Dylan Handled the Situation Like an Adult.
A week or so after I played Diva Mom and tried to get the school to change the key of a song for Dylan’s sake – which, I maintain, is still a good idea – I realized what was really bothering me.
The technical director screamed at my son.
The man stood next to Dylan and shrieked at him: “SING! JUST SING!” He was loud and intimidating and burly and demanding.
And my barely-15-year-old had enough sense to tackle the issue calmly, like an adult: “I don’t feel comfortable singing in this key.”
Dylan knows something that I didn’t know at his age: how to maintain control while in the presence of a control freak.
The man obviously has serious control issues. And most kids with ADHD – I would guess – would either blow up at the control freak or self-destruct. Even without ADHD, maybe, most kids would blow up or self-destruct.
At Dylan’s age, I always chose to self-destruct.
But Dylan handled the situation like an adult. Like a mature adult, one who is able to stand his ground, stand up for himself, and not “attack back.” In other words, Dylan did something that I am rarely able to do myself, even at the ripe old age of half a century.
So I went to the band director and told him about the real issue, about the harshness of the technical director’s teaching methods. The band director suggested – directly to Dylan, who was standing next to me – that after the heat of the moment, he should talk to the technical director, and tell him that his teaching methods were not working for Dylan, that they frightened him more than encouraged him.
Dylan said he would do that.
I don’t know if I could, but Dylan might actually do it.