The New Normal

I was reminded this week of the phrase " the new normal".

It can be used when it is important to anchor a new reality, usually after some kind of physical or emotional trauma. It may also be used after any life transition. The “new normal” paradigm allows for the realization to filter into our consciousness that things will never be the same again; they will never be “normal” again, or at least not the normal that we once knew.

The new normal is the phase after we have dealt with the immediate emergency that has occurred; when we have ensured the safety of ourself and others and we can begin to look around us with curiosity. The “new normal” is our reality that we can create or design in whichever way we know how, during times when we are feeling stronger and more able to do so. From here we can continue to build on this until it becomes second nature: our new normal.

Of course, we are all reminded of what is not normal in the Christchurch area following the natural disaster, and how incredibly difficult it will be for most people to transition to a new way of life in what will become a new city: a new ‘normal’ for the people of Canterbury. I do hope that in the midst of counseling and trauma support programmes, that the ‘new normal’ paradigm may help some people towards their recovery.

Far from the trauma of earthquake recovery, I was assessing the new normal in my household. My boys play far too many hours of playstation in the weekend: this is a new normal in my home. Somehow unwittingly I’ve allowed guns and murder to creep into the lounge room every Saturday afternoon. Another new normal, is adjusting to turning on heat pumps most of the year, not air conditioning, after years spent in a subtropical country. The most difficult new normal is my adjustment to having Teen1 come home stoned or drunk most weekends and after seeing him into his room, turning out my light and going back to sleep.

That’s not normal. It is not a created or designed normal done from a place of safety and care. It is instead an insidious normal. An insidious normal is a situation when, say, an intelligent, capable woman is subjected to sustained emotional or physical abuse by her partner. Or when a child suffers abuse from family members. Or someone finds that their one beer after work has turned into a dozen every night and more in the weekend and is out of control. The list goes on, and I use it to illustrate how what seems normal can creep up on us and actually be unhealthy and destructive, and how it takes some kind of intervention or shock to show up how abnormal the normal is.

So, a 15 year old coming home stoned during the week and at weekends is not normal: it is totally abnormal surely. Or am I stuffily, conservatively, stupidly missing the point that this IS the new normal in my family/ our society today and really doesn’t mean anything BAD will happen to him? He’s just experimenting, eh?

I’ve just reread some of my earlier posts: “We must let go or it will kill us” of 1 August last year, and “Choice” of 28 July, and in hindsight those posts are full of grand advice, with no actual commitment to changing the norm. I thought I worked so hard last year to change, control, and cope with the chain of events that were choking my life. But now I am not so sure. I think I wanted them all to just go away. Instead of creating a new set of rules and criteria and demands for what will occur or not in my home, I spent too much time trying to shore up the falling walls. I needed to be far more creative and decisive about creating a new, safe normal into my home.

So I will make a bloggy commitment : I will do more than read and talk about drug abuse programmes – I will have my son assessed as soon as possible and will commit to pulling him out of his important first year of NCEA, and put into a drug programme or similar. I will go back to searching for better professional advice. I will more proactively search out alternative schooling and risk behaviour programmes.

I bloggily and wearily hereby commit. At least, I’ll do my bloggy best (this is the internet afterall).

Truth be told, I just want my life to go back to …. Normal? What would you do?

God, Son!

My 17 year old godson has just arrived in town to commence his university studies.

His Dad has accompanied him here to settle him into his university college, and we gathered last night with some old friends for a welcome dinner. It was a night for a lot of laughter, and probably too much reminiscing from the "olds" (that's us now!) about our first year at university, where we lived, and who we flatted or studied with (and got up to no good with!). My godson is gorgeous, smart, kind hearted, generous, mature, focused and very much looking forward to his university years, as well as pretty rapt he's in a great college with a few people he knows and a bunch of strangers who will soon become friends. It is an exciting time. There was a huge buzz around the university colleges precinct yesterday as parents were dropping off their babies/young adults; as well as a buzz of a different kind around the student flatting precinct around midnight last night as the newbies and returnees cut loose prior to classes starting.

My godson's mum - my dear friend since our university days - has said goodbye to her oldest child, and I know a few tears would have been shed, and there will be a period of adjustment in her family home. On the upside, I'll probably get to see her and her husband more often, and I'll have the opportunity as godmother to have a peripheral responsibility for my godson's health and wellbeing (stocking up his snack jar and providing a Sunday night dinner every now and then!). I'll also get to go to "Scarfie" night: an annual event where some friends host a big dinner party for our friends' kids who are at university; some of the kids only know each other by name through their parents; and we get to have a night with these young people and enjoy witnessing these kids as they embark on the next stage of their life journey.

After dropping my godson off at his accommodation, and tucking my little one into bed (definitely savouring the joy of still having my child-not-yet-a-teenager to tuck in at nights), I stood at the door of Teen1's bedroom and wondered where he was and what he was doing. As a parent, I can see so much possibility ahead of T1 and my other two beautiful boys. And I wonder, as parents, do we continue to see the possibility in them no matter what their age? Is it our job, our duty, our optimism to always see the possibility and encourage them down that road; or at some stage, what stage, does the road narrow and become overgrown with a tangle of weeds and detritus.

I'm heading out for a run once I've published this post. Before I go, I know I'll walk past T1's bedroom, I'll linger in the door way for a bit, maybe I'll go in and straighten the pillows, run my hand over the quilt, and I'll wonder again where he is right now, where he slept last night, who the adults are in the house where he's crashed and if they've given a thought to him having a parent who cares and is bereft he's not at home in his own bed. In my mind's eye, I'll still look down that beautiful yellow brick road of possibility for all the things he may do and be, and I will continue to hope that he will look up one day and see the same wide road full of his own dreams and aspirations and possibilities ahead of him. And follow it.

Good morning

Good morning! It's 2am and here I am again. Are you there too, dear reader?! Good to know that the title I gave this blog last year still has relevancy.

I got the painful call again tonight from a Focker resident: "Please come and get Teen1, he was drunk and has fallen asleep on my couch."

The mother and I had a chat, of sorts. I was stalling, trying to concoct a plan of in/action, relieved that I was managing on a Friday night to stick with my FebFast deprivation and, therefore, I had a clear head (no alcohol for a month, and I've included depriving myself of sugar as well, which will supposedly make life 'sweeter', eventually. I'll report on the benefits of my mini-detox around March 4th - I started Feb Fast a few days late!).

Basically, after a conversation with the other mother at the doss house, I decided that driving out at this time in the morning, for the express purpose of attempting to peel my son off a sticky couch after wading through puddles of vomit, was not an exercise I relished doing. So, the clever little plan I decided on, was to see if I could find a willing and underemployed police officer to do the job for me.

Now my murky plan, delivered in a confident, matter of fact voice, didn't go down very well with the Focker parent. When I suggested that it might just send a message to the teenagers that she was unhappy about the state of her house and property, she began to back peddle. She didn't want to get into any trouble, it was not her supplying the alcohol and it would be better not to get her boy into any problems with the police, she argued. (NB: the son is well known to our local police).

I'm sure they won't blame you, was my reassuring response to her. I'll call the police and let's see what they say.

Three minutes later, I get a text from the mother, saying she got my son up and he will be waiting for me to get him. Tell him to start walking, I say, now having decided not to go and get him, but to let him walk home and sober up on the way.

Heartless? Uncaring? Irresponsible to let a drunk 15 year old walk home in the wee hours?

Whatever. It avoided me going out and walking through a cess pit. I was still waiting here on alert for T1 to arrive home (as any caring parent would...). Engaging with a drunk teen is not my idea of fun (particularly when I'm on a self induced deprivation regime). And I got to stay home and empty the dishwasher (and get the muffin mix ready for the "morning").

T1 biked home and is in his lovely warm bed dreaming the sweet dreams of a smashed teenager.

And I'm living up to the intention of my blog: to let other parents know they are not alone. Or maybe it's only me still awake at 3am, not having listened to my own advice from the past year?!? The best, most recent - and strangely familiar - advice I can share with readers tonight came from Johnny at the Central Police Station Communications Centre about an hour ago: if your son's/daughter's not in danger, leave them be and sort it out in the morning.

Well, Gooooood morning!

Zero Tolerance

What exactly, or even inexactly, is zero tolerance ? I asked a friend this week, who has two teenage sons, and she didn’t know. So I thought I’d take a fresh look at ‘zero’.

Is zero like the new white: could be like Resene’s ‘Antique Tea’, ‘Spanish white’, or Dulux’s ‘Gentle Touch’…? That is, white with a bit of a tint added. Neither black nor white, but shades of grey. Zero with a fraction of tolerance added?

Let’s see: zero tolerance on drugs for example. Let’s say I have zero tolerance on drug use, drug paraphernalia in the home, drug dealing by my children. Does that ‘zero’ allow for: I have a strong suspicion you are stoned, but I have to tolerate having that suspicion, as there’s really nothing I can do about it?

Or, if my expectation is that a child attend school and is respectful to the school, teachers and property, but this does not transpire, I am then called on to demonstrate what my zero tolerance looks like? Which is…?

Is having zero tolerance for children not coming home for dinner, or for coming home well after 10pm on the first three school nights of the year, possibly being stoned on one or two of them, and having a referral at school on day 3… look like: dinner not being kept for later consumption, the door being locked at night and entry barred, and toys being taken off the errant child?

Or maybe, zero tolerance is simply stopping engaging with the whole parental boundaries and control issue and letting it all pass me by in a foggy haze of ‘ huh, what, my child did what? …” etc. Could zero tolerance for dealing with thorny teenagers look like my turning off my phone during the day so I don’t have to deal with a phone call from the school? Turning away from any semblance of parental guidance? I think maybe this is something that some people do to cope.

Now I have thought about this I’m wondering if zero tolerance for errant teenage behaviour is a non sequitur, that is, the two don’t correlate. If a teenager is pretty much following the house or family rules, there’s no need to consider what zero tolerance means, but on the other hand, if a teenager is living by their own rules, then zero tolerance means nothing because there’s few or no consequences for unacceptable behaviour.

But then again, if I didn’t have zero tolerance for say, smoking inside the house, then people would smoke inside, so that is a case for sticking with the principle of zero tolerance.

Ok, so I’m confused now! I’ve just demonstrated why I’d make a lousy lawyer.

The rationale for this post then is: I’m dazed and confused already, only three days into the school year when my expectations for a smooth start to the year have already been dashed on the cliff face of disappointment. I can say, however, that this disappointment relates only to Teen1. The other two boys are having a great start! It’s always good to focus on the up side of zero I reckon.

I hope you are operating up in the positive zone too, with your parenting!