldn't have a phone anymore. He can play Xbox, but I am supervising him, which actually leads to some quality time together. My husband and him aren't really getting along well. My husband gets so mad. He tries to control it but he's at a place mentally where he's done. He goes to therapy and he even took some time off of work. So that dynamic is difficult in the house, as I am a safe person for him. We found a beat up I phone from a friend in his room. He said he wanted to log into snapchat. He can't really do any crypto stuff without his old phone, so I think that has stopped (although I am not 100% sure) We took that beat up phone away. We have found several nicotine vapes too.
I have let him log on to my phone, supervised on snapchat. I don't want him to not be able to connect socially or he may get depressed. But that's it.
This is so hard, you want to trust your kid but you can't. And they keep on doing the stuff that hurts trust.
We have reached out to the Digital Wellness Lab, but in consultation with my daughter’s therapist, we have not set up an appointment yet and may hold off a bit longer as the therapist chips away. I know another family that is working with them and they have reported a positive experience so far.
The relationship with our kids is such an important part of this equation and can be so tough. It’s good your husband is seeing a therapist. Kudos to him for that. I also see someone. It is very hard not to get burned out from all this and we have to practice self care. Just yesterday I was telling my husband I felt like I might be near a breaking point, but today I feel better and we soldier on. As hard as it gets sometimes my husband and I remind ourselves that we are playing the long game. I attended a parent group for challenged teens last spring that was very helpful for me and one thing they said has become a bit of a mantra for me: “my kid is not GIVING me a hard time, my kid is HAVING a hard time.” When things hit me personally or when she does something that makes me fearful for her, this is a helpful reminder and puts me back in my parent seat and helps me approach her with love and compassion, which is really what they need more than anything. Maybe that phrase will help your husband too, along with the therapy.
I have also been incredibly frustrated by the lack of quality and adherence to standards in the mental and behavioral health professions. I found many therapists to be dismissive of our concerns about online engagement without asking questions or trying to understand. I finally developed my own framework to talk through with therapists and that got their attention, but I shouldnt have had to do that work. My takeaways are 1. Follow your gut, if something feels wrong to you as a parent, it likely is wrong and don’t let therapists dismiss you, especially if they have not done a thorough evaluation and do not engage with you to clearly share that evaluation, their conclusions and their recommendations; 2. Fight like hell to find good resources and people using evidence -based practice. This may require your own deep dive into the literature and consultations with many providers. If you have connections, use them.
one more question, do you have an online use agreement/contract with your son and do you have technology to see what he’s doing online? We use the Apple family controls as well as our internet provider to monitor and block some content. Others use Bark or circle. Kids can work around some of these, but we found that sitting down and agreeing on acceptable and unacceptable online engagement was a good starting point - though it was not easy. I think working with a therapist to agree on what is safe and not safe and monitoring and discussing with some clear consequences that work in stages works better than just going to the nuclear option of no phone, which just causes kids to resist and then they don’t build the skills they need. Note, this is incredibly exhausting to parent through, but may be more successful.
We have done the apple family controls. We have an agreement. He doesn't care. Somehow he changes our Apple ID and gets around everything. We put our own information in his phone so he couldn't download apps without a notification to us. He gets around it. Basically, if he has access to wifi he will get on these sites. It is so hard. We have given his phone back so many times he just keeps doing it. The thing is we want him to have a phone. He thinks he can make money by doing the least amount of work and from what I have read, that's common with gambling addiction.
It's impossible to control his phone if he has internet. He can walk to McDonalds and get free wifi. He has been on gambling sites while at school. Regular parental controls aren't enough for him. There's nothing out there for this kind of kid.
Today he starts his IEP accommodations at school, he doesn't have his phone to distract, so I am hopeful that he starts doing better at school and feels better about himself in one aspect of his life.
I stress to him time and time again. You don't have to be a straight A student, or a basketball star or the best at anything. My success as a parent is if I have raised a good human being who's kind and honest.
Again, I thank you for the Boston's children information. I am going to email them now.
Kids can be very clever about circumventing technology controls.
My older son went to a christian school that used a "Chromebooks for Education" program and strict network filtering, but he and his friends figured out ways around the controls (and they shared these tricks with each other). They mostly did this to access browser based games and to go to Pokemon & anime websites (but with teenage boys there were some attempts to access pornography, too).
Long before that, I worked for a while at a charter school (Jr High and High School combined), and with the kids using Android phone, they would "jailbreak" the phone to get around parental controls. (I think that iPhones are supposed to be harder to jailbreak, but it can still be done.)
Like others have suggested, trying to channel your son's interest into something like cybersecurity* or legitimate investing activities might be a plan of action. We want our kids to do good things with their interests and abilities, not questionable things.
* Think about how Frank Abagnale, Jr. (made famous by the Leonardo DiCaprio role in "Catch Me If You Can") turned from crime to being a premier expert to help circumvent forgery. Similarly, some of the best cybersecurity experts are "white hat hackers"...they have to know how the bad guys can buy stopped by knowing all the same tricks.
he’s clearly very smart. Try consulting the folks in the digital wellness lab and if they can’t help, they may have recommendations. Our kids are complex. For me, the view to lean in and have them take courses works only if our kids are operating from a healthy and empowered place. With his addiction background, risk taking online and the fact that he’s already been scammed, this is not a healthy and empowered place. We have been here with my daughter. We are doing much better now that we have found the right supports, but it did feel like going through hell at times. Follow your gut and hang in there.
ours also looked for and was attracted to quick money for little effort. It made her very vulnerable online and she also got taken Advantage of and, in the real world, she shoplifted for a bit. I think some of this is linked to ADHD, effort avoidance and the dopamine attraction. We have made progress with a good therapist, lots of parent coaching, and treatment programs that center on CBT and DBT and have parent training built in. IMO Underlying much of this is also self esteem issues and teen faulty thinking on steroids due to ADHD. The question is, why is fast money important at all? What’s underlying that? And, we spent a lot of time building connection and talking and revisiting expectations, what is healthy and safe and what is not healthy and safe over and over. Mistakes still happened. As she’s gotten older the conversations have gotten easier. There was A LOT of resistance in the 14-16 ages; some of it may take time and brain development, but we have to prioritize safety and keep our kids and our families as safe as possible while allowing them space to grow and take reasonable risks. To say it’s not easy is a massive understatement. Once again hang in there, follow your gut and keep fighting for the best care possible for you and your kid.
I don’t know much about all this. I guess my biggest concern would be that he is seeking adrenaline or dopamine or brain “reward hits” similar to what a drug would give him, and without caring about the consequences or fallout for anyone else in the household, including the effects on your relationship. Please forgive me if this is the most obvious and stupid comment ever. On my first read of your post, I just see it as a different evolving addictive behavior. I wish I had more advice, except that maybe an out of home placement is warranted unless that recommended program has advice. At a residential program I’m assuming his access to these and other “dopamine hits” is controlled by someone else while he gets intensive treatment. And so your family can get relief from the roller coaster trauma you’re enduring too. You’re in 1 of the hardest situations any family can face. Sending you best wishes.
Thank you for your kind words. I was on the way to family therapy last night and read this. The out of home placement is always hovering over us. We spoke to his therapist(affiliated with a residential program) and that is definitely on the table.
Oh Mama, I don't know if this can help but...I listen to a podcast called the Shawn Ryan Show. He is an ex Navy SEAL who interviews guests that have had struggles but turned them into positives. Recently he had 2 guests that sound kinda like your son. The interviews go into detail about their lives as hackers and the highs and lows that led them to where they are now. I would encourage you to listen and possible reach out to these guys. They know what's going on in your sons head. Again SHAWN RYAN SHOW podcast interviewees names are Bryce Case Jr. (episode #85) and Ryan Montgomery(episode #56).
Ironically, Ryan Montgomery was doing stuff with crypto too. His story is very interesting.
I'm sorry I can't relate to your situation but I couldn't skip by your post knowing I had listened to those 2 interviews. Also, even though these 2 guys did some crazy stuff as kids...as adult men they are doing some pretty amazing things today with the gifts they were given. Best wishes to you and your family.
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