Involuntary Commitment of an Out of Control Yet Intelligent Teen

My question involves juvenile law in the State of: Texas

My fiance and I have been trying everything we can think of to help her 15yo son. He has been in the mental health system for a decade for ADHD, ODD (obstinance defiance disorder), and aggressive behavior (aka "The Syndrome Mix"). He his extremely intelligent, but is currently failing his freshman year of high school. Since he was a child he has been extremely abusive to his mother, ranging from verbal and emotional abuse that I myself have witnessed up to and including documented physical abuse. He has a juvenile record for shooting another child in the throat with a BB gun and is now big enough to represent enough of a danger that further attempts to discipline him, frankly, make me frightened for my safety and hers if he decides to become violent the way he was as a child. He has no respect or concern for anything and has put the family in danger, both fiscal with his theft and physical with his behaviors and actions, a number of times. Each time, he will show remorse until the next morning when he appears to believe everything has been reset and he can do anything he wants again.

We have tried, quite literally, everything we can think of to turn his behavior around, ranging from carrot-and-stick for grades/chores/behavior, Love and Logic, and basically every parenting technique we could find and/or think up. We have put in literally thousands of hours reviewing parenting sites, mental health advisement sites, talking to professional councilors, and over a decade trying to get him to understand how dangerous his behavior is, both to others and to himself. None of it has worked. He still continues to behave with sociopathic disregard for anything other than his own immediate gratification. We *do* love him, but we have actually had a number of mental health professionals recommend that "maybe he should just go to jail" (direct quote). Since that recommendation a few months ago, he has managed to keep his behavior *just* this side of legal, using intimidation and verbal/emotional abuse to manipulate everyone around him and demonstrating barely contained violence (not *quite* enough to justify legal action against a minor, according to the police, as he barely manages to curtail attempted strikes) to "get his way".

At this point, my fiance and I are quite literally so tired of the constant disrespect/emotional agony/fear that we both agree he needs help from a professional on an inpatient basis. Unfortunately, the mental health facilities will only hold him for a week for observation. As stated previously, he is extremely intelligent and can "fake it" for a week. The last time we committed him, he was back to his same patterns of behavior within days (not even a week) of returning. It is tearing our family apart.

What steps do we need to take to get him the help he needs? He is beyond our ability to teach. He is beyond the ability of his school administrators to teach. He refuses to change in any way unless there is an immediate chance of incarceration ... and that threat only goes so far unless it gets backed up. As he knows how to skate the razor's edge of the law and play the mental health system enough to keep off the legal/MHMR "radar", I am turning here for help on what to do to end this nightmare in which we live and get him committed for longer than just the "week of evaluation".

Edit: Added: I apologize for the length of this, however, I have read enough to know how quickly such situations are dismissed to "call the police" or "talk to a doctor" or "check out parenting/mental health sites". We have done all of these, to no avail. He needs help, but can exercise *just* enough control to require his evaluation to take place over a longer time period than medical (or, frankly, legal) professionals are willing to take at this point.

Edit II: Added: We have looked into boarding schools and behavioral centers, but we live on a shoestring budget and cannot afford the tuition to these institutions and are unaware of any programs for poor families.

The reason you're not finding people suggesting sources of people willing to raise your difficult children for you at no expense to you is because they don't exist. Even if your child ends up incarcerated or in foster care, you should anticipate that the state will bill you for child support. Any public health option or option covered by insurance is going to be (very) short-term.

You can continue to look for a residential school that offers behavioral health services, and see if you can afford the tuition. If you cannot afford the tuition you can see if they offer any form of scholarship.

Where is Dad in all of this?

BooRennie: His biological father has been absent most of his life (I'm the closest thing to a father he's had) and has been dead for the last year.

Mr. KnowItAll, I appreciate the recommendation of scholarship information. However, at no point did I say we were looking for "people willing to raise your difficult children for you at no expense" and actually resent the implication. I have had to sum up over a decade's worth of a nightmare existence and painstaking research to try and help my son in an effort to find out what recourse we might have for trying to get him into the inpatient care he needs ... care that is obvious to anyone who spends more time with him than a government-paid psychiatrist is willing to spend before rubber stamping him as "Fine". If your best advice is to attempt to imply that his mother and I haven't done everything we possibly could to help him ourselves, perhaps NOT responding at all would be a more appropriate course of action for you. It's easy to pass incorrect judgement when you aren't in the situation, as we keep finding out every time we take him in for an evaluation.

Pressing charges and incarceration appear to be the solution. He has no fear.

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Quoting Disagreeable

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Pressing charges and incarceration appear to be the solution. He has no fear.

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If it works. Personal experience has shown that with family members, sometimes it's too late and they are simply on their own self-destructive path. You can only lead a horse to water. If he doesn't want to get help and change for the better, nothing you or anyone else does will mean jack.

Unless you can get a mental health professional to commit him to a long term in-patient facility, you are not going to get him locked up for a mental health evaluation and treatment. Unfortunately for you, he gets cleared after the short stints for observation and comes home. Calling the police for any crimes he commits may be your only option at this point.