[JGatti]

In a nutshell my oldest son got himself into a little trouble over the weekend. Police were not involved but we caught him in what he did. Shame keeps me from saying and I don't want to air all my laundry.
I've been laid off for almost 9 months. This event has caused a huge fight between my wife's family and us. There have been issues building over the years and this is the straw that broke my back. I want my son away from our area and his friends. I don't blame them for his stupid mistakes but they were all a part of it. My feeling is a fresh start would be a good idea. But our only option is sell and head to Arizona. I know his problems will most likely follow if HE does not attempt to change his ways and his mother and me need to stay on him. We could do this here, but know from past experiences he will still hang out with the same group secretly when he is at school or functions we are not present.
So. Is this too extreme? Do you think a change is the best idea? We cannot look to our in laws for any help on any level in any way. I don't blame them for his stupid mistakes at all. But over the last few years he has needed them and they have not been there. Hell we have needed them but they have not been there but that's a different story. Our only option is Arizona, where I have family that we could stay with for a week or so till we get our apartment etc. So what do you think? Suck it up stay here and pray for the best? Or fire sale the house, eat some equity and get a fresh start?

[jeeg]

Doesn't most of Michigan have "school of choice"? Couldn't you just transfer him to a different school district until your house sells? Then at that time evaluate what would be best for your family.
Perhaps get your son some counseling? If he doesn't feel he's done anything wrong or has no real desire to change.... the problems could actually be worse if you just take off for AZ.
Way to many variables here.
I hope things work out for the best for all of you. Good luck.

[JGatti]

Originally Posted by jeeg

Doesn't most of Michigan have "school of choice"? Couldn't you just transfer him to a different school district until your house sells? Then at that time evaluate what would be best for your family.
Perhaps get your son some counseling? If he doesn't feel he's done anything wrong or has no real desire to change.... the problems could actually be worse if you just take off for AZ.
Way to many variables here.
I hope things work out for the best for all of you. Good luck.

There is a lot I could do, but honestly I don't have the money for any of it. I already have an 8 year old in an out of area school I need to drive ( we did not want him following his brothers school path). Youngest has diabetes and that makes things a bit more difficult. Needing to taxi two kids too and from would create twice the problem.
Thank you for your thoughts.

[canudigit]

Be very, very careful! We recently left SE Michigan for AZ, partly because of our daughter's allergies and partly so that our son could attend ASU. We were excited about a fresh start too.

We are now getting ready to relocate back to MI this coming weekend before school starts in MI--thank God they start late there! Unless you are very, very sure that you will really like AZ, stay put! AZ is not all bad, and I realize that everyone's opinion is equal here, but for us it was just way too drastic of a change from what we had at home that we hated it from the start. I never had a panic attack in my life until I moved to AZ, where I would find catch myself in the middle of the day realizing what we had done, how we had left everyone and everything familiar almost 2,000 miles away, and I would literally get short of breath, my heart would start racing, and I would freak out. I realize that this is a drastic reaction, but if you would have told me before we came out here that this was going to happen, I would have laughed at you. Live and learn.

If you have family out here and you are okay with how drastically different the climate, landscape, traffic, laws, etc. are from MI, then you might be okay and you can disregard this post. However, if you have the slightest shred of doubt on whether to do it, do yourself a favor and hold out for at least a little while longer. It is very expensive to move across the country, and now we are doing it twice in one year. The job market in AZ is no better than it is in MI. The housing market is still in the dumps here too. It is not a cure all for any problems that you are having back in MI. If your son is hanging with undesirable kids there, chances are that he will find them here too.

IDK what the correct answer is for your family, but I just know what it is like to leave MI for AZ and for us it was a HUGE mistake, and an expensive one. I thought that I knew it all, I wouldn't listen to anyone who told us it might be a mistake, and boy, was I stupid, because they were right!

Good luck and take care!!!!

BTW, you will never find a scorpion in your garage in MI. We have found two in our garage here in AZ in just the past two days. YIKES!!! Compared to them, mice are cute and cuddly!!!!

[JGatti]

Originally Posted by canudigit

Be very, very careful! We recently left SE Michigan for AZ, partly because of our daughter's allergies and partly so that our son could attend ASU. We were excited about a fresh start too.

We are now getting ready to relocate back to MI this coming weekend before school starts in MI--thank God they start late there! Unless you are very, very sure that you will really like AZ, stay put! AZ is not all bad, and I realize that everyone's opinion is equal here, but for us it was just way too drastic of a change from what we had at home that we hated it from the start. I never had a panic attack in my life until I moved to AZ, where I would find catch myself in the middle of the day realizing what we had done, how we had left everyone and everything familiar almost 2,000 miles away, and I would literally get short of breath, my heart would start racing, and I would freak out. I realize that this is a drastic reaction, but if you would have told me before we came out here that this was going to happen, I would have laughed at you. Live and learn.

If you have family out here and you are okay with how drastically different the climate, landscape, traffic, laws, etc. are from MI, then you might be okay and you can disregard this post. However, if you have the slightest shred of doubt on whether to do it, do yourself a favor and hold out for at least a little while longer. It is very expensive to move across the country, and now we are doing it twice in one year. The job market in AZ is no better than it is in MI. The housing market is still in the dumps here too. It is not a cure all for any problems that you are having back in MI. If your son is hanging with undesirable kids there, chances are that he will find them here too.

IDK what the correct answer is for your family, but I just know what it is like to leave MI for AZ and for us it was a HUGE mistake, and an expensive one. I thought that I knew it all, I wouldn't listen to anyone who told us it might be a mistake, and boy, was I stupid, because they were right!

Good luck and take care!!!!

BTW, you will never find a scorpion in your garage in MI. We have found two in our garage here in AZ in just the past two days. YIKES!!! Compared to them, mice are cute and cuddly!!!!

I appreciate your response. Not only do I recall reading your posts but I responded to them. I do have to strongly disagree with you in regards to the job scenario. There are NO jobs here in Michigan. None that pay a decent wage anymore. I've been out of work for going on 9 months and have applied for at least 15 crap jobs over the past 3 weeks with one call from Wal-Mart who starts at $8.49 and hour.
I'd prefer to stay here, use the no worker left behind program and go to school etc. But with our situation I'm not sure if and how I can stay here with no job and no house and no place to live. Now if I could sell my house, get a half way decent job ( with the right hours etc) I'd stay here and rent go back to school and so on. But the fact I cannot find a job is the biggest problem.
Here is the drastic realistic alternative. Do a volunteer trade in on my truck, file for bankruptcy, rent my 4th bedroom in my basement and work at an $8 an hour job. How fun does that sound?

[xlabel]

Originally Posted by JGatti

In a nutshell my oldest son got himself into a little trouble over the weekend. Police were not involved but we caught him in what he did. Shame keeps me from saying and I don't want to air all my laundry.
I've been laid off for almost 9 months. This event has caused a huge fight between my wife's family and us. There have been issues building over the years and this is the straw that broke my back. I want my son away from our area and his friends. I don't blame them for his stupid mistakes but they were all a part of it. My feeling is a fresh start would be a good idea. But our only option is sell and head to Arizona. I know his problems will most likely follow if HE does not attempt to change his ways and his mother and me need to stay on him. We could do this here, but know from past experiences he will still hang out with the same group secretly when he is at school or functions we are not present.
So. Is this too extreme? Do you think a change is the best idea? We cannot look to our in laws for any help on any level in any way. I don't blame them for his stupid mistakes at all. But over the last few years he has needed them and they have not been there. Hell we have needed them but they have not been there but that's a different story. Our only option is Arizona, where I have family that we could stay with for a week or so till we get our apartment etc. So what do you think? Suck it up stay here and pray for the best? Or fire sale the house, eat some equity and get a fresh start?

That says it right there for me.......He can get in trouble just as easy in AZ as he can here, so why move? Now if it is because you want to go Arizona, you feel there is better job prospects there and you want to be near your family in AZ that is a different story.

I don't know if they still do things like the "Scared Straight" program or not, perhaps you could contact local law enforcement and get some suggestions or a pastor but IMO he needs to hear about the error of his ways from a third party in addition to the parent and realize that these are critical years and there can be serious life-damaging consequences if he opts to go down the wrong road. Good luck to you.

[canudigit]

Originally Posted by JGatti

I appreciate your response. Not only do I recall reading your posts but I responded to them. I do have to strongly disagree with you in regards to the job scenario. There are NO jobs here in Michigan. None that pay a decent wage anymore. I've been out of work for going on 9 months and have applied for at least 15 crap jobs over the past 3 weeks with one call from Wal-Mart who starts at $8.49 and hour.
I'd prefer to stay here, use the no worker left behind program and go to school etc. But with our situation I'm not sure if and how I can stay here with no job and no house and no place to live. Now if I could sell my house, get a half way decent job ( with the right hours etc) I'd stay here and rent go back to school and so on. But the fact I cannot find a job is the biggest problem.
Here is the drastic realistic alternative. Do a volunteer trade in on my truck, file for bankruptcy, rent my 4th bedroom in my basement and work at an $8 an hour job. How fun does that sound?

I do hear you, but seriously, we live in a nice subdivision here in AZ and we are surrounded by people who are laid off and losing their houses. All I hear from the people here is how there are no jobs, not even ones that pay $8/hr. I am an RN back home and when I came here I thought it would be easy to find a job. Nope. The hospitals here aren't hiring, supposedly because they are concerned about reimbursement for state funded programs like Medicaid, because the state budget in AZ is in severe trouble, to the point where they are considering selling the State House (???!!!!) out of sheer desperation. There was an article in the local paper, the Arizona Republic, a week or so ago right after the schools started here, that was describing how drastically overcrowded the schools are in AZ because of lack of funds. They cited one example, a high school in Mesa, where there were 49 kids in one Spanish class, and another example, at a high school in Phoenix, where there were 38 kids in a math class. Holy cow, that's terrible! And it seems to be kind of a running joke here about how the public schools here are rated dead last in the entire U.S. academically. No one denies it, that's for sure. From where I'm sitting, things really aren't any better here than they are in MI and OH.

Maybe we are the exception, but I went back to MI for two days last week to look for a house and a job, and I found a job within those two days. My husband also is almost 100% sure of getting his old job back in Toledo. Here, he was going to lose his job after only being there for about 8 weeks, and I couldn't even get hired at Costco or Home Depot, nor could our college-aged son. Things here really are bad economically, I don't know why people keep thinking otherwise. I keep reading threads on the AZ forum where people have moved to Phoenix and are crying that they can't find jobs, because "everyone" told them that jobs were plentiful here. That's about the size of it. I just don't want you and your family to end up in the same predicament here as you are in in MI, since it would cost so much to go back, trust us, we know!!

Again, good luck, both with your son and with this decision.

[chiroptera]

Boy, this sounds like one more stressor in your life you don't need, JGatti. I'm sorry.

Without knowing specifics, and only you can answer this I guess, but how off-track is your son, and how likely is it he will fall into the same sort of situation in another state? (That's a rhetorical question.) Because if your son's issues are a big reason for the move and he continues to have problems in Arizona, you might be really kicking yourselves if the move means you've burned bridges here.

I imagine you're already checking out the job and housing situation in AZ...I've spent a lot of time there but don't know how it compares to MI in that regard. I understand the appeal of a fresh start though.

Is Arizona absolutely the only other state you can move to?

[Peter B]

I second the above advice about NOT moving to AZ. However, if you feel your family would be a strong enough support group, it MAY be worth considering. But, as said above, it is very easy to get in trouble in AZ with the abundance of drugs, gangs, etc. I think it would be a good idea to speak with (again as suggested above) local law enforcement or the church. They are both VERY valuable community resourses that are typically under-utilized by the local citizens.

On a side, you've been unemployed for 9 months. What exactly is your skillset? Also, keep in mind that many of the courses offered through the No Worker Left Behind program can be done online. It is worth researching as I found full time employment w/bennies w/in a month of finishing my coursework.

[bluebird39]

No advice here... just sympathy...

I can tell you one thing from personal experience though. There seem to be many more child psychiatrists and psychologists here in Michigan than in most Western States. Same true with medical doctors. I don't know how it is in AZ, but keep that in mind.

Gosh, sounds like you're between a rock and a hard place. The only suggestion I have is some professional counseling. It is worth the price!!! (and the peace that comes with it)

Good luck!

PS I find that moving helps SOME things, but causes OTHER problems, many of which you can in no way predict. Also, finding good medical care in a new place can be extremely stressful!