This is sort of a little catch up post on what's been going on in one very small thread of my life. No, that's not quite right. Maybe it's one little thread of a much larger smothering blankey that's sucking the life out of me. Well, that's closer anyway, it's about Justin our14 year-old son. He's ours and you can't have him! ... But why does no one ever ask anyway? Now wouldn't that really be a rewarding way to find out you were raising your child well - having someone offer to take him off your hands? I enjoy your son so much that I would like to take him home to live with me, may I please? I don't wish for that, but how amazing would that be? I'm just sayin'.
Justin has forever been a bit of a night owl, staying up well past his bedtime to read. We find him with his door shut and a towel stuffed at the bottom to block the light from being seen or under his blankets with a flashlight. Bird and I debated how much we wanted to push the issue with him given that he was reading of all things. We scolded him gently from time to time and forced him to go to bed on some occasions, but mostly we told him if you are able to meet your commitments, like getting up for school and keeping up good grades, we're going to be lenient and let you make your own choices.
He's a teenager now and with a busy school schedule, friends, and hockey activities he's beginning to understand the challenge of choices. How there are fewer hours in the day than there are interesting things to do. How there are some things more interesting or rewarding to do than others. And how some things that must be done might be on the less interesting side. So we come down to it, and it is now our time to make certain that he sees and feels the consequences of his choices. We'd be shitty parents if we didn't.
Bird got a little tired of getting Justin up each morning and having it be a battle. Or did she get tired of me chirping in her ear that she shouldn't be doing these things for him? I see some things very clearly and simply that take her a long time before she reaches the same conclusion of her own accord. But for whatever the course she and I typically end up seeing eye-to-eye on our children and what's best for them. Sometimes it's her that's getting me to lighten up, for it does work both ways.
So we gave Justin a little talk and explained that Mom would no longer be getting him up in the morning. It was his job to get himself up, ready, and out to the school bus on time. Furthermore, if he missed the bus he could walk himself to school (we'd had a couple of times when he missed the bus and got a ride from Mom). A week's grace period would be all that he'd get to figure something out. Over the course of the following week I'd go so far as to say that nothing changed.
I worked from home at the beginning of the next week and witnessed him give his mother grief about getting up and then barely make the bus on time. So just after he left I walked downstairs and took his bedroom door off its hinges and stowed it in the laundry room. When he came home from school he found me in the kitchen and calmly asked about the door. I explained that the door had been taken off for "disciplinary repair", a term that I came up with on the spot (and proudly so to my mind). He had not been getting himself up and ready for school as discussed. This and his actions showing considerable lack of respect for his mother warranted this consequence. It would be more difficult for him to stay up late unnoticed and it would be more difficult for us to overlook a messy and disorganized room. His organizational skills were also being brought into question. He would get his door back when he could successfully get himself up and ready as previously discussed for a week straight. When asked if he understood my reasoning he seemed genuinely resigned to my commitment to treat the situation seriously; however, I don't believe he felt terribly upset or violated at the loss of his door. I was ok with that though obviously it would be more immediately effective if it really bothered him, but I felt he knew I was serious and the precedence was being set for a time when he will care much more about his privacy.
About 3 weeks went by with marginal improvement in Justin's situation when Bird and I started discussing his grades. We absolutely love the online progress tracking that schools have now, kids these days can get away with almost nothing! Thank goodness I was young when I was, not that I needed to get away with much - a straight 'A' student I wasn't particularly cantankerous. I was not without my wrong-doings but those are for other stories. I think Bird had a good idea that Justin's grades were going to be a problem and she was neglecting to fill me on exactly how bad it was. I could see her stressing about the situation and her instinct was to ride Justin quite hard, I believe in part to protect him from my wrath.
She and the boys always think I'm going to "blow" anytime something less than perfect happens. I have some very good friends that probably know exactly what I mean. I reflect on this and I certainly don't fault them for seeing things differently or less seriously than I do, but sometimes I think they or my family really haven't figured me out. I almost never get upset when people make mistakes or fail trying to do something where there is a basis of reasonable and logical thought. It's those times that someone blatantly ignores reason, repeats mistakes, lies, or in some other way demonstrates basic disregard for core values. Values that in most cases we've openly discussed as a family. Thus are stupid people formed, and I have less patience for them every single day I'm alive. So anyway...
I think I alleviated Bird's concerns when I informed her that I felt we simply needed to let Justin fail. Actually, we needed to let him feel the consequences of his choices. We needed to let him be and if his grades did not match his capability then we would treat him accordingly. And it was a much better situation for her to not be seen as a nagging parent. Bird's distress was palpably lower and once again we saw things alike. Justin's mid-term grades showed a 'C' and an 'F', both due to incomplete and missing assignments. He was obviously nervous about facing me, but without screaming at him once I asked him for his iPad which was going to be kept until his grades were brought back up to at least 'B's. He calmly handed it over and that was that. We discussed what was missing, what he was going to do about it, and what his priorities were. He spent the next week getting his shit back together. And in the course of that week he happened to get his door back too.
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