I recommend you read How to Raise Your Kids without Raising Your Voice. In it, you'll find a way of dealing with kids that reduces non-compliance. You have over-punished your son for his "crime." As you'll see in the book, this is likely to backfire with exactly the kind of behavior you are describing. The punishment is too intense and too long. Also, it was given without any warning - something that very often leads directly to non-compliance. You should have warned your son that if anything like that ever happened again, he would lose his cell phone for a week. Keep in mind that teenagers are glued to their phones and that single punishment would have been severe enough. However, he would not even have received that punishment at the time of this first offense because your goal is not to punish but to educate and prevent misbehavior in the future. That could have been accomplished with the warning alone. Please read all the details of effective punishments in the book so you can get the whole picture - I'm just pulling out a small part of the problem here. Since you're in the situation you're in now, here's my advice: give him back all his privileges including the cell phone. Tell him that you thought about it and realized that being picked up by the police was punishment enough and that he should just know that the next time it happens, you will confiscate his cell phone for a week and have the phone company suspend his account for the duration of that time. That should be enough to prevent the problem from happening again if you are following the other strategies in the book as well.  All the best,  Sarah Chana

Don't give him so many punishments! Kids just rebel when you do that.

At least he didn't take the phone out of your drawer! He sounds like he's basically a good kid (because the bad ones WOULD take the phone if they found it). Tell him he can have the phone back in 5 days but if you find him sneaking in to use it again, it will double to 10 days and each time you catch him doing that, it will be longer and longer.

What are your hopes for him?  What is the outcome that you want from your handling of the situation? 

To not sneak out?  To be honest?  To not go through your stuff?  To not hang out with girls?  To know that you are committed to his safety? 

I have learned that trouble points me to what is up for kids.  But it is not the surface stuff, it is something at a deeper level.  It is like a flag that says, I am not happy with something and here is where I am searching for relief to my pain/discomfort. 

For example, the surface level stuff here is that he snuck out & dug through your drawers.  The deeper level stuff might be that he is searching for a way to be accepted, he is feeling lonely,  he is feeling trapped, or something in him is curious.  You are with him daily, so this is where you can begin to listen and observe and try to figure out what is really up. 

Many things have been suggested here already. Your son is learning who he is deep inside him and how to trust that part of him.  You are learning, if you want to be, how to be a parent who supports your kids explorations and development.  Trying out the things suggested here and noticing if they get you the outcomes you want is the kind of learning opportunity that arises in these circumstances.    My .02 cents.

Playing Huge.
morgan