He Knew A Lot About A Lot.
Today is the last day of exams. Dylan got up and downstairs (almost on time) and headed off to the bus with his canned espresso and a pencil. This, apparently, is all he needs.
This week was a nightmare – but only for me. I listened to Dylan say he was studying, but after the first exam, I saw no evidence of that. I turned the reigns over to Bill, who thinks like Dylan does anyway. Bill quizzed Dylan several times over the course of the week, and made sure that Dylan was on the right track. From what Bill told me, Dylan was on the right track. He knew a lot about a lot.
But my anxiety got the best of me. Nearly every time I opened my mouth, Dylan argued with what I said. It didn’t seem to matter what I said. If I said he needed to study, he told me he’d studied for hours. If I told him he needed to eat, he’d tell me he wasn’t hungry. Often, he was able to tell me how everything was my fault – from his exhaustion to his hunger to the way he combed his hair.
I spent some time lecturing him on the values of “accepting and apologizing” rather than “denying and deflecting.” He didn’t hear any of it.
So (by Thursday) I stopped telling him what he needed to do.
Dylan did a ton of spinning and screeching and bouncing and cackling. He imitated me when I spoke by repeating back what I’d said. He yelled and then told me to stop yelling back. He was so loud, I was sure the people down the block could hear him. Gibberish spewed from him constantly. He spent a lot of the week doing things that seemed appropriate for a two-year-old, but not a fifteen-year-old.
He drove me crazy. I have read whole books on how a parent can “allow” crazy thoughts – but that a kid is just being a kid, and can’t actually “drive” the parent anywhere. I tried to remember that, this week particularly. But it was very, very hard.
I chalked it up to anxiety. But I have no hope that it’s going to stop now that exams are over.
I don’t even care anymore what grades he got. I am just glad exam week is over.
Best of all, it’s permanent. There are no more exams in the county after this year. There’s no more “33% of your grade depends on these two hours.” There will be tests, sure, but all of them with the same weight.
I hope it quells all the anxiety around here. I could use the rest.