After all summer with so few problems, it is surprising how much has gone awry in such a short first quarter.
Dylan is doing so, so, so, so much better than even last year, where they were still hand-holding him in private school. He’s also doing way better than he did in 7th grade, when he rarely finished his work, and almost never turned it in.
This year, Dylan is actually doing his homework. He takes a quick break and then gets right to it, sometimes taking three hours to complete everything. He is getting his class work done, too. And he’s starting to learn to study – or at least, attempting to learn to study – so he’s doing much better on many of his tests.
But sometimes he doesn’t know that a test is coming. Sometimes he knows that a test is coming, but doesn’t know that it’s a two-day test.
And many, many, many times, he simply has no idea what is due. So the missing work piles up – and his grades are suffering because of it.
At his brightest moments, which are many, Dylan gets 100% on his assignments. He does phenomenal work. He gets high B’s and A’s without much effort. So his grades are often very high.
Then, quite randomly and without any provocation, there’s a ‘Z’ or an ‘E’ or just a zero.
When I look it up on the computer, his grade for any one class often looks like this:
100 A
91.3 A
31.2 E (late)
100 A
100 A
0 Z (missing)
98.7 A
12.1 E (late)
87.6 B
100 A
0 Z (missing)
88.6 B
100 A
These are not his real grades, but the seesaw effect is very real. And I am getting a bit seasick from all of it.
Finally, after spending years following up on every assignment with every teacher while begging him to do the same, it is finally too late for anything to be done about this. I can’t help him anymore. He’s on his own. And when things are late, most teachers won’t accept it at all.
His biology teacher recently posted a slew of grades. Dylan was missing so many assignments that his grade plummeted from a very high B to a low C. He was missing a ton of things.
And she wouldn’t allow him to turn them in late.
And the quarter is coming to an end.
And he’s not going to get a good grade for the end of the quarter.
How, I think, oh HOW can we possibly remedy this situation once and for all?
The only thing I’ve told him for the past three years is to talk to his teacher at the end of class.
Please, I say. Just ask your teacher before you leave the room: what was due today? And then TURN IT IN.
I have begged. I have pleaded. I have instructed. I have demanded. I have cried and yelled and screamed. I have been deathly silent and utterly mute. None of these things have worked.
We did medication, charts, stickers, rewards, punishments, consequences, consequences, CONSEQUENCES! But none of those consequences – no matter how harsh, or how rewarding – have inspired him to finally say, “What was due today?” to his teachers.
So now the grades are (as they always have been) his consequences.
And all I can do is sit and watch. And wait. And see.
Dylan came home from his scarer job at Field of Screams with an interesting story. Apparently, he and his colleagues had been insulting the customers.
His boss – a woman who takes no crap – got complaints about their behavior.
Dylan’s colleagues – who are between four and ten years older than he is – were nowhere to be found when she decided to unload her wrath.
“If I ever hear of you doing anything like this again, you’re out of here!” she told Dylan, who was standing alone, as he often does.
The people who help him with his section of the trail often gallivant about, not doing what they’re told. So they weren’t there to be reprimanded – not that they’d care if they lost their jobs.
But Dylan wants to work at Field of Screams. He gives it everything he has. He puts his whole heart and soul into it.
Unfortunately, he is only 14.
“I thought I was allowed to say whatever I wanted, as long as I was in character,” Dylan said later.
“There’s no reason, ever, to be rude,” I told him. “Being negative and insulting might be fun for you, but even in a situation where you are acting like someone mean, you don’t ever have to actually be mean.”
I described the scariest thing that happened to me on that same trail – years earlier, when I dared to traverse it, squeezing Bill’s hand way too hard the whole time. “Some guy walked right up to me, looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘I LIKE YOUR HAT’ in this majorly creepy voice. It scared the crap out of me. But see? You can be nice and terrifying at the same time.”
Dylan took it to heart. He scared the heck out of people all night the next night.
“I complimented everybody the whole time,” he said. “I went right up to someone and said, ‘YOU LOOK LOVELY!'”
He sounded a bit creepy, just repeating what he’d done.
And he learned a valuable lesson: you can – simultaneously – be a perfect gentleman and a complete psycho.
As I reflect on Dylan’s new job – that of “scarer” at the Halloween-themed Field of Screams – I can’t help but think about his interesting method for combating fear.
As someone who is utterly consumed by fear much of the time, I find Dylan’s response to be amazing.
I first noticed it when he was just a toddler – maybe three years old. One summer day, my parents took Dylan to the zoo, where he gleefully raced up to the gorilla enclosure. Indoors, the enclosure is entirely made of glass, and the gorilla was sitting up against the glass, so Dylan was able to stand right next to the giant, furry creature.
Quite suddenly, though, the 400-pound animal stood up and kicked its foot against the glass, right where Dylan stood, sending a terrified toddler running back to his grandparents with panic in his eyes. In addition to the sheer startle effect, little Dylan had no idea why such a darling furr-ball would do such a thing.
(This tempts me to write a lengthy expose on caging wild animals for our enjoyment … but I won’t.)
When Dylan got home, he wanted to tell me what had happened. He was breathless, with wide toddler eyes.
Still struggling with his R’s and L’s he said, “The go-lilla kicked da gwass!” His voice got very high on the word “kicked,” and he demonstrated with his little foot what that gorilla did.
Over the next few days, he repeated that phrase two dozen times, often out-of-the-blue. “The go-lilla kicked da gwass!” he would say, during his bath, over dinner, while running in the yard.
At our next visit to the library, Dylan asked if there were any books about gorillas. We’d read “Goodnight, Gorilla,” by Peggy Rathmann a hundred times. But he wanted non-fiction, too, so he could study the photos of real, live gorillas.
In September, he brought home a Scholastic book from his school book fair – about gorillas. And by October, for Halloween, he only wanted to be one thing for Halloween.
He went trick-or-treating as a gorilla.
Dylan took the fear that could have defeated him as a toddler and examined it – studied what he feared, got to know it, explored it in as much depth as any tiny person could possibly do. Instead of internalizing the fear and carrying it with him – becoming afraid of loud noises, or of animals, or of zoos perhaps – he chose to think about it and determine whether or not it should defeat him.
He decided, after much ado, that it should not.
And so, after maybe six months, Dylan went on his way, unafraid of gorillas. I’ve seen him repeat the pattern many times over, since he was three. And now he is working backstage at a place that is purposefully frightening – a place that has intrigued and alarmed him for many years.
He’s tackling it head-on. And he’s loving it.
After many, many months of my planning Dylan’s entire high school schedule for him last spring, we finally had a schedule that would allow him to enroll in the IBCP program for video production. This means he gets the benefit of the International Baccalaureate classes, as well as a special certificate focusing on one specific subject – in this case, video production.
The IBCP program is offered for engineering students (our original plan), culinary arts, justice, and video production.
At an orientation meeting in February, the IB coordinator guessed that there also might someday be an IBCP for computer science.
Dylan would have loved the computer science program – far more so than video production – so I started emailing her last February about it.
“What are the chances that my incoming freshman will be able to do the IBCP program in computer science?”
She responded politely that she didn’t know yet. So I pestered her for months, until I almost couldn’t pester her anymore.
With nothing resolved, we tried to sign up Dylan for the introductory computer science class, just in case.
The registrar said they only had enough students enrolled to offer the class for one semester. Even if we enrolled Dylan, half a class wouldn’t be enough if the computer science IBCP program became a reality. I almost gave up.
In June, just before school was out, I tried one last time. “Please let me know,” I begged again.
“I don’t have the numbers yet. Email me over the summer.”
This was her cryptic way, I think, of telling me to buzz off. So I did not email her over the summer.
Then, when the teachers finally went back to work in late August, I emailed her. Technically, it was still summer – but they had to “know the numbers” by that point. And indeed, she finally emailed me back.
“We just don’t have the numbers. It’s not going to happen.”
So I gave up on computer science for Dylan. Finally. He was stuck with video production.
Dylan came home from his first day of school and said, “Why did you put me in Journalism?”
“I didn’t put you in Journalism,” I said.
“I went to Video Production and they said I was in Journalism,” he said.
At Back-to-School Night, I discovered that his Journalism teacher had no idea how to work the equipment in the TV Production studio. “Don’t worry,” she assured the parents. “I’ll have someone else to help me teach during those two weeks.”
Video Production class had been squashed under a Journalism heading – even for my son, who struggles mightily with writing and desperately needed a hands-on class during that time period.
I wrote yet another email to the IB coordinator. My email basically shrieked that I was not happy with Journalism being the “only” Video Production option – and what were we going to do to remedy the situation?!
Two days went by.
I got another cryptic email.
“I would like to talk to you about this. Please call me as soon as possible.”
I called her maybe 45 seconds after her email came in, ready for a fight.
“Aren’t you the parent who is interested in the computer science IBCP?” she said immediately, ignoring my lengthy, shrieking email.
“Uh, yes,” I stammered.
“It’s a GO,” she said. “We’re starting that program this year. Would your son still be interested in getting the computer science IBCP?”
WOULD HE!
“Yes,” I said. “He sure would.”
And so, now, Dylan is enrolled – and having a blast.
I leaned over to kiss Shane’s head and realized, He’ll always seem young.
Kids have a certain smell, a sweet and darling and wonderful smell, that starts when they are born. I used to believe that it was the smell of baby shampoo, but then Johnson’s changed their formula and that theory went kaplooey. Then I thought it was the smell of clean diapers that I enjoyed – which is notably better than the smell of dirty diapers – but that wasn’t it, either.
It’s just … baby smell. And then it grows into kid-smell, which is just as pleasant.
Then the teen hormones kick in, and kids – at least my kids – start to stink.
I can remember the first time I went into Dylan’s fourth grade classroom, to help the teacher with a science experiment (and to spy on Dylan, who was completely zoned out during class). The class took place right after recess and some of those kids – whew! – I thought I was going to pass out. Fourth grade is too young for deodorant, I think, but apparently other kids sometimes need it that early.
Anyway, Shane doesn’t stink yet. He has had his stinky moments, but he doesn’t stink. And in comparison to Dylan, whose entire bedroom smells like a locker room in spite of my efforts to keep the sheets clean and his shoes sprayed with deodorizer – well, compared to Dylan, Shane actually smells okay.
And that’s where the interesting part comes in: compared to Dylan, Shane always seems young.
When Dylan was in sixth grade, I remember thinking he seemed so old. He was almost twelve, and so tall and seemingly independent. He was starting in his middle school journey, practically to high school already, and heading off into the wild-yonder-ish teen years.
Shane just started sixth grade – and he seems so young. He’s just barely starting middle school, while Dylan is already in high school. He’s shorter than everyone in the school, even though he’s tall for his age, because he’s still a sixth grader. He looks tiny, to me, going off to class – even though he looked huge in elementary school.
And it took me until now – just now – to realize that no matter how old they get, Shane will always seem young in comparison to Dylan. I will always feel like I’ve lived through … whatever-it-is … already.
Middle school, check. High school, check. College, check. Graduation, check; twenty-first birthday, check; fiftieth birthday, check, check, check… Of course, there are a few subjective things – maybe marriage won’t happen in order, or grandchildren, or even career decisions. Sure, it might get mingled a bit down the road. Or mangled.
But to me, Shane will always seem young.
And ironically Dylan, who is already way taller than me, will always seem young, too.
For the Halloween season – which runs from mid-September until early November in a house with two Halloween-obsessed boys – Dylan has been given a special opportunity.
He was “hired” (receiving social service learning hours as “payment”) as a scarer at the local haunted forest extravaganza. Normally, those who are hired must be 16 or older – but Dylan volunteered to help with set-up, and somehow finagled his way into a scarer position at age 14. Because of his height, no one seems to know the difference.
Dylan has been asking to be part of Field of Screams since he was old enough to know it existed, and long before he was old enough to walk through the attractions himself.
We took him to the Field once a year on Family Day, when they “toned down” the terror. Family Day has since been eliminated entirely, so Shane still doesn’t care to attend. The first time we went, Dylan was six – and very sensitive.
While I wouldn’t allow Dylan to try, we watched his friend Kyle, a month older than Dylan, walk into the Field of Screams trail – and less than three minutes later, we saw Kyle running back out of the entrance, sobbing and screaming.
We did the relatively mild hayride instead. For years.
But Dylan would stare longingly at the woods. “I want to do that,” he would say in his pitifully high voice.
“When you’re 16, you can!” I would say, imaging that day to be far, far away.
Well, that day has arrived.
And Dylan has never been happier in his life.
After 14 years of people telling Dylan to sit down, be quiet, stand still, and STOP DOING THAT! – he is now doing a job that actually requires him to stand up, jump up and down, chase people, climb on things, spin, startle, screech, scream, and roar.
“Do they tell you what to do at your station?” I asked him after his first night.
“Not at all,” he said. “I have to think of what to do to try to be as scary as I can. But I am basically supposed to be completely crazy,” he said proudly.
He was thrilled after the second night, too. Then he counted days until the following weekend, so he could go back.
Dylan came home equally delighted after his fourth night.
“I can do whatever I want!” he practically screamed. “It’s like they want me to be me!”
They WANT him to be HIM.
Finally.
Shane is running the timer for his school’s Morning Show.
“What do you have to do?” I asked him.
“I have to time the beginning song,” he said. “And if there’s a video, I have to time that, too. And then when it starts, I wait for the guy to push the space bar, and then I start the timer.”
“Wow,” I told him, “Your job sounds very important.” I went on to tell him about professional TV news and sporting events, where timers are used extensively to make sure that commercials run as scheduled. I explained that going over or under the time could result in not being able to run a commercial ($$$) or worse, dead air.
Shane seems quite pleased with his position.
To be quite honest, though, had I known there was a timer position available, I would have recommended Shane from the age of two to do the job.
When he was little, Shane was rarely put into time out. He didn’t do much, other than lie on the floor and play with toys, so he rarely got into any trouble. He had some trouble putting away his toys, and still does, but for the most part, he wasn’t often “in trouble.”
Dylan, on the other hand, was three years older, and rambunctious. Before we knew he had ADHD, we were just trying to keep him still for one minute at a time.
Dylan was in time out a lot.
He would whine and mope and stamp to the stool, where he plopped himself down with clear disgust. Then, every 14 seconds, Dylan would say, “How much longer?”
I eventually learned to set a timer, so that Dylan could see how much longer. One minute for each year of his life = five minutes. As soon as he was on the stool, I would start the timer.
Shane would watch quietly from a distance.
After a few days maybe, Shane realized what was going on. “Time out” meant “timer countdown.”
So, at the age of two, he would wait until he was sure I was looking at him. Then he would pick up a toy and throw it against the wall.
“Oh no,” I said, the first time it happened. “We do not throw toys! You’re going to have to go to time out. I’m really sorry but ….”
Shane went racing across the room, as fast as his little legs could carry him. He plopped himself down on the stool and looked eagerly at the timer.
At the time, I still didn’t get it. “Okay, Shane,” I said, pushing the buttons. “You have to sit here for two minutes.”
“Okay,” he said in his darling monotone toddler voice. Then he stared at the timer, watching every one of the 120 seconds tick by.
Afterward, Shane regularly put himself into time out. Eventually I figured out that he just wanted to watch the timer.
So to say that he is happy with his Morning Show job would be a genuine understatement.
Because of Shane’s obsession with numbers, which apparently started in the womb, I always thought he’d make a great accountant, or maybe he could do something with statistics. But I am open to ideas, if anyone has one, for a good profession for someone who just wants to watch time go by.
Dylan’s unit test in Spanish was three parts: two days of written work, and one oral test. For those who didn’t read Friday’s blog, Dylan took day one and thought he was finished.
So on day two, Dylan pulled out his laptop during the test and his teacher thought he was cheating – when, in actuality, he just wasn’t paying attention. Again. He had no idea he was taking a unit test, so he was visibly upset (and called me sobbing) when she took away his paper and gave him a zero.
Dylan’s teacher kindly agreed to let him retake the second part of the test. She sent an email on Friday.
“Just want to let you know, that after some consideration I decided to let Dylan finish his Unit test. I will cancel the questions he already answered (I believe it was 3), but he will be able to complete the rest. Please, ask him to see me during lunch on Monday at my office.”
So on Saturday night, I asked Dylan, “What’s your plan for tomorrow?”
“Huh?” he asked blankly.
“Don’t you have anything to do on Sunday?”
“Play tennis?” he asked, obviously clueless. (The boys are taking tennis lessons on Sundays, though – so bonus point there!)
I asked, “Besides playing tennis, don’t you think there is something else you want to do?”
“Not really,” he said.
“Isn’t there something you want to do on Sunday to get ready for Monday?”
“Like what?” He honestly had no idea what I was talking about. Again.
“Dylan,” I said, clearly agitated, “if you can’t figure out what you are supposed to do, then I am not going to bother mentioning college ever again.”
Bill was sitting in the room, too. He understands Dylan, since they were cut from the same mold. Bill said, “Do you have a Spanish test on Monday?”
“No,” Dylan said. “I thought I just took that test.”
Dear Lord, I thought. How can he make the same mistake AGAIN?!
“Did you even read the email?” I shrieked.
“Yeah,” he said. “But I thought I was done taking the test.”
This can’t be happening.
“Then you MIGHT want to read it again!” I shrilled, and stomped off to bed.
Sigh.
I have no idea if he will study. And I have no idea if he will show up for the test today. And in my zeal to get him to self-advocate, I’m not sure how I can – ever again – possibly help.
Dylan called me from school in tears.
“Something happened in Spanish,” he choked. “They thought I was cheating and now I got a zero on my unit test!”
My stomach clenched. I wanted to vomit.
Denial hit instantly. No! My child wouldn’t cheat!
My mothering instinct kicked in immediately after: What if he did cheat? What if he’s just upset because he got caught?
The two sides of my brain fought while Dylan gave me details.
“I had this piece of paper on my desk and I didn’t even know what it was, and then I didn’t know what this one word was so I got out my computer to look it up and the teacher said I was cheating!”
Paper? Computer? Dylan has an IEP allowing him to use a personal computer for his writing issues.
“She thought you were cheating because you were looking up something on your computer?”
“Yeah!”
How stupid does she think he is? If he were going to cheat, he’d at least TRY to be slick about it! He’s not going to pull out a laptop in the middle of the test!
“Okay,” I said. “The worst thing that can happen is that she thinks you are cheating and you get a zero on your unit test. That has already happened. It can’t get any worse than that. So what are we going to do next?”
“I’m going to go to the guidance counselor’s office. I had to beg her to let me leave the room,” Dylan said
“Okay,” I said. “When you get to the counselor’s office, have him call me right away. And we will see if we can get you to retake the unit test after school, okay?”
“Okay,” he sniffed. And so the guidance counselor called me, and I emailed the teacher, and I talked to the teacher. And I met Dylan at school, and drove him home to hear the whole story.
Long story short, he didn’t cheat. He totally flaked out, didn’t hear the teacher say anything about a test, and thought he was just working on a paper. Which is why he pulled his laptop out of his backpack, plopped it on the desk for all the world to see – on top of his binder, which is enormous – and didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was looking up a word.
The teacher told me the worst of it.
“You’re taking a unit test!” the teacher told him.
“But I didn’t know I was taking a test!” Dylan exclaimed. The kids around him laughed at him.
He honestly didn’t know. We still don’t know if she’ll allow him to retake the unit test. But at the very least, I know – and my son knows – that he’s doing the best he can, and being honest.
And that’s really what matters the most.
While wandering the halls of middle school, I ran into a student I recognized. I couldn’t quite place her, and I assumed it was because she’d grown substantially since I last saw her. In middle school, people range from tiny to monstrous, so I figured that she’d grown at least a foot.
And then I remembered her name.
“Are you Tina?” I blurted, incredulous. She’d grown maybe two feet since I’d last seen her, at least two years ago.
“I am,” she said.
“Oh my gosh!” I sputtered, like I was in the presence of greatness. “You played the guitar in the talent show! And you practically ran the show! You’re the most responsible and mature person I ever met!”
Upon saying this, I realized two things. First, I probably embarrassed her – although no one else was around to hear me – except a teacher who chimed in, “Yes, she is!”
Second, I also know two girls from another family who are equally mature and responsible. So I may have exaggerated a bit to Tina.
But the whole experience gave me reason for pause.
I remember meeting Tina when I was a supervising parent for the elementary school talent show. She played the guitar, which was nice, but she also had a real take-charge attitude backstage. She was in charge of making sure all the other students were ready when it was their turn, sending them on stage and shuttling them off.
Tina handled the show like an old pro – like a Broadway old pro. I asked Dylan about her later. “Do you know that 5th grader, Tina?”
“Who?” he asked.
“The one who makes sure you’re on stage. Tina – you know, she plays guitar?”
“Oh her,” he said. “Yeah, but she’s in third grade.”
“No she isn’t,” I said. “She was practically running the show!” Tina is a full year younger than Dylan.
“Yeah,” he said. “But she’s in third grade.”
Stunned, I had to wonder how someone can be that responsible at the age of 8. And now that’s she’s taller, I recognize that she’s related to a girl in Dylan’s grade – her sister Vivian, who is also quite responsible.
And since that long-ago talent show, I’ve gotten to know another family with two girls who are also wise, mature and responsible beyond their years.
And that’s how I learned that parenting matters.
I realize that girls are more inclined than boys to be mature. But I’ve noticed, too, that the most responsible and mature children come from responsible, mature adults.
Parents who show respect for their kids teach respect. Parents who trust their kids can trust their kids. Parents who allow their kids to be independent thinkers and doers, who don’t correct and change their kids’ choices, who guide but do not demand … those are the parents whose kids grow into wonderful adults.
Best of all, the kids learn this from Day One – so they mature early.
Unfortunately, I am realizing this way too late to fix what I’ve already messed up. I’ve been correcting my boys since they came out of the womb. I’ve been instructing and changing and demanding the entire time.
(This comes from a deep sense of insecurity, which causes me to try to control everything.)
In other words, I realize I haven’t done it all right. In fact, I’ve done a lot wrong.
But I can try, today, to respect and trust and guide. I can work on that for myself. At the very least, maybe I can become a better role model for my kids, who are maturing at their own pace.
