Dylan Didn’t See Me Fighting For Him.
When Dylan was still in elementary school, we found a personal ADHD savior by the name of Kirk Martin, the man who founded Celebrate Calm. We learned that Dylan was built by design to be exactly like he is: brilliant and bouncy and extraordinary. Finally, we found an answer to parenting Dylan: allow him to be him, and stop trying to force him to be like everyone else.
This was hard for me – not because I didn’t love Dylan being Dylan, but because I am who I am. I am detail-oriented and organized and those characteristics have gotten me through many years of social confusion. It’s how I live, how I survive in a chaotic world; I take control of what I can.
I watched Dylan struggle in school because he forgot to do his work and then, when he did do it, he left it at home, lost it in his own backpack, or simply never turned it in. So I tried to help by introducing all the ways I knew to survive these issues. And Dylan, after many years of my attempts to help, decided that I was the problem because I was forcing him to do something that did not come naturally.
But I had Celebrate Calm in my back pocket. I introduced him to work-as-play. I taught him that it’s okay to be who he is, to do what is important to him. I spent years fighting the school system, explaining that he just needed to stand up and move around sometimes. I fought with principals and teachers and even other parents. I fought for the right for him to do things his way, while instructing him on how to play the game – even though he did things differently.
Dylan didn’t see me fighting for him. He didn’t see me stomping my feet in the front office. He didn’t hear my conversations with the principals. He didn’t watch me scour the internet for hours for answers that would allow him to be him. He didn’t do hours of research on private schools. He didn’t read the emails to the teachers. He didn’t go to the IEP meetings.
Now he doesn’t remember the times I gave him the ultimate freedoms to be himself, to learn to love himself for who he is, to do the things he loves most. He doesn’t remember the years we toured alternate schools, or how much he hated the private school that – finally – allowed him to be himself.
Dylan doesn’t remember begging me to let him go back to public school. He only remembers me telling him to do his homework and turn it in.
He doesn’t remember the four years of cheeseburgers, water parks, horseback rides and segway tours, when we were “looking at colleges.” He just remembers being forced to sit still, again, once he got there.
This might explain why Dylan said to me, while we were exploring Italy on our glorious two-week vacation: “Mom, would you back me if I dropped out of college? I just want to drive boats or work on a farm or something.”
I told him that I would back him no matter what he decided. But I reminded him that he is on track to graduate next summer, even though he took a semester off. And I reminded him that he might want to have that degree when he’s done driving boats and working on farms.
Dylan has decided to go ahead and finish college. Maybe he will actually drive boats afterward. I don’t care what he does; I just want him to have one more year to transition.
Dylan doesn’t know yet how hard it will be on his own.
When I was Dylan’s age, I wanted to play guitar in a rock and roll band. So, maybe it’s just a youth thing. Holding an office job just didn’t seem that enjoyable.
Me too! And honestly, I am much happier Door Dashing than I ever was in an office – even though my guitar never did much for me except sit in a corner until my kids learned to play it.