There is a truce, of sorts, between my teenage son and me.
Dylan has a great heart and is capable of thinking for himself. He’s growing up, and separation from Mom is an essential part of that. I don’t want to keep him under my wing forever. After all, isn’t that the point of parenting – to teach him how to fly all by himself?
My insistence that I be told everything comes from a deep-seated need to control everything. And not only do I not need to be in control of everything, I simply can’t be in control of everything.
I realized that my worries were fairly limited. So I made a list of (hopefully) all of them:
- shoplifting or stealing
- smoking cigarettes
- sniffing/inhaling legal products
- any kind of legal or illegal drugs
- non-consensual sexual activities
- unprotected sex
- cutting or otherwise harming yourself
- gambling
- feeling like you want to hurt yourself
- feeling like you want to hurt someone else
- doing anything you know is wrong
- any other kind of immoral behavior
Then I gave this list to Dylan.
I said, “You don’t have to talk to me, but I want you to be safe and happy. And I don’t expect you to do any of these things, because I think you’re a good kid and you know right from wrong. So if, at the end of the day, you have not done any of these things, just give me a ‘thumbs-up.’ And if you have done any of these things, give me a ‘thumbs-down’ and we will need to talk. Can you agree to that?”
Dylan agreed. I told him I am still there for him if he needs me. Then I asked him if he wanted me to drive him to school in the morning and he said, “No, I’m doing fine.”
And this morning, for the third day in a row, he got up, made himself breakfast, packed himself a lunch, and made it to the bus right on time.
For weeks now, Dylan has been saying, “I don’t want to talk to you.”
I’ve been reading books. I’m simultaneously reading How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, The Five Love Languages of Teenagers and Enter at Your Own Risk! 8 Secrets for Parenting Through the Middle School Years. Bill and I even went to see Kirk Martin again – my fourth time – to get some new insights into the teenage years.
We were doing okay, or so I thought. I allowed room for independence and growth – while still drawing the line when the cell phone came to the dinner table. I thought we were doing pretty well.
Then last night happened. I was downstairs and the kids were in the shower. Suddenly I realized, It’s too quiet! I raced upstairs as Shane was opening the bathroom door and I heard Dylan say, “Do you have any questions about that?”
I looked at my baby’s face, as Shane walked slowly out of the bathroom. Something serious had transpired.
“What were you and Dylan talking about?” I asked Shane, genuinely concerned.
“Nothing,” said Shane, for the very first time in his life.
“Nothing?” I repeated. “You were obviously talking about something!”
Shane stammered, “He told me not to tell anybody. It’s a secret.”
Normally, I would be thrilled that the boys were so close that they could share secrets. But Dylan is in a stage where nothing is off-limits, and Shane is too young to understand a lot of what Dylan says and does.
I went back to Dylan and asked him to tell me the secret.
“No,” Dylan said. When pressed, he cried, stomped his feet and had a mini-meltdown. “I don’t want to TALK to you!” he yelled – as he had many times in the past few weeks. All I can think, when he says that, is What have I done to ruin our friendship?
It’s a thought that, thanks to the ex-30-year friend, hasn’t left my thoughts for weeks.
“You ALWAYS have to know EVERYTHING!” Dylan screamed at me. “Why can’t you just let me have MY LIFE?”
“Fine,” I said, and stormed into the laundry room. I started throwing laundry – Dylan’s laundry – into the washer. Then I stormed back and said, “You want me out of your life. You don’t want to talk to me. That’s fine. But I don’t need to do things for you, either. You can do your own laundry from now on.”
“I can do that,” he said.
“And tomorrow, you can make your own breakfast, make your own lunch, and catch the bus to get to school. I’m not getting out of bed at 6:30 to drive you to school if you won’t even talk to me.”
“That’s fine,” he said.
I did put his pills on the counter, in the hopes that he’d remember to take them. They were back on the kitchen table this morning. The peanut butter was sitting on the counter, along with an empty plastic bag.
And Dylan was gone.
Yesterday was Shane’s last day of “Intro to Acting” class, and they did a little show for parents. Shane adores this class. Emphasis is on imagination and knowing the character and story line, rather than on stage technique.
Of course, I signed up Shane for acting hoping that he would learn to speak louder and more clearly – but that’s apparently not the goal.
It’s always a real delight for me to see Shane’s performances, because there’s no judgment by anyone. There are no right or wrong answers, or actions, or ways to perform. No one tells Shane his ways are odd – even if they are. Instead, he is actually quite funny.
Best of all is the way he sees himself. Last night he told me, “I’m kind of like the class clown in there. I just say whatever I am thinking and people just laugh.”
People laugh with him in this class, rather than condemning him for being different. His self-esteem skyrockets – and his ideas can be very, very different than the norm.
I remember when Shane was younger and we were playing a game, much like charades. Shane was supposed to act out the picture on his card, and we were supposed to guess the word.
Shane got down onto the floor, curled himself tightly into a ball with his head down, put his fist on his head and put up one finger.
We were all flummoxed.
After many failed guesses, we learned that Shane’s word was “apple.” Many people would mime the act of eating an apple, but not Shane. He became an apple. Similar things happen every week in his class, but rather than feeling frustrated, he is praised for his creativity. It not only increases his self-esteem – but it encourages him to be more open with what he is thinking.
And how he thinks is of great interest to me. It’s often difficult to understand what he’s trying to say, but well worth the effort when I finally do. He has a lot to say – sometimes much deeper than I’d ever expect, and sometimes so innocent in his childlike wonder, it almost breaks my heart.
It’s always an adventure.
I am doing a poor job with my new listening skills.
Yesterday, I had some quality alone time with Dylan – in the car, as usual. We were on our way to see a movie together. He started texting before we got out of the driveway.
I tried making a little joke. “Who are you texting now?” I asked.
“Why does it matter who I’m texting?” said my teenager, clearly annoyed.
“I just wanted to practice my new listening skills!” I said. “I’m ready!”
He didn’t say anything. Dylan didn’t even look at me.
I hardly paused to breathe before repeating everything I’d said in my text two days earlier, then topping it off with, “I just want to know who is more important than me!”
He got a bit defensive. It wasn’t really a surprise. I’d started to lose it.
Things came out of my mouth like, “You never talk to me!” and “I just don’t understand what happened to you!” and “Really? You won’t say ANYthing to me?” and “NOTHING?!”
Dylan said nothing at all. I’m not sure, by that point, that anything coming out of his mouth would have made any difference. I completely lost it.
By the time we got to the movie theater, I was stomping around like an angry toddler. I did things like slamming the car door and ordering him to “TAKE YOUR WATER BOTTLE” which was already in his hand.
“Hurry up; we’re late!” I yelled at him, as we walked at least half a mile more than we needed to, because I’d parked in the wrong place.
At one point, just before we got to the theater, I turned on my heel – he was walking 10 yards behind me – and snarled, “I could just see this movie tomorrow by myself!”
“I know,” he said. “I’d like to see it.”
So we went to the movie. We had a nice time. We came out of it okay, but I am now wary of my own abilities to do anything right.
Sometimes, really, I think I have a psychological disorder. But I will keep trying.
The family was in the car for more than three hours yesterday, and Dylan texted the whole time. We got home and he texted for another hour. It’s like there’s glue on his fingers, causing them to be constantly stuck to the cell phone keyboard.
I finally bellowed, “THAT’S IT! You have 10 minutes and then NO MORE TEXTING TODAY!”
Bill and I know that Dylan’s behavior is normal. We know it’s the same issue that kept our parents screaming at us while we sat in the kitchen, tied to a corded phone, mumbling and giggling.
This is what people at this age do.
But I wasn’t prepared for the text that Dylan sent me after my bellow:
Mom, I dont think you know what im talking about when i text. I have saved two peoples lives by texting. Ive had almost my only communication to my friends by texting. Ive stopped 4 people from cutting from texting. And relieved the depression of 6 people by texting. I have had people to talk to when im sad or angry. They understand me because they are going through what im going through. I feel safe and happy when im texting. And when you tell me that im being obnoxious and rude and “ignoring you” by doing it, it makes me feel awful for feeling that way.
I read this, then sat still, stunned.
What a sad commentary on what kids deal with today. My son is saving lives. He is helping his friends. He is there for them, in a dramatic way. What he is doing matters. And in his world, it matters more than anything in my world.
I want him to be able to talk to his friends – and now, even more so. I don’t want to hold him back from his blossoming social life, or from his fitting role as human angel. So it took me awhile to think about what really bothers me about his texting. Finally, I wrote back:
U r right. I dont know. Because u dont tell me. U dont share these things with me anymore ever. U may be doing wonderful things. I have no doubt that u r. But u dont talk to me about what is going on with u. U dont talk to me about what is going on with ur friends. And its got to be a lot for u to handle on ur own.
Yes, I am hurt that u ignore me when u r texting but I think its important to have friends and be in contact with them as often as u need to be. I guess what I am saying is that I would be a lot more ok with the amount of texting if, sometimes, u would also share ur life with me. Not just ur grades and playing board games, but real stuff that goes on with u. U should also feel safe with me. And I am not perfect but I am working very hard at being a good listener and not just telling u what to do all the time. If u would give me a chance to listen, I could. I am not asking u to share secrets or tell on ur friends. I just wish u would try sometimes to still talk to me too.
And there it was – the crux of the issue. I want him to expand his world, but I want him to know I am there for him, too.
I didn’t get a response to my (labor of love) text. But that’s okay, because I know he heard me. I was speaking his language.
I haven’t spent much time with the kids this week. I sunk into a brief depression while they were at school (for two days) and then chauffeured them around carefully and cheerfully when they got home.
I’m not quite over being viciously attacked by my friend, but I decided that the best revenge was to get on with my happy life, and let her live hers.
Then our basement flooded with raw sewage. That was a nice distraction.
The good news is that Bill stayed home from work to take care of the raw sewage. (I told you he treats me like a queen and he can fix things!) Then, because he was home early, he drove Shane to his acting class.
Shane loves his class. Sometimes, though, I think he loves it because he goes to California Tortilla before class to eat dinner and drink soda. There isn’t a lot of soda-drinking at home. Plus, the machine at Cal Tort has special features that allow him to add flavoring to a wide variety of soft drinks.
Anyway, with Shane and Bill gone, I picked up Dylan after school.
Well, I picked up Dylan after his play rehearsal, and after his trip to the grocery store with his friends. He actually wanted to go to the grocery store with his friends.
By then, it was so late that Dylan and I went out to dinner.
So – finally – I spent some time with a kid. And oh, what quality time! We talked and laughed and had a marvelous time. It only lasted maybe 37 minutes, and then Dylan went back to texting, but those 37 minutes were true bliss.
He talked about school. He talked about morning show. He talked about rehearsal. He shared jokes with me, and I shared them with him. It seems simple, but given that there has been so much grunting lately in place of talking, this was a wonderful evening.
Gotta love How to Talk So Kids Will Listen. I blame the book for every positive moment since I started to re-read it. I even found a new book – one I don’t own (yet) – that I think I’d best read, too: How to Talk So TEENS Will Listen and Listen So Teens Will Talk. How perfect!
We LAUGHED today. A lot.
What an incredible blessing.
Yesterday, from out of the blue, someone stabbed me with the statement that I consistently crush my sons’ inspirations. “You stomp on their joy and dreams,” she told me.
This came from someone I’ve known for 30 years – but who has never even met my children. She’s never seen me with them. She’s never even read my blog! (Which is good, for today anyway.) She also has no husband, or children, of her own, so she has no idea how painful mother-cutting comments can be.
As a matter of fact, I lost touch with her for more than a decade, during which time I got married, had my babies and became a wonderfully supportive, kind, caring, loving mom.
It’s who I am. It’s what I do. It’s everything to me.
Yet, thanks to my own insecurities, I spent the entire day doubting myself. Maybe, I thought, she knows something I don’t.
She said (and again I quote), “I think you are unhappy and unsatisfied with your life at a deep level and project your misery onto others.”
This is a sickness, I realize. How could I doubt my very core? This woman lives 400 miles away and has only seen me for two hours in 20 years. She may have known me when I was 20, but she has absolutely no idea who I am now if she can claim that I am a dream-crusher carelessly tossing misery onto my kids.
Am I unhappy? NO. Emphatically, NO – I am actually incredibly happy. I adore my life. I’m quite possibly the luckiest person in the world! And I think my kids see that I feel this way, day in and day out. We have a gorgeous life. We talk about God. We live with God. I don’t want to get all preachy, but it’s impossible to live with God in gratitude and be miserable at the same time.
Unsatisfied? Another emphatic NO. How could I be even remotely unsatisfied? I have an exciting, fulfilling life. I am a writer, a teacher, a softball player and a dog fanatic. I have a husband who treats me like a queen, who is funny and brilliant and knows how to fix broken things. I have two challenging and incredible boys who teach me something new every day. I treasure the moments we spend together, and I add as much joy to their lives as I can. I listen to them intently to find out what they love, then I nurture their passions to the extreme.
For example, Shane wants to be a magician. As a career. He spends his days flipping cards around in fancy ways and practicing sleight-of-hand tricks he’s learned from one of his gazillion magic books. He’s been doing this for two years. He is going to be a great magician. Why would I squash that? It’s not a lucrative career move, but if that’s what he wants to do, he should do it.
And Dylan wanted to go to MIT and be a world-class engineer. I know that MIT is notoriously the hardest college in the world to get into – but did I squash that dream? NO. I told him to work really hard and get good grades and he could go to MIT.
Then, a few weeks ago, when he decided to give up MIT and become a disc jockey instead – I supported that, too. He’s already got a gig lined up in April with a friend of mine, who happens to be a DJ.
So, do I project my misery onto others? NO.
Except today, because I am miserable, thinking that this woman I loved for so long has no idea who I am. So I am projecting my misery onto all the folks who are reading this and thinking, gee, where’s all the funny stuff about brilliant and bouncy kids?
Well, it will be back in a day or two, I’m sure. Just as soon as I remove the boulder from my gut and crawl out of the sudden and dramatic hole I’ve been pushed into.
Which will happen at my insistence as soon as the kids get home from school. They, thankfully, don’t even know this happened. I wouldn’t want to project any misery onto them, not even for a second.
It’s time, again, to learn how to talk to my kids. After a week or two of grunting and groaning and moaning – and nothing else – from Dylan, I got out the book.
I first read How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk when I wanted Dylan, then my preschooler, to pay attention to the things I said. It didn’t seem right that I had to call him two, three, even four times before he responded.
Little did I know that he was classically ADHD and would require being called a dozen times or more, often, before he hit puberty.
Anyway, now I am re-reading How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk because Dylan had completely stopped talking to me.
On the way to his youth group at church last week, I got the idea that the problem might – just might – be me. We were in the car, alone. It was only a five-minute drive.
I was yacking about something for a full two minutes before I realized that he wasn’t responding. He may have been listening. Heck, he may even have been grunting. But he sure wasn’t doing what I wanted him to do, which was to hold an adult conversation with me – which, by the way, wasn’t the least bit relevant to him.
“Why aren’t you talking to me?!” I finally screeched. “I keep talking and talking and you don’t say anything at all!” I didn’t give him any time to respond. “You just don’t care about me at all!”
Dylan grumbled, “Just because I don’t talk all the time doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. I’m just tired, all right?”
This “tired” tactic has worked for him in the past. But this time, not so much.
“Seriously, Dylan,” I said, “If you hate me, I’d like to know now. Really. Is it me? Or is it you?”
“Yes,” he stated emphatically.
That’s when I realized it was ME. That’s also – thank God – when we reached the church and I somehow managed to let him go inside without making an even worse mess of things.
I happen to own a copy of How to Talk… so I had no trouble starting to read it again right away. And as soon as I opened the book, I knew I had come to the right place.
It suggests, for example, that parents should not respond to everything kids do with a lecture. Go figure!
The book also says that perhaps parents would have better luck getting them to talk if we didn’t give them advice before they are finished talking. Who knew!
I won’t go into great detail about what the book says. It’s a whole book. This is the parenting Bible, and everyone should own a copy. But suffice it to say, I’ve been reading for several days and our family has had a much smoother, more peaceful and happier weekend. And Dylan and I have even been talking.
To think: once again, I had to change.
Dylan and I took yet another trip to the neurologist this week.
Let’s recap what we’ve learned so far.
1. Dylan can’t take stimulants anymore. They make him suicidal.
2. High blood pressure medication doesn’t help at all.
3. Anti-depressants help a tiny bit, but not a lot.
So today we went to the doctor again, knowing there were no other options – and knowing that his current medication, at its highest dose, is simply not enough.
The neurologist asked lots of questions, looked over the forms teachers had completed and sent in, and took lots of notes. She did another very thorough physical exam.
During every visit, she asks him to remember 3 words – and then, much later, asks him to repeat those 3 words. The first time Dylan attempted this, in 4th grade, he could only remember one word.
Today, she gave him 4 words – and he remembered all 4.
“He looks good,” she said. “I don’t know what to recommend for medication. He may not need anything at all.” Still, she’s a doctor, so she wrote a prescription for a different anti-depressant – to supplement the one he’s already on.
He’s not depressed, but he’s going to take 5 anti-depressant tablets a day – and that’s the low dose. I was feeling a bit apprehensive.
Then she said, “He’s getting good grades, A’s and B’s, and the medication isn’t helping that much. So if the main problem is that he’s not turning in his work on time, what he really needs might be an executive functioning coach.”
I almost gasped. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all he needs is to learn how to organize himself?!
She talked about agendas, white boards, electronic calendars and other strategies for organizing what needs to be done. Not coincidentally, these are the same things we talk about at the IEP meetings.
That’s when I remembered.
“Dylan doesn’t want to use any of those things,” I said. And Dylan, who had done little but grunt for three days, didn’t disagree.
“You have to learn,” she told Dylan. “It is your choice. You have to learn how to do these things, whatever way you can. You may be outgrowing your ADHD, and you will still need to learn this. It’s up to you. Maybe you don’t have to take any pills.”
I asked for the name of a good meditation coach. The pediatrician (last week) recommended meditation as a way to learn focus. I mentioned a $6,000 treatment that is also a computer game, that’s supposed to train your brain.
“Do Lumosity,” she said.
“The pediatrician said that, too!” I almost screamed. “But I couldn’t remember the name! What’s it called?”
She told me again. She said it’s a brain-training computer game. It does not cost $6,000. It is free.
Prescription in hand, and the word lumosity floating around in my head, we headed out the door. Hopeful, for the first time in ever.
I cracked an egg into a bowl for Dylan’s breakfast.
Eggs have choline in them. Choline is important for brain development and (I read somewhere) can help ADHD kids to focus better in school. We stumbled upon this news after discovering that Dylan did better during the holiday season, when he was drinking eggnog instead of milk with breakfast.
So he eats an egg at least three times a week when school is in session. Dylan likes scrambled eggs.
But the egg I cracked into the bowl was perfect. The yolk wasn’t even wobbly, let alone broken. It looked like a commercial for eggs.
I thought, Gee, I’m hungry. I’d like to have an egg over-easy with toast.
That thought, however, was quickly followed with a look at the clock. Dylan would be downstairs for breakfast in only 4 minutes. I wanted him to have a healthy, piping hot breakfast.
So I broke the yolk, scrambled the egg, added cheese and – voila! – made breakfast for Dylan. Then I cracked another egg, so that I could have my over-easy egg with toast.
But I broke the second yolk. So I scrambled it up, added some cheese, and stuffed it into the refrigerator for Dylan’s breakfast tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Dylan’s first egg was getting cold. He still wasn’t downstairs for breakfast.
I cracked another egg for myself. The yolk broke. I am not a cook. I am not an expert egg-breaker. But when the yolk broke this time, I almost cried. I threw it down the sink (organic and expensive though it was) and gave up on breakfast.
Meanwhile, Dylan still wasn’t at the table. He showed up almost 15 minutes late – and ate his cold, once perfect egg without a thought to me, or my morning.
So on the drive to school, I told him the whole story. Broke the egg, blah blah blah, scrambled, blah blah, hungry, blah blah blah.
Then, since he didn’t respond to that, I started to lecture Dylan about how late he was to the table, about how I could have eaten breakfast before he ever got down there and still scrambled an egg for him that still would have been cold because he was so late.
When he didn’t respond to that, I yelled at him for not wearing a coat when it’s 30 degrees outside.
And the whole time I was doling out my lectures and egg stories, I was complaining about the horrific traffic, the way people were driving (in the snow) and how late he was going to be for school because he didn’t get downstairs on time.
Then I screamed, THANKS MOM! at him, hoping he would finally realize what I was looking for. Though at that point, I’m not sure even I knew what I wanted.
He hadn’t said much of anything all day but he finally mumbled, “Thanks, Mom.”
“Just ONCE!” I yelled. “Just ONCE it would be nice if I didn’t have to ASK for a thank you! What happened to that sweet kid? Where did he go? I thought he was still in there! Why do I have to ask for a simple thank you?!”
We pulled into the school parking lot.
“I’ll pick you up after school,” I said. “No problem.”
“Thanks, bye,” he said. And raced into the school.
I wonder why he was in such a hurry?
