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What is a suitable & constructive punishment for a 16 year old who drove drunk?

  • Posted on August 22, 2010 at 11:23 pm

My daughter turned 16 4 months ago. Last night she used my car and was supposed to spend a few hours at the home of a friend.

When I got home after bowling, my car was parked half in the driveway and half in the road. Clearly something was wrong.

I found her in bed, having already vomited all down the side of her bed, completely drunk. She claims “someone” drove her home but can’t remember who.

In a nutshell, she blew it. She drank, she appears to have been driving and she is angry with me saying “I dont’ care if I’m grounded….fine, just leave me alone.”

I am wondering what punishments my fellow Yahoo Q& A members can suggest? She is grounded, that much is for sure. But I am not sure for how long or what other things I can do to drill into her that it’s not OK to drink and especially not to drive. She is overall a good kid, there is no alcohol abuse in our family, etc. I am thinking she needs firsthand experience with victims of drunk drivers…but what & where?
First three responders, thanks so much. Lots of good ideas….teenagers are SO hard sometimes!
Nobody is suggesting anything too harsh. This is a very serious offense and a huge problem for her and for me. It’s a trust issue, a safety issue, a self respect issue, etc. So I appreciate all this input.
Helpful ideas here. As of bedtime tonight, I told her I had not had enough time to decide about what actions to take. The only punishment immediately is that she is grounded from any social/fun/friends activity and she is not driving my car or any car for the next 6 months. I gave her $2 to buy a school directory so I can call the parents tomorrow. She has been dragging her feet about getting a part time job but she will be working fast food within 2 weeks unless she finds something better b4 then. I had planned to contact MADD and I will call the police/fire to see about a ride-along. After I said “goodnight, I love you.” she said she hates me and wishes she had died last night. I felt like telling her that if she kept her attitude up I would choke her to death myself but I maintained composure. I don’t think home bootcamp would do anything than beat her down and my hope is to empower her to make the right choices…so bootcamp might work for some, but wouldn’t for me.

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Can the father of my 6mo daughter win full custody if he has proof I drove DUI with my baby in the car?

  • Posted on January 2, 2010 at 10:00 pm

All throughout my pregnancy my ex-fiance was abusive towards me and he also smoked crack on a weekly to daily basis and he had no job except for cash jobs here and there. I was afraid to notify authorities of the drug use and the physical abuse situation at the time because I didn’t want to send him to jail when I was pregnant because I was scared of being a single mom. I did not use drugs at all while I was pregnant, and I had a full time job and went to school part time while he did not work and would smoke crack. I have documentation that the police were called to a domestic situation (he was violently beating me) when I was 3 months pregnant, but at the time I did not press charges because I was scared of being a single mom, so the report is limited and does not include the extent of my injuries (I suffered a concussion and I can still feel the spot on my head where he bashed it into the floor a year later). I was very hard on him verbally because of his drug addiction and as a result he began cheating on me while I was 8 months pregnant. I did not know this at the time and all that I knew was that he was not coming home and I was 8 months pregnant and I needed him to be there. One night when he had called me and told me he was not coming home for the night I told him that I was taking a sleeping pill because I couldn’t handle the stress he was putting me through, and then I was going to bed. He then called the cops to my house that night and the cops told me they had to take me for a psychiatric evaluation because he had told them I was suicidal. I voluntarily went for the evaluation and after talking with a therapist they could very easily see that I was fine and they sent me home within a few hours. I am certain he has obtained the police report for that night and will use this against me in court to say that I have mental problems. A few weeks later we broke up and he went to live with the girl he was seeing, who lived down the street. This was obviously very upsetting to me as by this point I was 9 months pregnant. It is a well documented fact that stressors like this during a pregnancy is a very strong indicator of risk for postpartum depression, so I began seeing a therapist right away to work through my feelings about the situation. I also began reaching out to my friends and I have always kept a journal to gather my thoughts and I relied on these resources to get through the difficult time. I was told that I could take anti-depressant pills however I declined the pills as I also chose to breast feed, and I felt that I am mentally strong enough to tackle my emotions on my own. When I gave birth to our daughter he made the entire time increasingly stressful and only visited the hospital a total of three hours, and refused to help pick out a name for our child. He also brought police to my house the day I brought my daughter home from the hospital, asking the police to escort him while he got his belongings from the house. When I told the police I had just brought my newborn daughter home that day and that it was not a good time, they agreed to postpone the escort for a couple days. He also was violent with me showing up at my house a week later to retrieve additional items and this resulted in an order of protection that was active for 2 months until I had it removed to enable him the ability to see his daughter. Although it was stressful for me to see him and this affected my milk supply, I was also frustrated that he was not making any efforts to see his daughter and so this was a double edged sword that stressed me out both ways. I thought that by lifting the order of protection he would not have an excuse any more to not see his daughter. I was wrong and he refused to see her. I stopped seeing the therapist due to a lack of time when I returned to school part time and work full time because I was confident keeping busy would help me to heal and that I was able to handle the situation on my own with the support of my family, friends, and my own intelligence. But unfortunately one night, when my daughter was 3 months old I was drinking after my daughter had gone to bed and I made a very bad decision. I wanted so badly to tell him what an awful piece of shit he was that I put my daughter in the car and drove a quarter mile down the street to his new house to confront him. This was a bad decision and he called the police and the police report will show that they gave me a breathalyzer and I registered just under the legal limit for a DUI. The police did not arrest me and they simply sent me back home, but I am sure he has obtained a copy of the police report and he has now filed paperwork to sue me for full custody of my daughter. I do not normally drink and that was a single night of error and I give my daughter everything I have. She loves going to daycare and I visit her on my lunch break every day and I have a good job and my family and friends help me out with her a lot so that I have a bala
I have a balanced life of work, family, and me time. I do not want or need him in my life, and although I think that at some point he should be a part in her life, I dont think that now is that time because she is just six months old. He has never changed her diaper, he fights not to pay child support and i am afraid he is still violent in his new relationship. He says he doesn’t smoke crack anymore but I do not believe him. I am convinced that he has done everything he can to manipulate me into looking like the bad guy when he was the one who couldn’t get his act straight for so long! I wish I would have called the cops on him while he was smoking crack in my house or beating me so I would have the kind of proof he has on me that makes me look bad. I know in my heart he is the real bad guy, but i know the courts will only look at proof, not what I know in my heart. My question is, will they take my baby away from me because of his evidence?

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