Juvenile Drug Court Judge Juanita Stedman knows that, from time to time, her heart will be broken.

Making an emotional investment in the kids in her drug program — getting excited over good grades or prom dates — means getting hurt when recovery turns to relapse, when a kid who's fought his demons for nine rounds falls in the 10th.

Bob Andres/AJC (ENLARGE)

Juvenile Drug Court Judge Juanita Stedman makes an emotional investment in the young people who come into her courtroom. She celebrates their successes and deals with their setbacks.

Recent headlines: Woodstock family reaches out to storm victims  Cobb vet's license suspended  Burglars with sledgehammers foiled by concrete wall     • Cobb County news

As judge over the Cobb County Juvenile Drug Court program, Stedman has doled out house arrests, probations, curfews and jail time to more than 350 kids the past six years.

"I told a mom just the other day, 'There but by the grace of God is me,' " Stedman said. "To see your child walk through the door with shackles and cuffs for the first time is emotional."

The safe thing to do is to sit on the bench and administer justice. The risky thing is to balance mercy with justice, compassion with rules.

If nowhere else than in her weekly Juvenile Drug Court program, Stedman has found that balance. She dishes out charm, humor, toughness and wisdom like a master chef sprinkling just the right dash of this or that.

Maybe the line on her resume that reads: "mother of two former teens" is the one that most prepared her for this.

And she has plenty of advice to offer.

"You have to make sure a parent is there when there's a party," Stedman said. "You should know where your kids are and whom they are with. You drug screen them with a kit you buy at a drugstore if you suspect something."

"My children said it was awful being the kid of a Juvenile Court judge. Did they ever do anything wrong? Sure. But I told them over and over, not on my watch."

Stedman recalls when her daughter, Emily, came to her and said, "Mom, you wouldn't let me go to this party, right?"

"Parents need to listen to that code. They are dying for you to put limits on them, for you to be the excuse for why they can't do something. I'm shocked when I hear parents say, 'I can't tell my kid not to see this person or not to be friends with them.' Yes you can! It's exhausting, but you can."

Every few weeks or so, Stedman — a Juvenile judge for eight years and a Juvenile advocate attorney before that — will remind the court that she makes a living out of outsmarting teens, who are knuckleheads by definition.

But today's knuckleheads know a thing or two about manipulating the system, she said. They are savvy on the Internet and adept at figuring out which houses are the party homes.

And they often are aided by knucklehead parents, she said.

It's in the confines of the Wednesday evening courtroom — 15 kids or so, parents and staff — where she works her magic.

Of the 914 Cobb County juveniles charged with drug or alcohol offenses in 2007, 60 of the repeat offenders ended up in the drug court program.

"Todd, why do you think I'm so upset with you?" Stedman asked one of the teenagers.

"Because I smoked?"

"You smoked pot three days after I released you. Did you not think I looked serious?

"Yes ma'am, you did."

And she was. Todd went back to jail.

There is no crime against failing P.E., but that's a really good way to get on Stedman's bad side.

On one Wednesday recently, she'd received reports on two of her kids who were failing the easiest class in school.

"Chandler, how is school going?"

"I'm going to fail literature, but I'm raising my math."

"What about this P.E. grade?

"I'm failing P.E."

"I just don't do well with people who don't pass P.E."

"I've just not been dressing out. I've had a cough."

"You can dress out. You will dress out or I'll move your curfew back up."

Point taken.

Aaron is a favorite of Stedman's. She might say she has no favorites, but it's easy to see the tender mercies she feels toward Aaron and his stepfather.

Aaron's mother has been in and out of jail and is now in a rehab program. His stepfather, a truck driver, has been there for Aaron every step of the way.

"Every time we hear someone complain about drug court not being convenient, let's remember Aaron and his stepfather, who drives a truck across the country and is making it here every week for his son, who isn't even his blood son." Stedman said.

The judge, a week earlier, had put Aaron, a cocaine and marijuana user, on truck arrest, a first for her.

"Aaron, you're clean, right? Stedman asked on this Wednesday.

Aaron, surprisingly, is noncommittal and shrugs.

"What's that mean?" the judge asks, shocked, worried and wondering if her drug screen report wasn't right.

"Aw, I was just messin' with ya, judge," Aaron said, chuckling.

"Do I look like someone to be messed with?" Stedman replies sternly. "OK, I'm kidding, too. I do kind of like being messed with."

Avery was the last case on this particular Wednesday, and his would be uneventful.

But Avery had a question for the judge.

"How come I'm always last?"

"Well, Avery that's a good question," Stedman said. "The next time you're here, I want you to not wait for me to start calling names. You come right up to the front seat and sit there and you'll go first. I'm an old judge, and I'll forget, so you remind me, OK?

"Ah, judge, you're not that old," Avery replied.

More than once, the judge has led the courtroom in applause when a kid has passed a particularly daunting test — either in school or in life.

"I have a relationship with these kids," Stedman said. "I'll see them in public, and I never go up to them and talk to them because I don't want to embarrass them. They usually come to me though, and we hug and talk.

"I was told over and over that kids listed their relationship with their judge as a one of the biggest factors in their success. It's hard for them when they've disappointed me, their counselors and their parents. That's part of treatment, realizing that their actions don't affect just them."

Despite her years on the bench, Stedman said, her jaw still falls open in disgust at what she sees. And she's glad about that.

"I'm grateful that I'm not so tainted that I can still be shocked and outraged by what I see," she said.