Hi there. My 16 year old step son is living in Arizona with his bio mother. She abandoned him and his two brothers with my husband about 10 years ago and he's had full physical custody since then. A year ago the 16 yr old poisoned me and threatened his brothers' lives. We had him in residential treatment until the insurance gave out and then his mother asked for him to live with her. He was all for it and we thought we checked it out thoroughly but turns out (found out after he was there about 3 months) that she was doing drugs and was completely incompetent to care for him. CPS in Arizona now says that we have to send him a bus ticket 'home' which we cannot do because we will likely lose custody of our two smaller children if we do this.

We thought about emancipating him, transferring custody, or even job corps. Job corps is out because he's been doing drugs, emancipation seems to be out because he's not capable of caring for himself so we're down to transferring custody to his girlfriend's mother. She seems willing but we don't know what to do next.

Hello tt:

Kids are trouble, but you just can't throw them away when you don't know what to do.

excon

OH... you misunderstand! I don't want to throw him away. I agree, it's horrible to have to choose between your children but in this case, I have no choice. We can't send him to family because we have none. We've exhausted our medical insurance and our own finances trying to get him treatment. We went to CPS, the judicial system and everyone else we can think of and no one will help any more. Their only advice is to bring him back until he does something illegal which unfortunately could be killing one of us and then throw him in jail.

He's not mentally stable, he is severely bipolar and is off his lithium now for six months, he's also been diagnosed with a litany of other anti-social and destructive personality disorders. Honestly, he needs to be institutionalized but until he does something really horrible (other than killing our cat, molesting our dog, saving his bowel movements for months in his closet, etc) no one will help.

Does anyone know how to transfer custody??

Or do you have another recommendation?

Hello again, tt:

Well, it's a court proceeding, so you're going to need a lawyer. I know you want to do it yourself, but I don't think you're able. There's a lot more to it than filling out forms. And, of course, if you make a mistake, peoples lives are at stake.

excon