Seriously wrong

I’ve been quiet this last week as I’ve struggled with what to write. Several things have been going on, but the most recent event raises again for me the question of where the line should be drawn when it comes to privacy and intensely personal family matters. I do think there is a line, but if I post this, then I’ll have further defined where that line is, for me at least.

What transpired today has further challenged my parenting practice, and I’m still processing the event. This latest incident is another true example of what many parents, mainly mothers and predominantly single mothers are going through. So in the spirit of authenticity of my voice, while withholding some personal details, I’m posting this, with a view to supporting other mothers going through the same.

Every school holiday time, instead of relaxation and release from duty and routine, comes anxiety and conflict, as the children and I anticipate the arrival of the Ex to collect the children to spend some time with them. This holiday was no different. Except that Teen1 was adamantly refusing to go with his dad, which heightened the tension considerably. There’s lots of reasons and background to why T1 has taken this stance, reasons that go back into past history, and are not just a case of where T1 is at right at the moment.

I knew T1 was serious. I knew I couldn’t make him go. I also knew if I was complicit with T1 in supporting him to have the option of not going, the ire of the Ex would bear down with fury upon all of us. So, I talked about this over the last week with T1, gave him every encouragement and reason for spending time with his dad, explained potential consequences of his not going - and waited for the inevitable show down.

T2, the compassionate, caring son made quiet preparations to be picked up by his dad, but stuck close to T1’s side for much of the day. T3 had been in tears, and in a turmoil over the impending visit. (by now readers are probably asking why the heck the kids have to go. Fair question - there’s lots of reasons, not least that fathers have rights too to spend time with their children.).

With T2 and T3 out of harm’s way, the showdown between T1 (“I’m not going with you, I hate you, T3 cried all morning because he doesn’t want to go with you, you are a f*** etc etc”) and the Ex (“you will come with me right now, I don’t care what you say, get out the door now”) took place in slow motion.

There were several Observers that showed up all at the same time and all for fleeting seconds during which time they played a part in the unfolding action:

The Observer was the first on the scene: she stood in support of the son as first he then the father stated their demands. She observed in the father the beginnings of the loss of composure and control, she observed the simmering anger and rage, she observed the man she once loved unleash the beast within. She observed the son struggle to find the words to say his truth to his father. She observed her son as a young buck going up against the elder.

The Carer/Nurturer : she compassionately watched the son who was brave enough to stick around to tell his father himself that he would not go with him. She also understood the father’s perspective that he wanted to have his son with him. She saw that the father did not want to lose face or control of the situation as he needed it to unfold. She also saw that the son was angry and frightened and in her heart her intention was to calm the two adversaries.

The Rationalist: she accepted that the son would not leave with the father, and that it would be better to not push the matter, but let it go, and revisit the issue again in a day or two. A pragmatic solution she put into the escalating dialogue but which was ignored.

The Referee: in the ring with the fighters, she tried from a safe distance to break them apart as the father held the son held fast against a wall, both adversaries with fists pulled back and aimed square at the face of the other, feigning punches, pushing and shoving eachother, with tension rising and anger boiling.

The Voyeur: she was the one who was poised to call the police should the tussle continue or the father land a punch on the son, or visa versa.

The Controller: she remained calm while repeatedly ordering the father to let the son go and to get out of the house.

After the father left, the Mother was there to hold her son while he sobbed his heart out. He let himself be held, and has stayed close by me all evening.

I am glad that my son will sleep under my roof and my protection tonight.

Wishing all children and all parents peaceful and deep sleeps.

3.30am Doorbell

There's a rush of adrenaline when the doorbell shrills at 3.30am. Quickly followed by a twisting gut punch when, on approaching the front door, the loud rasping crackle of a powerful transmitter radio insinuates a dire message into the house before the door even opens.

First reaction on opening the door: relief - he's alive.

Second reaction: how alive? Scanning in a split second for what might be coming, brain on high alert, all senses heightened due to the adrenal glands sending a powerful surge of hormones into the body.

Third reaction: momentarily struck dumb. What do you say?

"Good evening Officer, what can I do to help you this evening/morning?"

Or, "Hello son, how was your night? Pleased you got a ride home."

Or, "Hi".

I went with the latter, which kind of emerged in an extraordinarily inarticulate way, if it is possible to be inarticulate with one word. It was 3.30am after all and I tend not to have a lengthy vocabulary on call at this hour.

Fourth reaction: bugger bugger bugger. I'm in my pyjamas and there's no wafting smell of 'happy-home 2am Tropical Escape Muffins" coming from the kitchen which should be, as my lovely Followers will know, immaculately presented as is the rest of my house.

Nope, I'm out of mangoes, the house is a normal lived in mess, and I'm in my pjs. Gorgeous - all that practice waiting around for the 2am doorbell and when it comes, I'm looking like any worried parent would at 3.30am (decent pjs and dressing gown of course with a messy bed hair ‘do’).

There's been a group of boys kicking over letter boxes and damaging gardens, the Police Officer tells me.

Brain in overdrive. I breathe out really really slowly. As I write this at 4.30am I see myself standing at that door and notice a shift in myself from the (contained!) hysteria of three months ago, and the far more open and accepting Self that has taken me over tonight. Also, I notice I’m reserving my reactions and assumptions. This is good. Gold star. There's the hammering heart, but I can't be in control of everything in a split second.

“We are satisfied your son was not involved in the incident and I have been asked to drop him home”, says the Officer.

Apparently, there was a round up on the streets and a number of kids had been in the station being questioned. It was a bunch of the Focker kids who had been engaging in the stupidity. Teen1 rattled off the names of the Fockers which the Officer verified.

“Go inside and let your mother get back to sleep”, the Officer directs.

I find my voice come out with : “oh believe me Officer, I've not been asleep at all, I've been up texting and calling him”.

What’s that all about? The "good girl" inside me, that wants the authority figure to know that I've been 'doing the right thing'? Very sad. I definitely need more therapy around that issue.

Finally, the Officer directs a pointed look at Teen 1: “you ought to be on a very short leash from now on. 15 year old boys should be home in bed at 11pm”.

The only effective short leash my son needs to be on, is the size of the metal one attached to the officer's handcuffs.

Inside, I observe my suspiciously slightly wasted looking boy and ask him for his story. “Not me mum, I'd never do that stuff, we were just walking around and the cops picked us all up. Those (Focker) guys are seriously messed up, they aren't my friends”. [Note: the very same guys who were his best mates three months ago].

“You look tired mum, go to sleep”. He smiles, opens his arms, gives me a warm hug (the first he's initiated since.... Christmas? 2007?) and says, “there you go, you can go to sleep now”.

Was he wasted? Manipulating? Or just a boy relieved that I am here, I am not going nuts at him, and who knows that wherever I am, there will be a warm bed for him?

He's right, the hug did help but now it is 5am and I'm still awake! Out, out damn blog.

Hoping for all parents that their doorbell doesn't ever ring at 3.30am, and their sleeps are long and peaceful.

Break In

My house was burgled today. Portable electronic goods were taken, one a prized possession of Teen2 who’d saved for six months to buy a cool new gaming console.

There’s been several burglaries in the area – electronic goods, a bike or two from garages. A neighbour reported answering her door in the middle of the day recently to a couple of youths looking for someone. Her suspicions aroused, she had notified the police.

There’s this slippery slope around Trust. Either it is there whole and unquestioned. Or it can be wiped out with one silly mistake or one calculated action. We all know the premise behind Trust: once it has been broken, it can be very difficult to bring it back, even with the best of intentions and a heart open to trust, hope and love. Unfortunately, earlier in the week, Teen1’s threats to steal my things (because I wouldn’t give him money) were full of malicious intent and anger. Unfortunate, because this set the scene for doubt to creep in.

The police questioned Teen2 and Teen 3 keenly. Their questions were aimed at ascertaining whether the burglary could have been committed by anyone known to my boys, which was nigh on impossible. Then the questions regarding Teen1 (who was not present at that time) began. Again it is a slippery slope – making assumptions is close to making allegations and I was hugely hesitant. I skirted around the issue, expressing at first my concern about T1’s social group. Until it came time to make a decision: name names or not. In the end I did. (Unfaithful wench). As I mentioned one name after another, there was instant recognition of each from the police officers : all four boys I mentioned had been caught in the past breaking and entering houses, stealing goods and breaking into cars, and more than one of them was known by the police for several years. So far, my son was not on their radar. A picture of what I have been dealing with was coming more into focus.

T1 took a ride in a police car to the station for questioning. There was a dual strategy at play: firstly to see if he knew anything about the theft, which he didn’t, and he displayed a convincing disgust that our gaming console had been taken; and secondly, to send a strong message to him that his mates had been caught stealing previously, were being watched closely by the police, and he would do well to stay away from them and clear of any criminal activities. He was livid at the assumptions made and he remained loyal to the core to his mates. He also, thankfully, remained cooperative and communicative, if somewhat dour. I wondered if Nigel Latta’s comment last month about his brain growing and developing every day is proving true, and he is in a better space to moderate his reactions than he was a while back?!

In the car on leaving the station, I thought he might put his fist through the windscreen in anger and fury. But he didn’t. His language certainly ought to have shattered the glass. But it didn’t. Still, he saved his fury until he’d left the station, so there’s a modicum of self - control.

I doubt I’ll find out who burgled my house. I’m less concerned about the material losses (and who wouldn’t be when we hear of the devastation in Canterbury), but I am concerned about the intent of kids who have not a lot to do and very little direction in their lives. I will trust Teen1 to make a judgment call about his friends. But I trust myself more to ensure that there’s no room for temptation or complacency.

Wishing for trust in our children to remain an untested constant, or, to find the ability to have it rebuilt over time. So that we can all rest easy in our own homes.

Number 1 Mothers' Detective Agency

My occasional shrink, Nigel Latta, responded to a question I tentatively put to him recently about whether it was right, moral, just, and fair to hack into children’s phone and internet accounts to find out what they are up to. From our involved discussion, one point hit home:

“All’s fair in love and war”.

Yes, I thought, but I much prefer Trust, then a Truce, closely followed by long, forever after Peace (see post of 23 August).

Quickly followed by my next thought: ok, licence to delve.

I’ve alluded in the past to my investigating my son’s activities. What I’ve done I’m not particularly comfortable with, and it is a last resort.

To be fair (this is my story after all), I was flying blind. Teen1 went from the boy who had his mates call in here every day (one Friday evening at the end of summer there were nine boys here all eating spag bol before playing rugby out on the street until 9pm), to the boy who ditched all those friends for new mates, and said that late April evening: ‘I’m going out’ and went. All night.

My detective work identified:

- the kids who had been excluded from school and were hanging around the streets with time on their hands pending another school taking them: “Dnt go 2 skwl 2m. sae ur sick nd kum 2 myn. thn we wil go 2 twn or sum thing”, and, “kum 2 myn fuk rugby practise”

- the drug enablers: “we gona go up to (x) to meet up wit a dealer….I got 25 and rolled one big joint and one small one”

- the petty thieves: “wait until ur mum goz 2 sleep thn tke as mch muni as u kn…tke her card 2 gt muni owt of it…u sure u dnt knw hur pin 2 ani of hur cards nd we will chk hur card…gt as much muni as u kn out of hur wallet… nd we should get a ding… ”

Better not to know? Yes. Sort of.

It made me mad and sad and fearful. The stupidity, the audacity, the nerve, the horrific spelling… it all jangled and mangled my nerve ends and made my head hurt.

I’ve researched other discussion feeds from people who express a range of opinions: those who would never invade their child’s privacy, to those who occasionally hack into their kids’ accounts quietly admitting the need to ensure their kids’ ‘safety’ on the net, to those like me who freely admit to checking texts, emails and facebook conversations.

Actually, I’ve yet to meet anyone like me who’s done all of this. It’s a lonely strategy trying to find the Fockers. As Teen1 said to me, ‘there are places I go that you will never find out about’.

What did I gain? It is how I found the various Fockers. I had first names and asked around for last names. I tried unsuccessfully to get last names from the school. I burned the Yellow Pages online. I rang people who pointed me to others they knew.

This was the only way to find where my son was in the middle of the night or during the school day. This was how I met up with families and parents by knocking on their doors (or crashing into their houses!); how I have ended up having sometimes very difficult conversations with other parents and faced my own challenge to be in their space while having a heart of compassion, empathy and acceptance. These are parents who are struggling, too, in many different ways. I came to realize that we all do what we can with the resources we have and with what we know. I rile my son massively when he disappears and I text first him with a chance to tell me where he is, and then text his friends. He hates that. So do his mates, as one of them so eloquently put it to me:

Mate1: “how did u gt my numba” (this was the petty thief)

Me: “From the police” (that was a lie I told at about 1.30am)

Mate2: “tbh, my mother doesn’t know my friends nd not being a rude cunt but if you showed more respect for him (Teen1) may be he would be home at the moment” (this from the drug enabler).

Me: “tbh, I'm a mum who does want to know my kids' friends and cares where they are. And I hope one day you learn what respect means” (this from the self-righteous me).

That sounds pathetic and is somewhat embarrassing, and it is energy sapping texting 15 year olds at 12.30am. But then I ask myself, what does the alternative look like?

It’s whether we can sleep easy knowing where our children are, or if we can’t sleep until they are home. Safe. Wishing all parents contented sleeps.

Ladder of Doom or Slide to Gloom

Nigel Latta has a parenting tool (see the Ladder of Certain Doom tool, “LoCD”, in “Before your teenagers drive you crazy, read this!” ) reminiscent of my toddler’s toilet chart with jelly bean pictures on it : three pees in the pot and, hooray, a jelly bean for you. The LoCD is a rather more grown up version of that. The problem arises when the child has no respect for consequences of behaviour at all (very happy to pee way outside the pot), and no concept that consistent positive behaviour will result in rewards, not punitive action (jellybeans galore from mum).

Basically I set it up as follows:

EXPECTATIONS

1. Treat people and things with respect 2. Talk nicely to people 3. Help out around the house

THE LADDER OF EXPECTATIONS

Going down: 1. Things of yours taken off you 2. Lose opportunities to do stuff 3. Lose house privileges (washing done etc) 4. Lose the right to freedom of decisions (going out etc)

Going up: 1. Get your stuff back 2. With agreement/discussion, have opportunities to do stuff 3. Have stuff done again for you 4. Be trusted to make safe decisions for yourself

Here’s how my Ladder of Certain Doom turned into the Slide of Gloom.

Step 1 on the LoCD.

What: Removing all the music from T1’s room when he failed to come home one recent school night.

Why: Listening to doof doof music extolling the culture of gangland America just doesn’t go down well for me at 7am in the morning, or any time of the day actually. Getting rid of it all served a dual purpose: If you don’t respect the boundaries = lose your stuff. And, taking it away meant no doof doof music for me to have to listen to. Nice.

Result: Music had been copied to a USB by Teen 1, and was plugged into the stereo USB port for him to listen to!

Note: When I was a teenager, and my parents didn’t like any of our music (apart from ABBA), I SWORE on the souls of my unborn children that I would let them listen to anything. This was before I heard some of Eminem, Lil Wayne, 50 Cent, Xzrbit, Wu-Tang Clan, Tupac, Snoop Dog, Nate Dogg, The Notorious, Nelly, NWA, Dr Dre….. . If African Americans want to refer to themselves as “n*****s” it’s over to them, but I remember when the word was loathed as a label of oppression, and – call me an uptight whatever - but I resent having to listen to rap extolling or putting down “otha f**king N*****s”.

I don’t mind rap. See!: ‘fully sick rap’.

Step 2 on the LoCD.

What: After the next all nighter, taking T1’s fave basketball boots and hiding them.

Why: So that he wouldn’t have any footwear to wear when he took off out into the night.

Result: I forgot about his older shoes under his bed, which he shucked on and headed out in again the next night. One angry teen.

Step 3 on the LoCD.

What: After T1 punched a hole in the wall in his room, graffiti’ed the bedside table, and pulled down all the framed photos of him as a toddler (not so surprising really for a 14 year old not to want baby photos on display in his room, I will grant him that), I removed the pictures of women in bikinis with big boobs from his walls.

Why: The younger boys and even more importantly their visiting young friends don’t have to look at said boobie posters any more. And, I feel equally entitled to redecorate my own house, including removal of said pictures (aren’t boys supposed to keep that stuff under their mattresses?).

Result: An angry boy. On the positive side: I don’t have to be reminded whenever I walk into his room of how good bikinis look on gorgeous, young (surgically enhanced and photo-shopped?) women.

Step 4 on the LoCD.

What: After his next all nighter, shutting down his bank account and removing access to money.

Why: So that he wouldn’t have access to money for drugs, smokes and booze.

Result: Threats to steal my stuff. Money went missing from my wallet, and my only bottle of Absolut Mandarin vodka (aka “mummy’s medicine”) took a walk in his bag to his mate’s place for some Saturday night binging. I just wish he’d taken the whisky I keep on hand for the rellies, instead of my fave vodka. Being on the receiving end of endless abuse for ‘stealing’ from him, I mumbled something about savings and responsibility, gave him back his money (less the cost of a replacement bottle of vodka), and two weeks later, he had spent the lot.

By this stage I was exhausted, and much like Teen 1, I felt like setting fire to the LoCD.

Conclusion:

The LoCD didn’t work for T1. It does for T3, but he’s still young. But when T1 doesn’t give a damn, or just gets even madder at losing his stuff, it is very hard to hold firm. I try, but it is really hard.

Why don’t I take away the stereo? It half belongs to his brother who likes listening at night to CDs, like “The Day My Bum Went Psycho” and other boy books full of fart jokes (I don’t deliver fart jokes as well as Andy Griffiths does).

May all parents do what they can to impose boundaries they believe in, in their own way, without sliding into Gloom. And sleep easy.

Technophobe

Dear Followers

I’m grateful to you all for hanging in there with me. I feel I’ve not even scratched the surface yet. But I need to add a technical post today.

I am what is known in marketing terms as a “late adopter”. That is, I am not going to race out to get the iPad the day it is released (or a month after in NZ’s case), or be the first to sign up for Facebook back in ’07, or even get a mobile phone brick back in the early ‘80s. I am hopelessly inadequate when it comes to technology.

So setting up this blog was a huge step forward, and surprisingly easy. Blogspot was the engine of choice on a few blogs I had been reading, so I went to it and was up and running within a half hour.

Now, a couple of months into it, I am exasperated beyond belief by the software. Firstly, it does not allow me easily to inform followers of a new post, and as I understand it, you may have to go through a series of log-ins to see if I have posted anything. Secondly, one reader tells me that the comments at the end of the posts are not showing up yet another tells me they are. And finally, stuff like RSS feeds, is doing my head in, so I can’t imagine how it is going for followers.

If you want to know what posts you have missed, just click on the subscribe button at the bottom of each post. To email you to let you know I’ve posted – well this step has me flummoxed. Bear with me and I’ll do what I can to set this up.

In this day and age, such simple stuff should be easy for you and me. I am sorry if it’s not. I’ll keep working on it – into the early hours of the morning, waiting for the door to open. Let me know if you can’t see comments or if there’s anything else you’ve noticed about the technical aspects of this blog.

Yours in technical purgatory

2amClubClaire!

Walk of pain and shame

I always imagined I’d next be in the Principal’s office to prepare for a particular committee meeting, or to be told first hand my child had been accepted for an international exchange programme. I’m getting really tired from going in to the school for a handwringing, head shaking, exasperating talk about what to do with this youth who has seemingly lost his mind. I’m fast running out of ideas.

Teen1 has been as bleak as he has ever been. Continual late nights, abuse flying around : his 1am arrivals home herald a ‘I’m going to bed so fuck off and leave me alone’. His aggression is constantly flaring, his aggression simmering, his behaviour erratic, his energy and vitality flagging.

I’ve been experiencing my own aggressive side. Earlier, as I raged into the night, my dark forces conspired to do everything from wanting to rip his head off, to - wait for it - not doing his washing. Ever. Again. A brilliantly ineffective strategy on both counts. My simmering frustration was as I tried to work out what on earth to do at the inevitable intervention meeting, and I felt like I was walking in my pain along a path of shame to the principal’s door.

My first walk of shame was… well, probably when I was about 19, but that’s for a different blog! This walk of shame with my son was of a different nature. We were called in for a conference to discuss the ‘what’s next’ of T1’s behaviour. Around the table were the Principal, Dean, Youth Aid officer, external counsellor and myself and son. There had been a two day stand down earlier in the week for telling a teacher to ‘fuck off’ not long since having told the principal to ‘fuck off’ (the principal noting that in ten years he’d never had a student speak to him like that), as well as his random absences from school. The school’s expectations, rules, parameters and so forth were explained again to T1, and very well I have to say, by the principal. But then came the clincher.

The written statement supplied by T1 regarding the swearing incident was, according to the Principal, the most articulate and well-written declaration he had ever read by a pupil (it seems my T1 is demonstrating his unique approach to school and authority in more ways than just anti-establishmentarianism).

I’m not sure what to do with that revelation. In a parallel life, he would be getting accolades for his statement in support of the University scholarship, or the Rhodes, or the international research exchange fellowship. Here, it kind of felt like a hollow attempt to prove to T1 that he has all the intellectual ability, if only he’d use it for his English assignments instead. To me it highlighted how far down another path my son had opted to wander.

I felt like countering with his lack of ability to format a well-rounded sentence over the last several days as I had faced his stream of abuse. “If you don’t give me any money – like EVERY other parent does – then I’m going to steal all your stuff”. He owes one of the Focker adults $20 “cos she gives me cigarettes and stuff and she’s really nice to me, but I want to give her some money back. Why can’t you be more like that?”

Why can’t I indeed.

The school meeting was positive, but as yet inconclusive. The Youth Aid officer explained that she was there to support both T1 and me, but he also had to think about the consequences of his actions. T1 was to apologise to the teacher, give a commitment to the rugby coach to get back into practices, and settle into school activities. In a session with the counsellor immediately following the round table session, T1 came a long way forward in accepting that he needed to tell me the truth of where he was, and so avoid the drama of the night fights and anxieties. I left hopeful.

He left the house each night following without telling me where he was going.

Hoping all parents at least know where their kids are at nights and, hopefully, that’s home in bed.

Breakdown

How many times, in one day, does vulnerability have to vent itself in a flood of tears, sometimes falling upon onlookers, caught like unsuspecting tourists in a sudden tropical storm?

Well, about 7 times in one day actually. Let’s take Friday for example.

1. T1 was out on all-nighter on Thursday night. I was far too wired to make Tropical Escape muffins at 2am. After two months of 2am Mango Muffin making, there weren’t many tins of mangos left in the local supermarket. I thought about other forms of escape, but had any of the escape routes been unsuccessful, I would then have had to face the consequences of being locked in a padded cell for an indefinite period of time. Dark, dark thoughts in the middle of the night. Welling, consuming, moments of anxiety-induced emotion thankfully abated at the break of day. How much less bleak things seem in the daylight as in the night.

2. Morning. Resolutely, calmly, without comment, I get T2 and T3 off to school, a kiss and a cheery-bye at the school gates. I drive 100m and dissolve into more floods of tears. I am SO tired. And it is so damn cold in this part of the world – does winter here go on as long as it did in Narnia before Lucy went in through the wardrobe?

3. I call the Youth Aid officer (when the car is stationary!) who suggests I come in to meet him and one of the female Youth Aid Officers. I drive to the Police Station, park, apply my lipstick and check my makeup (armour), and I’m set. I find their office. I immediately dissolve into floods of tears. Hiccups. Snot. Runny eye make up. (Beautiful.) The female officer was amazing, calming, caring, compassionate, realistic, empathetic, clear, and supportive. Her son also goes to the same school as mine, I discover. Small, small community. We, or they, hatch a plan. Namely to go to the most obvious place - the Fockers’ Residence - find T1 and bring him home. (Interestingly, they advise me to hold back from making a formal notification of a Missing Person. They want to tackle this issue more as an intervention to help resolve the situation, than take formal, concrete action. I appreciate this.) They send me home. Except I drive to work.

4. I call a colleague, who meets me at my car. I dissolve into floods of tears. We talk. I breathe. She is Calm personified. We walk to my office and I pull on my Ms Professional Armour. I get 47.25 minutes of work done.

5. My boss comes in. More tears at his first query of gentle concern. (I must add here that my colleagues are the most positive, family oriented, supportive, professional, focused, respected, fun, intelligent and motivated people that anyone could ever want to work alongside. We are family in a sense. Thank goodness). The police call. They have collected T1. No prizes to blog followers for guessing where he was – yep, at the Fockers’ place… The police will take him to school and I am to meet him there with his uniform.

6. I walk to my car. Turn on the ignition. One fully dead engine as a result of #4 above: not fully turning off the car when sitting with my colleague. I feel like crying. What follows is almost a “Mr Bean on Holiday” scene. My Boss gets jumper leads from a friendly office maintenance man. He then gets his car, zooms along the pavement to park in front of my car which is perpendicular to the curb. The jumper leads kazam their electrical charge, and I am ready to go. My colleagues send me on my way.

7. This is the worst. Never, never cry in front of the School Principal. I go into the school, into the room where the Principal, Deputy, Dean and the female Youth Aid Officer are waiting for me. I try really really really hard. So hard. But one breath in, and on the breath out, I just cannot stop the emotion from welling up. I have been so damn resolute, determined, clear, focused, engaged … up to this point. But at that very moment, with all those people looking at me, and the utter exhaustion I was feeling – I can’t hold it in.

To my credit (relief!), #7 only lasted a minute or so. Interestingly, when one of the other police officers brought T1 into the room, I felt an incredible sense of calm. He looked shocking. I love him so much. And I am so mad that his stupid little brain is fully fried and Focker befuddled.

Tomorrow his brain will be one day older. Unfortunately, I will be looking ten years older.

Wishing parents a deep, peaceful sleep to restore their wrinkly worry lines.

Scaffolding

I am putting up scaffolding around the crumbling family. I have to believe the foundations are secure – whatever I did in the first ten years of my children’s life did, I trust, form the basis for them to grow with self-esteem, confidence, and independence (I’ll ignore what damage the divorce did, for now!). So constructing scaffolding to support them from the foundations up, seems the obvious place to put my energies into at this ghastly time.

I continue seeing my occasional shrink, Nigel Latta. His advice is around concretising the emotional. “His brain will only be 14 years, 10 months and ten days old, today. Tomorrow is another day of brain development and growth”. I hold fast – I cling actually - to this inevitability of growth, maturity, change, learning, and brain development. I wonder what I can feed Teen1 to super-speed the synaptic and cellular growth in his brain. Food that counters the narcotic influences from dope and tobacco. Ten kilos of juiced spinach three times a day?

What about me? I’m excavating my foundational core – what are my values, needs, tolerations, expectations? Where might I change in myself, grow and develop my ‘brain’ responses, my Self, my behaviours. Why do I react like a needled lioness; roar at times with frustration and grief; leap when I should stand still; shout when I should be quiet? What’s driving me? What is the one thing I can control? My Self. What do I need to let go of? Controlling my children. Where’s my heart at? Peace? Or war? These thoughts, the learning around them, consumes my long waking hours. I search for greater understanding and wisdom.

For my boy, I’ve initiated counselling. I’ve spoken at length to the school counsellor; I’ve opted to bring in external counselling. There’s a highly recommended programme in town, free of charge and I’ve met a counsellor there who seems to connect with my son and tick some boxes in my mind: professionally qualified; gentle, but firm; experienced in family dynamics, but open to individual situations; able to relate to teens and their experiences; supportive of me and deeply committed to my son’s health and well-being. He asks powerful questions; is holistic in his worldview. (Let me mention again, it is a free service. Please email me if you would like the contact details.)

T1 is scathing, disinterested, dismissive. The other day, he didn’t go in to the counsellor despite my dropping him at his door. So in-school sessions have been initiated with the school’s approval. Here again, is an example of working and keeping open communication with the school. I doubt they’d have approved this if I hadn’t been building my contact – my scaffolding – with them of late. (I’m only just getting used to being in the principal’s office, so many years after leaving school!).

A young friend who is a Social Worker called in the other night to talk to my boy. He works at a youth detention centre, and he sat, privately, with my boy for 45 minutes talking to him. I don’t know what he said. There’s a family conference at school we have to attend and T1 is adamant he won’t go. My friend talked to him about that. His only comment afterwards to me, was that my son shows incredible resoluteness in his viewpoint and has a great gift at obfuscation and manipulation of truths.

I wonder if a career as a prosecuting attorney might be on the cards for T1 later.

I research youth development organisations, Outward Bound, community groups, boot camps. I get distracted googling around the USA and all the camps offered there, Culver Academy being one that a friend sent their child too. Timbertop in Victoria, Australia was where several friends’ children have gone with their schools. Schools seem to be good at recognizing the educational, social, pastoral, and developmental need for such ventures for kids – St Paul’s Collegiate in Hamilton runs Tihoi, and I speak to a former teacher from there who has me enthralled and hopeful and vastly envious hearing about the value of this 18 week experience for teens. I call an ex-Army member of the family and put a proposal to him to set one up! He is far too busy raising his own children, he tells me. I speak to a Maori elder in the Rotorua region who used to run camps funded through Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) based on Maori wisdoms and Army disciplines, with hugely successful results. There seems to be a gap in New Zealand for independent boot camps that support and provide life lessons for teens.

I decide to book a holiday at Christmas where I can aim to do all that myself with the boys, far away from city distractions. Camping, tramping, kayaking, cooking… seriously, I must be mad. The only boot camp I need at the moment is the one at the Golden Door Sanctuary in Queensland : no kids allowed.

I will need to concentrate on building the scaffolding to support us if we are not to fall apart. The best place to start might just be with myself.

Wishing all parents strong foundations, and stable scaffolding around them and their families, and a good sleep every night.