The Butt Whisperer

I should start out saying Justin is me through and through.  For his age he's a bit more mature than the other kids around him, he gets good grades, and he's confident in his abilities.  And he's an ass-man.  Okay, just kidding, that totally depends on whether she is coming or going.  Like any other teenager he faces the emotional challenges of youth and he sometimes comes across as something of a loner.  I don't think he's any different than I was at 14 but Bird struggles with his behavior sometimes fearing that he'll become a sociopath of some type, or maybe just that he'll grow up to be lonely.

So we had a frank discussion with him one day about socializing and being more careful about the things he says.  Even if he doesn't mean the comments (that he probably got from us) over time they can build the wrong impression of a person and begin the cycle of a self-fulfilling prophecy.  A good core support system is also necessary.  He has his parents and a couple of close friends and he needs to be comfortable enough with someone in that group to bring up any issues he might have.

I wanted to address the topic of dating in particular with him.  He'd had a short relationship with someone and when the outcome wasn't ideal he took it rather harshly.  I wanted to be sure that he set the appropriate expectations around dating for a 14 year-old.  At that age you are simply not looking for the 'one' person you are meant to spend your life with, you are looking to be open and meet many, many people.  All of them will have varying levels of emotional attachment and you are trying to learn as much about yourself as any of them.  It simply can't be taken too seriously.  I believe that you cannot know you've met the right person until you know yourself pretty well, and you simply cannot know yourself well until your 20's or even 30's.

A couple of days passed and we (Bird mostly and the three of us boys by association...) had been watching some episodes of "The Dog Whisperer".  In one episode there was a dog that had lost its mate and his behavior had become particularly anti-social, so Cesar was called in to help find the dog a new mate.  His read of the dog and his corrective techniques were spot-on as usual.  While watching it occurred to me that the dog's behavior was very much like what we had discussed with Justin so I made the analogy out loud between the antisocial dog and Justin.  Bird then piped up, "Yes, you just need to sniff more butts!"

I about died and the look on Justin's face threw daggers at her.  It was a full minute before he spoke, "I haven't decided how I'm going to kill you yet."