Dylan’s curfew for electronics is 10:00. This means that, at 10:00, he turns off all video games, social media, texting, Instagram, tweeting, snap-chatting, Skyping and whatever else he does that keeps him away from the family – and from going to bed at a reasonable hour.
But one night, I found him Skyping people – still – at 10:30.
“Dylan,” I said, “it’s 10:30. You will not have any electronics for 24 hours.” He knows the consequences, and didn’t even fight.
The next day, though, during a calm moment, he broached the topic.
“I was wondering,” he said, “if there’s anything I can do to stop having all these limitations?”
“Sure,” I said. “You can show me that you’re responsible enough to handle things without all the limitations.”
“Well how can I do that if you don’t give me a chance to show you?” Dylan paused. “I mean, really the reason I keep going over my limits is because I think there’s nothing I can do to show you how responsible I am. So I figure it doesn’t matter what I do.”
“It does matter,” I told him. “It matters a lot what you do. The more responsible you are, the more privileges I can give you. And believe me, I would love it if you were responsible, because I am exhausted being the only one who is responsible for you.”
He pondered that. Or at least, he looked like he was pondering.
“Well, can I be responsible really fast?” he asked.
I almost laughed out loud. “No,” I said, “there is no way to be responsible really fast. You have to earn privileges over time, showing that you are responsible.” I pointed out the three wonderful weeks we had, back in October, when he was being incredibly responsible.
“That’s when we took away your bedtime requirement,” I told him. “And now you can go to bed whenever you want, and you’ve been responsible with making sure you get enough sleep, so we haven’t had to put the limitation back. But you are not acting responsibly. You still don’t talk to your teachers; you still don’t turn in your work on time. You didn’t even know that the science fair was tomorrow and it was the biggest event of the whole year.”
“So if I did all that stuff, I could prove that I am responsible?”
“Yes,” I said. “Over time, we would be able to trust that you are able to behave responsibly enough to do without limitations. But it does take some time.”
“Like a couple of weeks?” he asked.
“Like a couple of years,” I said. “But I’ll tell you what. If you do really well this month, and do really well until spring break, I could extend your electronics curfew until 10:30 on non-school days. But I’m talking turn in everything, talk to your teachers every day – no zero’s for a whole month. Do you think you could do that?”
“Sure,” he said.
And so, we shall see.
A few weeks ago, Shane wasn’t feeling well. He didn’t have a fever, so I sent him to school.
“If you start feeling worse,” I told him, “go to the nurse and have her call me. I’ll come and get you.”
No one called.
That afternoon, when I went to pick him up, he ran over to me. “This was the worst day!” he said. “I had blurry vision like all day. And I had to keep putting my head on my desk. I was so tired all day! And my throat hurts and my head hurts and I didn’t even eat all of my lunch.”
He talked so fast and so much – especially for usually quiet Shane – that I assumed he wasn’t that sick.
“Why didn’t you go to the nurse?”
“I did,” he said.
“Well, what did she say?”
“She took my temperature and said I didn’t have a fever. So she told me to lay down for awhile. And then I went back to class.”
“Why didn’t you have her call me?”
“She said I didn’t have a fever, so I told her not to call you.”
“Next time,” I said, “if you are sick enough to go to the nurse, please have her call me. I can always come and get you. That’s my job.”
“Okay,” he said.
That evening – maybe three hours after school ended – Shane got a fever. He was out of school for two days.
So this morning, when he came into my room shortly after 6 a.m., I rolled over and said, “You’re sick.”
“I don’t feel very good,” he said. “I have a sore throat and I have a slight headache. But mostly I just wanted to tell you that I’ve been awake for 50 minutes.”
Shane is very exact about numbers.
“Well, you need to get back to sleep,” I said. “And we’ll see how you’re doing when I get home from taking Dylan to school.”
So Shane went back to sleep, and I took Dylan to school.
When I came home, Shane trotted down the stairs, dressed for school, and sat at the kitchen table.
I was excited. I was dressed to go to the gym. I had a student to teach. My husband and I had tickets for a hockey game, and were supposed to have our first date in five months. If Shane went to school, I could do it all.
“So you’re going to school?” I asked, smiling.
“I don’t know if I should,” he told me, not smiling.
“But you’re all dressed,” I said. I felt his forehead. “And you don’t have a fever.”
“I got dressed just in case,” Shane said. “But remember that day when it was like the worst day of my life? I had blurry vision and I kept putting my head on the desk…” He clonked his head on the table for emphasis.
I remembered. “Do you feel that bad?” I asked.
“I have different symptoms – is that the right word?”
“Yes.”
“But I feel about the same as I did that day, maybe just one slight tad better.”
“Okay,” I said. “You’re staying home. I don’t want you to have another day like that.”
Shane found a spot on the couch, and I covered him with a blanket. I cancelled my teaching session. I cancelled my date. I showered instead of going to the gym.
Four hours went by.
Now Shane has a fever. Sure enough, he is sick.
Sometimes, the child just knows more than the parent.
On Friday, Bill took Dylan and his friend to see a band. They stayed out until midnight, which is way past my husband’s bedtime. But Bill never once complained – not even in the morning, when he got up and made pancakes for breakfast.
As the snow started falling on Saturday, Bill went out to buy dry ice for Dylan’s science project. Dylan had waited until the last minute to do his project – and everything needed to be completed by Monday, snow or no snow.
By the time Bill came home, there were four inches of snow on the ground.
Bill worked for hours with Dylan to make sure everything went well. Then the boys wanted to go sledding. The six inches of snow on the roads did not deter Bill. Even though the only sledding hill is five miles away, Bill packed up the car with sleds and snowboards and headed out.
Bill stayed out for almost two hours. He volunteered to pick up a pizza on the way home, but all the pizza places were closed. So Bill stopped at the grocery store – again – and got frozen pizzas, which made everyone happy.
Then he came home and shoveled some snow. Then we went over to my parents’ house and shoveled their driveway, too. Then we watched a movie together.
On Sunday, Bill got up early to check on church because he had committed to run the audio equipment for the service. The church held only one service, due to snow, so it was extra long. Bill was there until well past noon.
Then he headed out to the store to get a fuse for Dylan’s fog machine – another thing for Dylan’s science project. It took more than an hour for him to find the fuse, but he found it – and brought it home.
Bill took a minute to eat some leftover frozen pizza, but mid-way through his first piece, Dylan asked Bill if he’d fixed the machine yet. Bill put down his pizza and fixed the machine. Then he worked with Dylan for another hour on his science project.
Then the boys decided to go sledding again. Bill offered to chauffer any friends who wanted to come along. Dylan wanted to bring a friend, which didn’t work out, but he said he’d like to see his friend later – at around 6:00.
“Can she come over here?” we asked.
“I think so,” he said.
Then they all went sledding. They came home; they got dry and warm. Bill put away all the sledding gear. Then he made dinner.
While Bill was making dinner, Dylan said that his friend couldn’t come to our house because it was a school night and her parents wouldn’t allow it. I said I didn’t want him going over there, either. Bill said it would be nice if he could just spend a little time with us instead.
And that was simply not okay with Dylan. He whined. He complained. He tried several negotiating tactics. He slammed doors and stomped about. He came downstairs for dinner, never looked at anyone, wolfed down his food, put away his plate and went back upstairs without speaking to anyone.
Bill, feeling guilty that we’d said “no” to our darling little angel who never got any attention, went upstairs and set up Dylan on Skype on a monstrous-sized screen, so that he could talk to his friends in a spectacular way, even if he couldn’t see them in person.
I don’t know if Dylan said thank you.
But I sure hope he did.
Having a kid with ADHD is hard.
When Dylan was in third grade, there was this boy named Jack in his grade. His class was across the hall from Dylan’s, but everyone knew Jack. He was loud and obnoxious and absolutely brilliant. He was funny and clever and incredibly annoying. There never seemed to be an “off” button with Jack. He moved constantly.
In other words, he was a lot like Dylan. I just didn’t know what ADHD was, then, and Dylan hadn’t been diagnosed yet.
One time, Jack was standing over a much smaller boy, his arm stretched toward the sky. Jack had stolen the kid’s toy and was holding it up as high as he could, away from the smaller child. Jack wasn’t saying anything – but sure wasn’t giving back the toy, either.
I walked over to Jack and said, “If you had a toy, and a much larger person took it and wouldn’t give it back, how would you feel?”
Jack just stared at me for a moment. Then he gave the kid his toy.
The much littler boy was my son, Shane. So I remember the moment well.
And I remember Jack well, because I’d been so annoyed by him. And the following year, Dylan was diagnosed.
Jack annoyed a lot of people with his over-the-top energy. So they gave Jack a job after school. He went around the school and monitored the school’s electricity consumption. During school, he was a challenge. After school, he was as responsible as any adult.
Jack moved at the end of third grade, so I don’t know what became of him. But I have watched Dylan go from wonderful and as responsible as any adult … to almost toddler-like in his sulking and attention-getting behaviors.
I just got the following email from his teacher:
“(Dylan) was asked to leave the stage yesterday after yelling at the top of his lungs while running across the stage, ‘Let’s go kill a lot of people.’ The line is ‘Let’s go kick some Hunny-Buns.’…”
My first thought was, Well, if my son ends up like the Columbine shooter, I can say that I was properly warned.
But at home, Dylan deviates between loud and silly (mostly with Shane) and completely docile. Most of the time, he communicates with his parents like a young, mature adult. When he works on things, or when he has a real responsibility, like he does at church, he rises to the occasion beautifully. He talks to us about his feelings. He lets us know when something is bothering him.
And something is often bothering him.
So the behavior at school might just be a cry for help. Or it might be just a way to see how far he can push the envelope at his private school.
Whatever it is, the behavior has to stop.
Dylan’s teacher emailed me:
“Over the weekend Dylan was asked to type up a reflection on the Linear Functions Project (which was well done). This reflection is for his portfolio…” The email then describes the details that the “reflection” should encompass.
Hm, I thought. We had a three-day weekend AND a snow day! That’s four days that Dylan could have used to finish this reflection.
So when Dylan got home from school, I handed him the email.
“I told her that you would have it done by tomorrow,” I told him, “since it was due today.”
“We didn’t have class today,” Dylan said.
“I don’t care if you had class today,” I said, cutting him off. “If she told you to write it this past weekend, it should have been done by today.”
“I don’t recall her saying I had to write anything this weekend,” he said, cutting me off, too.
“Whether or not you recall it is irrelevant,” I said. “You need to do it.”
“I was going to do it,” he said, his voice raising. “But you are on the computer and I have to go to the bathroom!”
He stormed off.
“God!” he said, slamming the bathroom door.
All I did was relay the message that his teacher sent to me, knowing that Dylan would not remember – again – without my help. I will not get this kind of email from the teachers next year – and Dylan will be entirely on his own. As it is, he is on his own – but his teachers are being lenient.
The lenience is one reason I wanted him to go to a private school. The personal attention is another reason I wanted him to go to a private school. And now that he’s heading for public school, I’m starting to panic.
WHEN, oh WHEN, is he going to learn to advocate for HIMSELF?!?
All the ADHD support groups, websites and email lists say the same thing: “Middle school is too early.”
Obviously, college is too late.
So next year, it’s sink or swim. And I fully expect that he will swim, because he is not the kind of kid who promises to drown. Someone has to believe he can do it, whether he does – or not.
Shane and I were trying to drive through a parking lot. Two cars were simultaneously pulling out of parking spaces, which jammed up traffic in both directions. I was in front of four waiting cars, and a guy in a gold car was waiting on the other side.
I noticed that the gold car had on its turn signal, which told me he was trying to go right. So, when the cars finally pulled out, I hurried forward to get out of his way. He sat on his horn, obviously furious at me.
I rolled down my window. “You had your turn signal on,” I said.
“Yeah,” spat the man, “so I could go into that parking spot!” The parking spot was directly in front of him.
“That’s straight ahead,” I said. “I thought you were going right.”
He spewed horrific obscenities at me – as I rolled up my window and drove away.
I wanted to cry. I had tried so hard to do the right thing.
Half an hour later, Shane and I were home alone – and the phone rang. It was my husband. I couldn’t get to the phone. For some reason, Shane didn’t pick up the phone, either. He stood next to it, and listened to Bill leave a message.
“Why didn’t you answer that?” I screeched. “It was Daddy!”
“I don’t know,” he said. I screeched some more, and he quietly went to his bedroom.
A few minutes later, I went upstairs and sat on his bed.
“I think it would be a good idea if you talked about your feelings,” I said to him.
It was like pulling teeth, but eventually he spoke. “You have taught me for so long,” Shane said, starting to cry, “not to pick up the phone if I don’t recognize the number. And I didn’t know it was Daddy.”
“You didn’t know it was your own father?!” I asked, incredulous.
“No,” he said. We sat in silence for awhile. I lay down on his bed.
“Do you remember that guy in the parking lot?” I said. “I tried so hard to do the right thing. I did the very best I could, and he yelled at me. And he was so mean to me! And I was doing my very best.”
I started to cry. Shane sat silently. Finally, I said, “I tried my very best and he yelled at me. And you tried your very best, and I yelled at you. And I am really sorry that I did that to you. Maybe I wasn’t as mean to you as he was to me. But still, I shouldn’t have yelled. And I’m sorry.”
Shane just stared at me.
“I think we both could use a hug,” I said. He shoved a big, stuffed dog between us and we both hugged the dog – and each other.
Still, he was quiet. Not wanting to miss a teachable moment, I said, “Shane, when someone pours out their heart to you, and cries and stuff, it is usually polite to say something.”
“Well, I don’t really have anything to say,” he said.
“But it’s a good idea to say something anyway,” I said. “Just so the other person knows that you heard what they said.”
He lay quietly for a minute.
“Well, I heard what you said,” Shane told me. “And I forgive you.”
I have some control issues. By now, I am well aware that I need to do something about them – or watch my kids grow up to be just like me. After many years of randomly wondering what to do, I said a little prayer. Just a tiny little prayer, that I would be able to do something to change.
Since that time, I’ve been reading a book called, Keep Your Love On, which popped up as a church seminar right after I said my prayer. The book talks about fear and powerlessness and all the things that cause control issues – and I am absorbing it quite nicely.
I have also been doing Kirk Martin’s anxiety challenge. Knowing that control comes from fear has helped me to realize that calming my anxiety keeps me from demanding control. It’s helped me, too.
But it was a stunningly awkward source that provided my latest revelation: Judge Lynn Toler, on Divorce Court.
Sometimes when I eat lunch, I plop myself in front of the television and watch whatever court show happens to be playing at the moment. Those litigants always make me feel better about myself. And I don’t actually care what happens to them, so I can turn off the TV midway through and go back to my brilliant life.
So I didn’t see the court case. I just heard the guy talking about his angry wife. And then I heard what the judge said. If I could find a YouTube video of it, I would be able to repeat it verbatim – and I would watch it every day until I had it memorized.
Unfortunately, I can’t find it, so I have no idea what she said exactly. My quotes may be completely wrong.
But I heard, “You have to deal with your fear and that will take care of your anger.”
I heard, “You are strong enough to beat your fear.”
She said, “For awhile, I kept a list of my worries. I drew a line down the middle. On one side, I wrote what I was worried about, and on the other side I wrote what really happened. And when I read it back at the end of the week, I felt pretty stupid.”
I heard, “Don’t let something that happened 20 years ago control what you do today.”
And I heard, “When you get up in the morning, say to yourself that just for one day, whatever he does to upset you, you will just take a step back and let it be.”
I may not have the YouTube video. I probably won’t even write a letter to ol’ Lynn Toler thanking her for her words of wisdom. But at least now, I have written down what I heard.
And I have a sensible plan with tons of action steps to help me take charge of my life – so that I can finally stop trying to control everyone else’s.
After attempting to enroll Dylan in public school again, I met – one more time – with the IB coordinator, to check the plan for Dylan’s four years.
In order to get in all of the requirements – four years of English and math, three years of social studies and science, one technology, one P.E., one arts and one-half health credit – there is little room left for anything else, even though Dylan is going into 9th grade with two high school credits.
Add in two years of a foreign language for college admissions purposes, and the seven IB requirements, and we are left with 2.5 elective credits.
And Dylan just got into Chamber Choir – which he’d like to do for four years.
So I met with the IB coordinator to make sure we had everything we need in the schedule – and was reminded why he was so suited for IB in the first place.
“IB rewards you for what you know,” said the IB coordinator. “AP punishes you for what you don’t know. An IB test asks questions that are open-ended and give you a chance to explain your answers. An AP test zaps you – bzzzt! – if you don’t know the answer, and there’s no chance to explain why you chose it.”
Dylan explains everything. He is such an IB kind of guy. His brain has been lightyears ahead of mine since he was two, in that he can understand and explain huge complexities of the world. He may not be able to remember to wear shoes when he goes outside in the winter, or to turn in a major project that he’s worked on for three weeks, but that is a different type of brain issue.
Dylan has reviewed all the options, discussed the IB components with me, questioned the important things – like whether to take Net Sports or General P.E. for his physical education requirement, and whether or not to take Health class online in the summer.
He’s decided to take video production over both engineering and law, two things that semi-interest him. He’s also decided that he’d like to take computer coding classes if it’s offered as an IBCP pathway… but that he will give them up in order to stay in IBCP (and take video production instead).
In spite of the flexibility of the non-IB schedule, Dylan has frequently said, “I want to be in the IB program.”
So my new job is to stay notified about the possible computer coding pathway – and to stay in touch with the IB coordinator to see if it takes off. They are mere minutes away from allowing it to take off – but if the minutes lean toward Dylan’s sophomore year, he may end up being left out of the pathway because he’s taking video production instead of the intro class for computer coding.
Is anyone else following this? Even my brain is fried.
I talked to a woman yesterday and mentioned that I have one son going into high school, and another one going into middle school. She said, “I don’t remember anything except college.”
I can’t believe that will ever happen to me.
So I went to “enroll” Dylan at our local public high school.
Since I was going to be at the school anyway, I scheduled an audition for Dylan to sing and play guitar for the choral director. Dylan hoped he would get into Guitar 2 because he was not enamored with his new, low, puberty-ridden voice.
Dylan’s been singing like an angel almost since he was born, so this made me sad. But guitars are good, too.
Dylan was tuning his guitar in the office when the choral director appeared. We made our introductions and he took Dylan down the long hallway to the music room.
Then I started filling out piles of enrollment paperwork.
Half an hour later, Dylan and the choral director returned. They were like old buddies by then, talking to each other more than me. They’d already developed a rapport.
“So how did he do?” I finally blurted.
“Dylan is just a delight,” said the choral director. He put his hand on Dylan’s shoulder. “I just love his attitude! And his voice – that’s a very powerful instrument you have there.” He looked straight at Dylan’s throat. Then he turned to me. “I would definitely encourage some more voice lessons. He’s got a strong voice, and a lot of potential!”
I always thought “potential” was pejorative. But in this case, I would be wrong.
“We can do that,” I nodded. “And we know he can’t be in Chamber Choir this year,” I said, “because he’s not in 10th grade….”
“Oh, I would definitely want him in my Chamber Choir,” said the director without hesitation. “With his skill level and musical talent, he should most definitely be in Chamber.”
Dylan didn’t even blink. He had just surpassed a full year of general chorus and positioned himself inside an elite group of upperclassmen in Chamber Choir. As a freshman.
I didn’t even know it was possible to jump a year ahead. “So we should just request that class when we register?” I stammered.
“Yes, uh-huh,” the director said. “I’d like to see him in choir for all four years.”
I was flabbergasted. Dylan never flinched. He stood there, confident and calm, leaning on his guitar case.
“And what about Guitar 2?” I asked. “Did he …”
“Oh, he won’t have time to take both classes,” the choral director said.
“That’s true,” I said, remembering all the requirements we had to cram into his four years. But we were going to make room for Chamber Choir. This kind of honor doesn’t happen every day.
“Thank you,” I said. Dylan just continued to lean.
“Thank you,” said the choral director. “It was really such a pleasure meeting you, Dylan,” he said, shaking Dylan’s hand again.
“You, too,” Dylan said, smiling his stunningly gorgeous-but-humble smile.
The choral director went back to his work, and I turned back to the process of enrollment.
The woman in charge of enrollment said, “You’re my first ‘future enrollment,’ and I’m not sure how to process this. But I will make some phone calls, and hopefully in the next couple of weeks, I’ll figure out how to get this done.”
“And what else do you need me to do?” I asked.
“Just bring in his transcript at the end of the year,” she said, completely contradicting the advice she’d given me via phone only a few days earlier.
“Okay,” I said, still glowing from Dylan’s choral accomplishment. There didn’t seem to be much I could do to encourage the enrollment person to actually complete Dylan’s enrollment.
Welcome back to public school, I thought.
Since September, when I first started calling the nice folks at our local public high school – only a full year before it was time for Dylan to start 9th grade – the counselor has said, “You need to call us at the end of February to enroll him.”
The counselor and I met twice – once with the special ed coordinator, and once with Dylan in tow. Both times he told me to call the office in late February. He said it with a big smile, although I had no idea why I was waiting until the end of February to call – especially since our second meeting was in early February.
“They’ll get Dylan enrolled,” they said.
I mistakenly assumed that this meant that we would be choosing his classes for 9th grade.
Since January, I have been patiently perusing course choices, studying up on the IB programs and AP options, staying connected through the school’s email and checking out options in the music program. I am really, really ready to enroll Dylan in 9th grade.
I am now learning the difference between the words enroll and register.
I finally called – and was told that they can meet with me next week to enroll Dylan in public school.
“Should I bring his class choices?” I asked excitedly, feeling prepared and somewhat proud – even though Dylan will be taking the classes, not me.
“You need to enroll him,” said the woman on the phone.
“I don’t understand what that means,” I said with my proud self.
In order to be registered for classes, Dylan first needs to be enrolled.
That’s because he is NOT enrolled currently. He is in private school which, apparently, is the equivalent of dropping him off the face of the earth. POOF! Dylan is gone! He no longer exists in the database, even though I made sure that he is in there somewhere, so that we are ready to get him a specialized learning plan.
So we have to put him back into the database. He has to exist again on someone’s radar.
“You will need to bring his birth certificate, social security number, and a recent property tax bill,” the woman said.
“Does it matter that he went to public school for two of his three years of middle school?”
“No,” she said, “because we don’t know if you’ve moved or not. We need the proof that you still live there.”
“So when do I bring his list of classes?”
“Well first, you have to bring his 8th grade transcript,” she said, as if I might have that lying around.
“Do we need to wait until the end of the year?”
“No,” she said, “just something that shows what classes he’s taking and that he’s passing his classes.” Our non-traditional Quaker school never sent a report card.
“I can do that,” I said.
“Good,” she said. “See you next week.”
And all of my good intentions and planning got tossed right to the back burner, while I started digging for all the necessary legal documents to get Dylan re-enrolled in public school.
Who knew?
