Dylan is getting ready to go away for a week, as part of the Appalachia Service Project. He will be 7 hours away, working with other teens to help families in need.
He is leaving in two days.
I have spent the past two months getting ready. I have been faithfully reading the emails from those who have gone before him. I have scoured the packing list, and made sure he has – in the house – everything he needs. I bought a pump for his air mattress, a foam mattress in case he preferred that, four pairs of sleep shorts, a tool belt for his tools, work gloves, safety goggles, five pairs of cool-fiber work socks and steel-toed shoes in case he’s running a jackhammer and decides to sheer off one of his toes.
I bought him three new pairs of jeans, since the kids need to wear jeans for their work. When I realized he was going to trash his brand new jeans, I gave him old jeans that didn’t fit. Then my mother went out and bought him several brand new pairs of jeans, too, that were slightly less expensive so we’d feel better about him trashing them.
Then we gathered together a whole slew of old t-shirts from Dylan’s parents and grandparents, that can be tarred and stained without care. I pulled out ear plugs and a sleeping bag and necessary toiletries, along with cases and suitcases and bags. Bill charged up a portable phone charger, even though there’s no cell signal where he’s going, so he can take pictures while he’s gone. I got him books from the library, an inhaler from the pharmacy, and gave him my favorite visor and told him he could trash it.
I started doing all the laundry in the house, so he would have sufficient clothing for the trip. I wrote his name on everything: hammer, screwdriver, tool belt, water jug, all six work gloves. I wrote Hawkins so many times I started to forget that the word had meaning. The emails kept coming, and I kept sharing them with him – in the hopes that he would get excited for his trip.
Meanwhile, Dylan sat on the floor and texted. He played the piano. He sprawled on his bed for hours.
Dylan has been anointed “student music leader” because of his angelic singing voice. He needs to lead the group in song – three different songs. Dylan hasn’t yet learned the songs.
I asked him to do a few things: put your sleeping bag, pillow and air mattress into a bag. (He did this after the third request.) Label the bag. (It’s been three days and he still hasn’t done this.) Help with the laundry. (He’s done this. He folds like a professional!) Pick out the clothes you want to wear in the evenings. (He has not done this.) Read through the packing list and check off what you still need to pack. (He has not done this.) Get everything into a suitcase that fits. (Thanks to me, he is now on his third suitcase, but it is only half packed.)
I keep saying, “Dylan, you are going to be away for a whole week. You are going to have a space of six feet in which to maneuver. You need to make sure you have everything you need in one place. You need to take care of this. You need to pack.”
Instead, he sits there. He Snap-chats. He watches YouTube videos. He goofs around with his brother.
And tomorrow, Dylan’s suitcase goes into the truck – whether complete, or completely empty.
There was a moment during exam week when I thought, I absolutely cannot deal with Dylan anymore. He was being incredibly obnoxious, spinning and spouting gibberish and mimicking and throwing himself on the floor and making sounds that made absolutely no sense. He was acting like a spoiled toddler, but in Size Large.
He not only wouldn’t do what I asked; he also would purposefully refuse to budge even an inch – or even speak when spoken to. He tested every boundary ever set.
I thought, Maybe he’s sick. When Dylan is sick, his behavior is much worse than normal.
I don’t know what to do with him. My frustration was so great that I briefly considered hitting him, as if adding violence would solve anything. But I remained relatively calm.
At the end of a long week, and a particularly bad shopping trip during which Dylan was throwing a ball across the store while the preschoolers in the store were behaving well, we had a family meeting. Bill, Shane, Dylan and I discussed what it means to be respectful, and how to earn respect.
The meeting didn’t go well, but all parties were actively engaged.
Coincidentally, the family meeting took place the day after Dylan’s last day of school. He slept a lot over the weekend. He ate well. He did his own thing. There was no pressure. No deadlines, nothing due. No school.
No anxiety.
ADHD and anxiety go hand-in-hand – a simple fact that I’d forgotten. In the midst of my frustration, I pulled out a book that a friend got for me: ADD and ADHD Teenagers. There was a whole slew of stuff in there about anxiety.
Suddenly, I saw the connection. I recognized that his anxiety was – in a way – making him act sick. He wasn’t capable of functioning normally. He needed to find a way to calm himself – say, studying and focusing on getting through each exam. But he didn’t do that. So he just spun out of control.
There are no final exams anymore in high school. But there will be plenty of other stressors during his lifetime.
I can only hope that he learns to deal with them as they arrive, and that he actually matures in the process.
Shane had a mega-setback at the end of the year in math class. At the end of the school year, students usually get a preview of the following year’s math class. Shane will be taking Algebra 1 next year – a class that Dylan took twice, partially thanks to a very poor teacher in 7th grade.
And next year, Shane might get that same teacher. There are, however, several other options. I had already had a few conversations with the vice principal about Shane’s issues in math – and mostly about his teacher, who rarely did what she said she would do. So over the weekend, I wrote the following (edited) email to that same vice principal:
In the fall, when the other six of his teachers were praising his independence and abilities, Shane’s math teacher said, ‘Shane doesn’t ask for what he wants.’ Meanwhile at home, Shane told me that no matter how long he had his hand up in math class, his teacher would say, ‘I’ll be right there’ – and then never get there.
In the past month of math, Shane has gotten a C, a D, and 2 E’s on quizzes and tests in math. I told Shane to retake whatever tests he could – not so much because of his grade dropping, but because he was obviously missing a key mathematical concept.
Shane asked his teacher if he could retake the tests, and she said she would set it up. A week went by – as usual – and she didn’t set up anything. So Shane asked if he could stay after school – but his teacher said she wasn’t going to be staying after school. She said he could retake the test at lunchtime.
Four more lunchtimes went by – again – and the end of the year was HERE. I told Shane that he had to retake those tests TODAY, since it had been two weeks and it was his last chance. So Shane reminded his teacher, one last time.
Her final retort after two weeks of waiting? She said that Shane’s grade was a B and that he couldn’t bring up his grade to an A, so he wouldn’t be allowed to retake anything.
Shane is very bright, and probably only needed five minutes of help. But he simply couldn’t get that five minutes with this teacher. I don’t know many of the Algebra 1 teachers, but I am sincerely hoping that this email will help you steer him into an algebra class with a GOOD teacher, who knows he exists and answers his questions and gives him the attention he needs.
I don’t know that this email will do any good. But after a year of being ignored, Shane deserved – at the very least – an attempt at success next year. So now we are on to summer vacation – finally – and I can sit back, relax, and try not to panic about algebra for a few months.
But next year, Shane will be in Algebra 1 and Dylan will be in Algebra 2.
Perhaps I should just hire a tutor now.
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.
After much tussling with Dylan’s high school class schedule – trying to fit in IB classes and sufficient hands-on classes to keep him able to focus for four years – he decided to take his required half-year health course online, over the summer.
We have to pay for the course, but it frees up an entire half-year of school for him to take P.E. or chorus or computers, or something else that he really enjoys. So it’s probably worth the small cost.
Getting into these online classes is notoriously difficult – something akin to getting into a popular preschool or getting front row tickets to Madonna. So I emailed my registration form within a minute of opening, then hand-delivered my check. We did not want to miss this wonderful opportunity.
The only caveat for taking the course online is that students must be at two face-to-face meetings, in person, or they pay for the course and don’t get any credit, even if they do all the work. So those two face-to-face meeting dates are VERY important.
We got our confirmation by email, and I jumped up to mark our (still paper) calendar. That’s when I discovered that Dylan is already registered for another class on the exact same date and time.
Dylan is taking Driver’s Ed this summer, too.
One class is from 4-7:15 p.m. The other class is from 4-8:00 p.m.
He literally has to be in two places at the same time, I thought.
I had a brief vision of FaceTiming Dylan into one (or both!) of the classes. I mean, he’s not going to be paying attention at either place anyway.
Then I considered calling the Driver’s Ed people and asking if we could take Class #7 at another location on another day. But that would cost us money and be incredibly challenging.
So I called the school’s “e-Learning” office within five minutes of receiving Dylan’s confirmation email, and explained the situation. I asked if we could change the time (but not the date) of the class – and surprise! It was no trouble at all.
Dylan might be a little late for Class #7 of Driver’s Ed. Okay, he may be half an hour late.
But hey, we got it all in.
It is Dylan’s last day of school. Starting tomorrow, he has one exam each day – which will represent 33% of his final semester grade.
Going into exams, he has four C’s in four classes. One of his classes – Biology – is a solid C for the semester. It was a B last semester, but with a C this semester, he will have a C for the class.
This goes on his college transcript, and there is nothing he can do to change it.
But the other C’s can change. If Dylan gets great grades on his exams, he will be able to pull himself out of the gutter, one more time.
Dylan, however, decided that this weekend, he had no real desire to study. He was tired, he said, and just didn’t feel like he could get up off the chair. He claimed he had studied some, and that he will do fine on the exams if he just studies a little bit more.
In other words, he chose this weekend to be a typical adolescent. Instead of rising to the challenge, and becoming the student he knows he can be, he let the pressure smack him down and hold him there.
So what did I do?
Well, after I suggested that he study, and after I said NO, your friends can NOT come over, and after I explained why this weekend was so important, and after I handed him three study guides that I printed, and after I told him no electronics until he’d done the work that was due on the last day of school, and after I yelled about the importance of working on school work THIS weekend… then, finally, I gave up.
And oddly, I believe that if it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t have even done the work that was due on the last day of school, let alone studied for exams.
But let’s be honest: he says he cares. He says and says and says he cares. But he has yet to really SHOW that he cares.
He says he’s studying a lot. He says and says and says he is studying. He says he studies because he cares even more than I do.
I really do care. If I were in charge of doing the work, I would be spending hours and hours and hours more on studying and getting ready for exams.
I watch him do very, very little – and I care very much.
Shane – quite suddenly – has two C’s. OVERALL C’s, in two separate classes.
I wasn’t paying much attention to his grades this year, quite honestly, since he had straight A’s during the first quarter and made the honor roll all year long.
But now he has two C’s. He also has a B in the class where the teacher told me in October, “I’d like a whole classroom full of Shanes.” He has A’s in English, Instrumental Music and P.E.
When I look back through the grades that are bringing down his overall grades, they are tests, quizzes, labs. Unlike Dylan, Shane gets his work done on time. But apparently, he isn’t working very hard on … well, anything. He is giving it his bare minimum effort, and he has no idea how to study.
We are not going to wait for him to learn to study. This isn’t something they teach in school. But I can certainly work with him on studying. Just like I’ve worked with him on going back over his work after he completes a quiz – although he rarely actually does go back over his work before he turns it in.
It is becoming increasingly clear that Shane needs a little help, too.
Dylan is brilliant, and we all know that, but his grades are not good. Shane is brilliant and we all know that – except Shane. And while his grades were spectacular at the beginning of the year, they have gone rapidly downhill without the attention Shane needs.
We’re a little late to pull up his grades this year. But we can certainly work on study skills and prepare for next year.
After all, Shane will be taking two high-school-level classes next year, which means they will go on his college transcript. Yep, college. It’s already time to worry about his college transcript.
He is 12.
I seem to be aging rapidly as my kids are growing, and I am worrying about – among other things – how my brain is behaving. It doesn’t appear to be as capable as it once was of handling simple math, for example. It doesn’t seem to recall simple words as quickly as it once did. Words like “anonymous” and “toaster” occasionally elude me.
This is annoying, so I decided to play some simple brain games online to help my brain revive.
I’m happy to have this option. In fact, I rather enjoy puzzles, and my youth is filled with video game madness. So I was looking forward to this task.
Unfortunately, these games are not terribly fun. They are okay – and I would certainly recommend them to anyone worried about their brain’s decline – but when it comes right down to it, I struggle through some of the games.
After a particularly poor experience trying to figure out a tip for a waitress, I decided to play Countdown. It is an incredibly simple (though not easy) math game with three numbers and a goal. You can choose your own difficulty level, so I chose “2” out of 10 (“very easy”).
There are three math problems, and no time limit. I love that there is no time limit. But it took me ten minutes to get the first answer. And after spending ten minutes on the second problem, I whined aloud.
Dylan was playing the piano in the other room. “Dylan,” I called over the piano. “Can you help me?”
Usually this means he needs to lift a box for me, or reach something on a top shelf. But today, it was math.
“What?” he asked, coming in, ready to lift.
“I can’t do this math problem,” I said. I explained the concept.
Dylan grabbed the mouse, went click! click! click! and the problem was done.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Sure,” he said, and went back to the piano.
I went on to the next problem. As I was studying it, and studying it, and studying it, Shane came home from school. He walked in while I was still perplexed.
“That looks like fun,” he said.
“I am not having fun,” I said. “Go ahead. Give it a try.”
Shane clicked! six times before he had the answer.
I let him do the next three problems by himself. And I went off to do the laundry.
Finally, finally, finally, Dylan seems to be taking some responsibility for himself. He has been coming home from school, knowing what is due the next day, and doing his ultimate best to get it in on time.
But he didn’t print out his history paper. He worked on it until midnight, but forgot to print it out. And when he went to class without it, the teacher wouldn’t allow him to go to the media center to print it out. Dylan had to wait until lunchtime to print it out, and then he turned it in immediately.
So the history teacher substantially docked Dylan’s grade.
I asked Dylan to do some self-advocating, and let him know how hard he had tried. So Dylan emailed the teacher. I won’t reprint his email here, but it brought tears to my eyes. Dylan explained what happened, and asked for a tiny bit of mercy.
But the teacher had no mercy.
Dylan, this assignment was given out last week. As I stated in class, in was due at the end of class on Tuesday. The exception was anyone that was typing their paper was permitted to turn it in on Wednesday at the beginning of class due to the fact that we do not have a printer in the classroom. Effectively giving everyone who needed it, extended time to complete the assignment.
That didn’t feel like “extended time” to me. So I sent a follow-up note to the teacher. I couldn’t help myself. I asked him to reconsider on this project, since Dylan had given it his best effort. I “cc”d Dylan’s case manager at school. The case manager called, but the teacher never responded.
Dylan got a C on the paper.
Shortly thereafter, Dylan told me that he had – also in history class – turned in a PowerPoint project via the computer, only to later realize that he was supposed to have printed out the PowerPoint.
“That’s not what I asked for,” said the teacher. “So I’m giving you a D.”
This seemed a bit random to me. Dylan doesn’t do “D” work – or even “C” work. He does A work that is often turned in late. It doesn’t seem fair to take an A project and turn it into a D project, just because it wasn’t submitted via the correct format.
I emailed Dylan’s case manager again. I thank God for Dylan’s case manager. She doesn’t coddle – him or me! – but she knows what’s right and wrong. We both know that Dylan has been struggling lately with the apathy of a typical teenager.
And she also knows that the teacher can only dock Dylan by 10% if his work is a day late. And that the lowest grade he can get is a 50%. These were things I did not know. So she is meeting with Dylan to find out more about the situation. And then we may have to have a face-to-face meeting with the teacher, too.
It just seems so unfair: Dylan gives up on himself and gets D’s and E’s. THEN Dylan decides to pull himself up and do all the right things, and he gets C’s and D’s.
But only in one class. The other classes are coming along nicely. So we shall see what happens.
The end of the year is fast approaching….
Shane came into my bedroom at 4 a.m. – less than three hours before he was supposed to get up for school. I heard him, and reached out in the darkness.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, touching his arm, knowing instinctively that he wasn’t sick.
“I can’t sleep,” Shane said. “And it’s been two hours.”
“Do you want to try to sleep with me?” I asked, pulling a pillow over for him.
“I think it will help,” he said, climbing in.
I did my best to comfort him, even sharing one of my own stuffed animals, but Shane didn’t sleep for a long time. As a fellow insomniac, I lay awake next to him until he did sleep, maybe 40 minutes later.
In that 40 minutes, I thought mostly about Shane’s bassinet.
We lived in a two-bedroom rental when Shane was born, with no room for another crib. We were building our current house, which wasn’t quite finished. So we put a bassinet in the office for Shane.
But Shane was born in the dead of winter, and there was no air circulation – or heat – in that bassinet. When I picked him up, no matter how much I bundled him, Shane was freezing cold.
We moved the bassinet into our room, but it was still too cold. So after about a week of trial and error, Shane slept between us in our bed.
Three months later, the new house was finished and Shane got a crib and his own room. He slept in the crib until he started to climb out of it – when he was barely two. He would show up next to our bed in his tiny pajamas, too short to climb up by himself.
So we got him a toddler bed, which was shaped like a car and totally cool. The mattress, however, wasn’t all that comfortable. So sometimes Shane would climb out of the toddler bed and wander into our room.
There were a few years when seeing Shane next to my bed in the middle of the night was … expected. And knowing he would grow up made those moments … treasured.
But now, it’s not so expected. I still treasure having him there, but I remember that cold bassinet, and how easy it was to comfort him then.
And then I think about the nights in his future, where Shane can’t get back to sleep and he won’t know why. This happens to me all the time. I have suffered from insomnia for my entire life. I found that sports and exercise help a lot. Skipping sugar helps. I am teaching this all to Shane.
Meanwhile, he struggled so much last night, just to get some needed rest. He went to school today – on time, because he didn’t want to skip math class – after six hours of very interrupted sleep. I told him to call me if he’s too tired to focus in school. I told him I would come and get him and he could rest.
But Shane won’t call. He will keep going, and be contented for the most part, and we will talk tonight again about exercise and sports and movement.
And he will sleep well tonight, with no school tomorrow. But his insomnia will return. And someday, I won’t be there to comfort him. I won’t be there to pull him out of his cold bassinet, and cuddle him until he can sleep. He will have to comfort himself.
And while I know it’s for the best that he learn how to comfort himself, I will treasure my job as long as it lasts.
