Dylan Was Supposedly Working.
Dylan is not enjoying the New Arrangement.
For the uninitiated, the New Arrangement is pretty lenient, considering that Dylan has been turning in his school work late for the past several YEARS.
Dylan does not take his phone to school. He uses his phone only from 8:00 to 9:00 on weeknights. On Fridays, he is allowed to have his phone back after school. He keeps it until Saturday night.
IF Dylan does all of his weekend homework before Saturday is over, he is allowed to use his phone on Sunday, too.
He also goes to homework club after school three days a week, where he gets a little help from his case manager and spends some quality time actually working on school work.
Last week, he rocked the new arrangement. He got ALL of his work turned in on time, save one homework assignment in history, which he turned in, only one day late. He was doing so well, in fact, that Bill and I were considering giving him more phone time in the evenings.
But…
This week, Dylan complained that he was sick on Monday morning. He complained so much that he missed the bus. Shane was (actually) sick that day, too, so I kept them both home, rather than leave Shane alone so that I could drive Dylan to school.
On Tuesday after school, Dylan was supposedly working on his computer, but – somehow – Skype was open, too. I took away his unsupervised electronics privileges immediately. Now when he needs to do work on the computer, he needs to do it with an adult around.
So Tuesday night, he lashed out verbally, destroying what otherwise could have been a nice family dinner. His emotions were raw and his words were hurtful.
Having no electronics in his room is not his favorite thing.
On Wednesday, Dylan traded a classmate: Dylan’s pencil for the other kid’s Red Bull. This happened during first period.
“It was the best second period I’ve ever had!” Dylan told me later.
So I went out and bought $40 worth of iced teas and coffees. In my opinion, the natural caffeine is better than chemically enhanced energy drinks.
I planned to give one to Dylan on Thursday morning, but he came downstairs late. He hadn’t cleaned out his lunchbox from the day before, so he had a lot of work to do. He barely had time to choke down his breakfast before racing down the driveway as the bus rolled past him.
I forgot all about the iced coffee.
Today is Friday of Week 2 of the New Arrangement. I remembered the morning coffee, and Dylan was almost excited about it when he headed out for the bus – on time. I can only imagine what surprises are in store today.