I Just Don’t Know How It Happens.
Dylan is trying very hard to be responsible. He had a full week of doing everything right, with regard to being prepared. He checked online to see if he had homework. He completed the homework he had, and turned it in. He remembered to bring materials to class almost every day.
He got into trouble for bumping into a boy – and then, the next day, throwing an ice ball at a girl. He had to sit out of “flex time” (private school’s version of recess) two days in a row, and he missed P.E. None of these seemed like appropriate punishments for a kid with ADHD – so his parents (us) and teachers (them) had a meeting.
The meeting went well. We decided that Dylan should concentrate on bringing a pencil to class, and that he would go to flex time the following day.
This morning, Dylan and I had a wonderful ride to school. He was funny and upbeat. He’d been doing so well. We had a long, leisurely ride to school – 45 minutes, each way, every day, twice a day – so we had lots of time to talk. We talked about music and cars and other stuff we both like.
Then we got to school.
“Where’s my backpack?” he said – interrupting himself with, “oh no….”
His backpack and lunchbox were both at home. Every paper he would need throughout the day, his textbooks, his pencils, his lollipops (for focus) and mints (also for focus) – everything was still at home.
“What am I going to do about lunch?” he asked, clearly skewing his priorities.
“Go to the office and tell them you forgot your lunch. They’ll give you something to eat that you don’t like.”
“Okay,” he said.
“What happened to being responsible?” I asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “This is the kind of thing that happens and I just don’t know how it happens.”
I thought about that.
I am old. I am 50 and a half. I’ve been misplacing things and forgetting things and losing things all the time lately. I never lost anything until I turned 50, and I forgot very little. Then it was like somebody turned on the faucet in my brain, and my short-term memory just started flowing out.
And away.
So I know exactly how he feels. And while I yelled at him for 10 years (because it would never happen to me), I now understood.
Dylan went to school, and suffered his consequences.
Later that day, Dylan texted me, apologizing. He’s trying to earn extra time on electronics, but I think he was genuinely upset about forgetting his backpack. In third grade, he forgot it 4 out of 5 days a week. So he is actually improving.
I texted back. “The problem is not you. It’s the ADHD.” And I suggested that we figure out a way to kick it, really learn to live with it, together.
I am hoping that now, maybe, finally, he is ready to try something new so this stuff will stop “happening” to him. And he will be able to take control of his life, and his behavior, by learning how to live with what God has given him – talents, intelligence, inner beauty and strength, and ADHD.