Mining for Gold 3

EVENT #4: SCHOOL’S OUT!

The High School decided they would not have Teen1 back.

I was not surprised by the decision, but, I was devastated.  It was the end of the road – correction: the end of ONE road, but a road I had so hoped he’d stay on for the next few formative years.

He had burned too many bridges and lost a lot of goodwill at the school by offending too many people too often.  He had shown no remorse for or understanding of his actions, but even if he had, I am not sure it would have been a safe move by the school to allow him back anyway. There were no guarantees or indications of a change in behaviour coming from him. The school took the courageous step, and I know from my time spent with the Principal, it was made having explored options, worked on strategies and generally having done the best they could for him.  He had been shown occasional leniency, as well as some strong boundaries over the short time he attended the school.  He self-sabotaged his opportunities for success at school, and I hope this won't continue to be a pattern for him.

In sum, 2011 wasn’t a great one for T1’s resumé: expelled from two schools; minimal credits at NCEA Level 1; arrested then dismissed for possession charges; and in the same week as being expelled and in Court, his mother tells him he can’t live at home given the lack of improvement in his behaviour and attitude.

That’s pretty heavy stuff for a 16 year old.  Certainly, it just about did my head in.

That’s the gist of the specific events.  In the background, there was a new 'power and control' game unfolding that I was not aware of, as well as some significant heartache as I saw my son go - more on that later.

THE GOLD

Without enough credits for Polytech, and no employment, there was one opportunity that re-presented itself.  The School suggested T1 apply to get into the “Service Academy”.

Service Academies are Ministry of Education funded programmes, delivered under the managerial auspices of the School Board and Principal, but with a separate campus (adjoining the School in this case), separate classes, independent teachers and a strong physical component.  This Academy has a Director appointed who is a former British army man.  The Academies are aimed at Year 12 and 13 students who have ‘disengaged’ from school. The Academy aims to keep students engaged in learning, help them improve their qualifications, and prepare them for the workforce, for further training, and potentially for a career in the armed services. 

Twice in the last 18 months in my search for alternatives for T1, I had spoken to the Academy, but at those times, he did not qualify (age restriction, and too late for orientation). 

This time, he got in.  Ironically, despite not allowing him back for the mainstream school programme, the School still has him on their books.

But more than that, he agreed to go.  This was a breakthrough, a significant advance - and one that a friend suggested I should credit my Ex for achieving. 

That was an interesting, unexpected perspective. I struggled with the concept that after years of single parenting and doing all I could, suddenly this development was to be seen as a credit to T1's father.   

I am, however, mining for gold, so, yes, it was fortunate T1's Dad followed up on the opportunity and took T1 to enrol  (is that credit enough?!  I really don't want to crawl over broken glass!).  I must say that it was, however, T1's decision alone to step forward into the opportunity, and as his parents, our contribution was to take him where he needed to go.  He had this one definitive option left: and he took it.  Whew.

Back to THE GOLD:  I’m pleased for T1, delighted that he’s enrolled in something that gives him a reason to get up each day and that he has boundaries around his day.  Finally, I am utterly relieved that for now, today, he's not on the streets.

There is gold in everything and I'm working hard to mine it.

Next posts: Out in the cold - the swiftness of the transition between daily contact with my child..... and being cut right off.

Mining for Gold 2

EVENT #3: CHANGE OF ABODE

I told my son he had to leave home.

It pains me to write that.  The layers of emotion around my action are the stuff of a book on the ‘psychology of the transitioning parent/child relationship’ or some such title.  It would take a multitude of blog posts to explore such matters. 

In between vicious bouts of viral fevers, I had time to reflect on the situation in my family home:  an abusive, angry, misbehaving, drug smoking, thieving, drinking, largely absent teenager ('a devil in the home and an angel on the streets' was how a friend described T1 - actually she described my Ex as that, and added T1 as an afterthought); and two younger brothers still finding their way.  

Maybe the virus I contracted had nothing to do with the strain of the last few years I thought, but then again, on a mind-body-spirit level, how could it not?

It was untenable to continue to have T1 live in my house and behave the way he had been for so long.  For the time I was in hospital and sick at home, all abuse and disrespect stopped.  It was like a cloud had lifted.  Something had changed and the something was that my son was not in my house.

My nearest and dearest were telling me in different ways that T1’s behaviour could not continue to be tolerated (much as we all love him), and he needed to be responsible for his actions and to face the consequences.  I had had the same message from my Ex and his brother back in October: kick him out they told me, toughen up, throw him out on the curb. 

I didn’t.  Couldn’t.  And didn’t know how to do that anyway.  He was just 16 and despite the way he treated me and his family and home, he also didn’t seem to want to leave (good food, warm bed). 

I thought it would come right if I could just stick it out a bit longer (a scary repetition of my marriage!).  I was hanging on to some generalized wisdom from the nation’s popular parenting personality*, that if this behaviour starts young (say 12 or 13 years old) given the good home he had all his life, the chances are it would have blown over in a few years.  (*Nigel Latta’s comedic timing is getting better all the time I thought, watching him on the tv tonight!).

Yeah, nah, it hasn’t happened. 

With T1 away from home while I was sick, and while his father was here, I knew that I had to do something to protect myself and my other sons, and there had to be some kind of change. 

Making a decision to tell your 16 year old to leave home is just not easy.  It was horrible.  But I had to have the courage to let myself be heard, and to refuse to allow my home and heart be trampled on, regardless of the age of the person doing it. 

I ended up telling him.  ‘Son’, I said, ‘you have forfeited your right to live here’. 

“What the fuck, that’s bullshit” was the response, and has remained so to this day.

I tend to agree with him, but that’s on a whole different level.

THE GOLD

There has to be some gold in amongst all this:  my house is calm and peaceful; I’m enjoying my two other gorgeous boys; there are no late nights waiting up, no abuse.  Best of all, I no longer have my room under lock and key, nor do I have to lock my wallet and other possessions away when I have a shower.  I don’t worry so much about where he is, or if the police will call first.  I don’t wake in the morning to find the kitchen a mess of left over late night munchies  and I don’t get told to fuck off if I ask for it to be cleaned up. 

There’s a newfound or regained freedom to live in my own home without threat to property or person.

The worry has, however, been replaced by a new, foreign emotion I am still trying to understand: something about a mother having to  tell her son, a young boy, not yet grown up or mature, to leave the family home.  To paraphrase T1: that sucks.

Next posts – new 'school'; new digs; and new family dynamics... updates to come….

  

Mining for Gold 1

It's been a long time between blog posts, and a lot has happened lately in this journey of parenting this particular Teenager.  

There is gold in every event if you choose to look for it.  I’m going to post a summary of key events since December, and some reflections on them in hindsight: I have mined for the gold in each of them.  And maybe the stories will help others either gain another perspective on their family situation, or, learn from my mistakes!  Good luck…

EVENT #1: FAMILY GROUP CONFERENCE  

Before sentencing, the Youth Court released Teen1 on various conditions, including a curfew, bailed to my home address, no drug or alcohol consumption, and possible random alcohol breath testing.  Another of these was that he attend a FGC. 

Social Workers strongly advise that both parents are present at FGC and that both bring support people.  Up until the morning of the FGC, my Ex had indicated that he would teleconference into the meeting. 

As it was, the meeting occurred when I was into day 4 of my hospital admission and in no fit state to attend anything.  It was decided that two close family members would attend on my behalf.  Some hours before the meeting, my Ex arrived unexpectedly from overseas. From what I heard, it was not a particularly pleasant meeting.

GOLD: Let others step in to help  

I had to let go.  I was forced, in fact, by Mother Nature to accept that my presence or otherwise was not going to affect any outcome.  In the end, I was hugely relieved not to have been there: I was worn out by trying to manage everything alone – and look where it got me: in a hospital bed.  Handing over responsibility to others was challenging, but unavoidable.

SUB EVENT #2: 

As a result of my Ex turning up unexpectedly, the alternate bail address the Court demanded became my Ex's, or rather his sister's address where he stays when in town.  

MORE GOLD: unexpected events result in unexpected outcomes 

Ironically, T1’s arrest and bail conditions meant that he could not insist on staying at home while I was away, as the Court had decreed otherwise. 

I was worried about T1 being at home while I was in hospital, and I had no solution to this problem.  T1 had a longstanding offer to stay with family on a farm in Central Otago and work through there, and another family member in town offered to have him stay.  He had refused to go to either, of course preferring the run of the house in my absence.

T1 by default ended up with his father, which would, eventually, bring about a complete change in our living arrangements.

SUB EVENT #3: 

While I was in hospital, T1 took the spare key to my car and drove it for a few days.  His terrible parking gave him away.  In the end, it was a family member who saw him driving down the street and pulled him over.  Luckily, this happened before he was pulled up for being an unlicensed driver, or for causing worse harm.  (typical teenager?!… in other circumstances, he might get a dressing down and grounded for a while, but on top of everything else on his card: it was not a great move on his part!).

MORE GOLD: Live in a small town/ It takes a village to raise a child

My brother took charge, managed to persuade the man whose car was ‘bumped’ when T1 pulled over not to press charges, and he dealt with the spare key issue.  Car returned, noone hurt.   I didn’t have to deal with it, or at least not on my own. 

EVENT #2: COURT SENTENCING

The Court dismissed the charges.  Teen1 had compiled with bail conditions.  The Judge talked with him about T1’s options, he encouraged continuing education and questioned him about his plans.  T1 was polite and said what he needed to say.   The Judge told him that after years on the bench, he’s seen too many young men regretful for having given up their education early, and for their behaviour.  He told T1 he didn’t want to see him again in Court.

GOLD: Punitive measures don’t always work, but leniency comes with a responsibility to do better.

T1 has been given another chance.  I hope he uses it wisely. 

Next posts to come – updates on home and school….

Crash and Burn

Here's what parents, particularly mothers, must not do: care so much for others and attend to so many external demands that they forget to take care of their precious Self.

I crashed and burned.  I knew I was running on empty back in October.  By the time I stood in Youth Court in November staring out that window, I was beginning to feel the impact of being depleted mentally, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually.  What I had left was my physical health, and guess what? … that soon took a hit too.

It’s hard to keep practicing self care when the parts of Self that sustain how we live in the world are constantly challenged, threatened, abused.  I thought I was managing but the last few years took their toll. I became so focused on trying to hold everything together - as I envisaged it should be - I exhausted myself.  

Ordered into Emergency by my Doctor, I was admitted to hospital, donated vials of blood to the lab for testing on a regular basis, had numerous tests, and was too sick for weeks after a relapse to care much about anything or for anyone.  Medically, it was an undiagnosed viral illness.  My self diagnosis is adrenal fatigue brought about by prolonged anxiety and stress.  I hate admitting it, but there it is.  

My naturopath and herbalist asks me at most of my sessions with her: ‘how full is your cup, Claire?”.  She asks that I visualize my life essence in that cup: is it full and brimming over with possibility and vitality?  does it needing topping up? is there only dregs in the bottom?

My cup of vitality was low. But the cup is not broken, those dregs in the bottom are the seeds for change and replenishment.  I was fortunate that I was sent a gentle message from Mother Nature, and not a life threatening illness. 

My responsibility to my Self and to those I love is to change the paradigm…

... to humm along quietly for a while and not strive to keep the whole choir in tune. 

How have you been humming along lately?

Modern Events in Historic Buildings

Youth Court: a historic place...

The Youth Court is situated in a new wing attached to the historic Municipal Courts building in the centre of the city. 

Just like going into a museum in a big city, there's the xray and bag search, efficiently done but the only person in my lot to have the buzzers go off was me.  The bracelet I rarely take off, that has Teen1's name and birth date engraved on it always sets off the alarms.  If I have to visit Court more frequently, perhaps I should get the engraving tattooed on my wrist instead.

It is a beautiful building, the block work created from locally and regionally mined bluestone and whitestone and designed in the grand style of the late Victorian period.  A statue of Justice is elevated for all to see (if they aren't looking downcast at their shoes during their visit).  Inside it is not unpleasant; the paintwork light and clean, the carpet tough and deeply coloured.  Toys litter one waiting room and there's plenty of places to sit.

There's a modern link through to the Youth Court wing from the older building.  It is rather more inelegant, a little tight for space, and the Courtroom itself not too imposing but certainly one knows we are there to do business.

There's a flurry of activity just before 9am, when the presiding Judge will step up to the bench.  Youth accompanied by parents or care givers shuffle in to the waiting room, their demeanour so different to what it might have been only some hours or days earlier when in the wee small hours of the morning they were out on the town, puffed up with gangsta pride and a chest led swagger.  Only when one or the other recognises someone, do the heads come up, the tough kid grin passes over their face, and then it is back to pretending to concentrate on what the Social Worker is saying.

The legal aid lawyers bustle in just after 9am, search out their new or recidivist clients, quickly read out the charges and give a summary of what might happen in the courtroom.  One lawyer prepares the youth and family for the likelihood of continuing detention in Social Welfare care: "do you understand what this means?" the lawyer asks, and the kid nods glum faced.  Another lawyer is perkier and tells her client that they are likely to be released with a few bail conditions that will continue for a month or so.  A Social Worker talks grim faced to another family.  One youth looks still off his face from the night before.  Another lawyer I recognise from a meeting some months back when my son was supposed to be witness to the Defence relating to a charge of wilful damage against one of his mates.  We nod to each other.

I catch the eye of the Police Youth Officer and he comes over to talk to me.  I hold out my hand to shake his.  He shows me the bail conditions he wants the judge to impose, and without anything else to measure them by, I nod and agree.  As I stand looking out a window waiting to be called into Court, I see another Police Youth Officer glancing at me.  He's a nice man, and been very helpful in the past, but I pretend for a while to be interested in the world going on outside these windows.  I'm not ready to engage.   Eventually, I look over and he approaches.  "I've been better" I respond to his question.

Teen1's lawyer is a pleasant, older man; I imagine him with grown kids and maybe a grandchild or two, a family man.  He talks with T1 and says... well, he says everything that T1 has heard before.  He delivers his message with a firmness and practicality I like and I am pleased to have had this person recommended to be on T1's end of the bench.  We aren't there to get to know each other though.  

The hearing is brief, some ten or so minutes.  As recommended by the lawyer, the judge  hands over a copy of Tom Scott and Trevor Grice's highly acclaimed book on drug education, The Great Brain Robbery, one that many counsellors recommend to their clients, and one that has been kicking around my house for some years (along with books on sex and sexuality, body changes etc...I'm not sure that any of them have been read).   The Social Worker later recommends T1 do an assignment on the book, but T1 puts the book on the floor of the car as we drive away, and I doubt it will be read by choice.  I've been re-reading bits of it today, when really I'd rather be reading any of the books on my night stand like  "How to be a Woman" by Caitlin Moran, which would be a lot funnier and a lot more relevant to me than The Great Brain Robbery.  Anyway, it might be useful to get on top of the homework.

Released into my care, under a curfew of 9pm to 7am, no alcohol or drug use, ordered to attend any and all Family Group Conferences, warned that police visits are made randomly as are breath tests, and should bail conditions not be met, there are consequences like lock up and Social Welfare custody.

It is 8.58pm on day two of curfew and he has 2 minutes to get in the door....

What are the chances?

Passive and Verbal Violence

Verbal/passive abuse is a bruise on the partner's spirit...

I have tried to avoid much mention of the role of the Ex, keeping instead to events as I experience them, and as they affect me and the boys.  However, a reader's comment on my blog last night asking about the role T1's father is playing, and a nasty and upsetting altercation again this morning when the brother-out-law came to my house to collect T1 for work, has opened some old wounds.

I've just pulled out from my bookshelf, "The Verbally Abusive Relationship - how to recognize it and how to respond" by Patricia Evans.

This is a book that changed my life some years ago.  When I read it, I scribbled in the margins annotations, personal anecdotes, ticks, crosses, and highlighted paragraphs. This book was my wake up call; it shattered the illusion that all was well, and made me confront what I knew already: I had to get away.  I'd spent years wondering what I was doing wrong, why he was so angry with me: the list of attempts to win his favour, keep him happy etc etc is sickening.  It was time to get a good counsellor, and get out while I still had my sanity.

I thought I would leave my relationship after finding out about the other women in his life, but really, it was the identification and the admission to myself of the extent of the debilitating passive abuse that had been going on for years, and witnessing the same being perpetrated on the children to the extent that I could no longer shield them from it, that helped me leave.  (That, and gross financial mismanagement, exacerbated by the GFC that meant losing the house).  This book helped externalise the abuse.  It was sad reading, but ultimately life enhancing.

The book lists ten characteristics of a passive aggressive relationship and says if two of those characteristics apply to you, then you are in an abusive relationship.  I ticked 9.  When I ticked 14 of the 19 characteristics of the verbal abuser as being those displayed by my partner normally behind closed doors but sometimes in public, I knew I was in deep trouble.

For anyone who even remotely feels like they are 'dreaming', 'going crazy', 'imagining' something is wrong in their relationship, then this book is essential reading.  It highlights the characteristics of verbal/passive abuse, the effects on the partner, the traits of the abuser, and the ways of getting through, out of and recovering from an abusive situation.  

Verbal/passive abuse is a bruise on the partner's spirit which noone sees but which hurts as much if not more than a physical pain.  When it is serious abuse (and any put down is abuse) the only thing that can change is the way the partner can react.  An abuser can not apologise for their behaviour as that would undermine the very essence of their identity.  

So when people ask, what proactive role is the father playing in my current situation, the answer I think is, he can't.  Because if he did play a healthy constructive role, it would be anathema to how he has ever behaved.  It would be the deepest transition possible away from his 'reality' into the other healthy Reality that I come from and connect to: the healthy Reality of empowerment of Self and empowering our loved ones, of connecting with the creative and nurturing aspects of life, of mutuality and co-creation, of personal security which has no need to exert power over another person.  

My Ex is a white collar Mr Nice Guy, well educated, carried the aura of success, quietly spoken.  But he is horribly flawed.  His loss of his businesses, job, home, partner and children are a small testament to that.  I believe people can change, but I witness my Ex being so locked into his false identity, to strip it away now would mean him living a whole new life.  For change to happen, it may require a process equivalent of joining AA; his drug or addiction being Power Over others, particularly over me and the children.   

Cast in the same mold, the brother-out-law provokes and goads with aggression and judgement, disparaging guffaws and twisted logic, and his five minute provocative, argumentative rant in my house this morning was a stunning example of his twisted Reality (the same Reality his brother, my Ex, inhabits).  I suppose if violence is what you know, have had in your growth years, has permeated your relationships, and is in your genetic make up, conquering all that requires some massive shock or shift.  A stint in jail didn't seem to bring about a deeper psychological awareness for him it seems.

Sadly, as I peruse Patricia Evan's book again today, I see the pattern of an increase in my Ex's abusive behaviour: he is so bitter and twisted over my having left him to set up a new life and be the independent woman he once said he was attracted to, that he has lashed out even harder.  Whether that be to be physically aggressive with his son, to change arrangements constantly or at the last minute, be late for picking up or dropping off the boys when he has them, simmering anger and cold looks, to texts and phone calls and emails to me that snarl and snap and bite,  threats of withdrawal of maintenance if I go to a lawyer/talk to the bank/impose restrictions on him to adhere to arrangements et etc, or put downs to the boys when they announce success at school -  often delivered with a "charming" chuckle.  (I recognised elements of my Ex in Marion Keye's novel, "This Charming Man", which  also explores domestic abuse - but in a more lightweight way than Evan's book.  Beware the charming man...).  

T1 has experienced verbal/passive abuse all his life from his father, and so much of how he is behaving now is mirroring the same behaviour.  Which makes me worry all the more for my boys, particularly T1 who seems to have inherited the key to his father's unhealthy reality.  I hope one day he discovers the other key I gave him at birth: the life long key to a Reality that is full of joy, abundance and healthy emotional wellbeing, a place from where we want the best for others because we know we are secure in our own sense of Self.

Which Reality are you in?

Jurisdiction

In the wee hours of Sunday morning, before reaching me, the police notified the out-laws that my son was in the cells.  I'm not sure that's on really.  

Is it not the parent/guardian who ought to be the first person notified?  Teen1 was not in danger, or at risk beyond being off his face to some degree, and there was no power of attorney required for medical or legal reasons.  

The situation was, that I fell asleep at 2am; I recall hearing the phone ringing, must have been just after 4am, but I could not get myself to a consciousness state; when it rang again at 5am I had had the magical 3 hours sleep and I got myself to the phone.  In the meantime, my out-laws were called.  For what purpose did he contact them, I wonder?

One possibility is that it was the police officer doing  a bit of small-town/ share the goss/ catastrophise the situation, or am I just being overly sensitive?  Could it otherwise have been that he wanted to help and had a legal requirement to notify someone?   Apparently, he saw a previous police report (yeah, great) relating to last Christmas when T1 and his father had a fist fight in the street (OMG, my beautiful boys don't deserve this to have happened to them), and called the out-laws whom he knew personally.  Probably the latter is the more likely possibility, but as well as the officer's action really really annoying me, it set in train some not so helpful interventions.

While I got on with doing what had to be done (writing my blog - hmmm!,) like getting my son from the cells,  the phone calls came from an irate brother-out-law who dealt me out some beauties: according to him,  my four years of solo parenting are questionable, my decisions also, and I need to boot my son to the curb given that nothing I'd done to date had made any difference to his attitude or behaviour.  I was, he said,  offering T1 a sanctuary, a warm bed and nice food, which did not help him one bit.  I  requested that he cease being so aggressive; when he continued on, I said again that his attitude and way of speaking were disturbing me and again asked him to stop or I would terminate the call, and when he talked over the top of me, I hung up the line.  I was as Calm as a Woman Numb from Lack of Sleep.

Now, here's a story: said brother-out-law is a convicted armed robber who served time.  A reformed man now with a few remaining (fatal) flaws, whilst entering in the drugs scene, involved in gangs and plotting armed robberies, he frequently stayed with us; both our families had young babies, we had a great time together.  I was in complete blissful ignorance of the whole scene he was involved in.  Following the arrival of detectives at my door at 7am one morning, the shock of the arrest, the related horrible investigations, having me and my partner embroiled in matters of which we had no involvement or knowledge, the disappointment of being unwittingly used, and having my trust completely shattered, what did we do?  We gave sanctuary, a warm bed and nice food to this family member; and my partner paid his brother's legal bills, decked out his cell,and bought his partner a house to live in while he was in jail... what we do for family, eh?

So having him call me and question my parenting of my 16 year old, and telling me to boot him out, well it got up my nose.  His family had stuck by him, mostly anyway (there was a bit of drawing the line, but he was an adult and probably deserved to take some knocks).  Call my hanging up on him a reaction to my sleep deprivation and that my head was hurting.

I want to believe that the brother-out-law cares and wants to help.  But belligerent judgements delivered to a somewhat shaken single mother: not cool.  Am I being overly sensitive?!  Tell me right now (gently though).

Here's a few tips for the not so close out-laws: 

- ask: how can I help?  (thanks to lovely friends and readers who asked me that question)

- request permission to offer solutions or wait until asked to do so (thanks Deb for giving me the name of a family court lawyer)

- respect a mother's right to make her own decisions  ( I love and respect my nearest and dearest for your support)

- if offering solutions (being the person at the top of the hole throwing down the ladder) do it with empathy.  It's different when a child is involved than when it is an adult to adult problem, a work/professional issue, a relationship issue, or health concern: sometimes having  friend to be a bit tough on us and offer the ladder, not the tissues, is a useful approach.  When it's a mother's child in trouble: that's a whole different ball game.

- send tickets for a tropical family holiday, or for a remote retreat for women only (just joking! though the offer from dear Aussie friends to spend  Christmas Day with them: so thoughtful.  Thanks guys).

Yep, I'm a little sensitive about things when the out-laws and the Ex are involved: I don't mind at all being a single parent and I'd far rather do it without the Ex and his questionable notion of what fathering is, but - take some notes, out-laws.  Suspend judgement and remember, the mother who is the full time parenting role has total jurisdiction.

Just a wee snitchy post to reveal my shadow side..!

Possession

I waited up last night for Teen1 to come home.  I didn’t do so in the frame of mind I may have a year ago, like a woman slightly possessed with a darkening fear, a sickening sense of worry, a latent anger at the transgression of family boundaries, a tearing of the spiritual umbilical cord, a cold sense of dread in my heart. 

In fact, most of those debilitating states I have shed, consciously choosing not to allow them to rule my head, heart and spirit, and I have practised replacing them instead with a curious mind, an open heart, a sleep-energised and replenished body, and a refocus on broader aspects of my life.  (I say ‘practised’ as my blog is testament to me banging on for months about such healthier states, but only being able to do so myself in tiny incremental steps.  I’m a slow adaptor, even to my own advice).  To help achieve detachment, I have opted to stay clear of T1, skirting around the fringes of his life, engaging as little as possible, avoiding conversations longer than a few sentences, asking questions only to demonstrate subliminally that I love him and I care (and truth be told, to remind myself that I do love and care).  Was this avoidance?  Yes - but I knew I had to change the paradigms through which I had been unsuccessfully responding, and consciously contrive different perspectives in order to preserve self-care and be a more effective parent.

Last night, something was different.  I was awake until late watching on-line election results tumble in (ah democracy: a bunch of largely un-informed people making decisions to elect the largely ill-informed, as I had once heard someone describe elections).  Intuition was tapping at my consciousness all the while.  I opened T1’s bedroom door, and willed him to be safe, wherever he was.  I had a moment when a dash of hope washed through me: after-all, I had just commented to friends visiting me yesterday, that T1 was the best I’d seen him in a while.  A little less fraught/ combative/ shut off/ abusive.  I had felt a flicker of hope yesterday as I responded positively to their concerns about him.  Being kicked out of school, having to work in a job that does not light his fire, knowing that this newfound ‘freedom’ comes with responsibilities and harder challenges than merely doing homework: perhaps these were all adding up to a boy ready to make some changes.

Sadly, not yet.

As I was reflecting on the above, and on the make-up of our new Parliament, I received a late night email from a reader of this blog.  I responded to her in more depth than I might usually, as I recognised in her lines a tremor of the anguish I have experienced. I then fell asleep around the bewitching hour of 2am, my last thoughts being that I hoped my reader’s daughter would get home safely last night, as would my son…

Sadly, I know that for one child that did not happen.

My son is currently in the cells of the Central Police Station.  He was arrested in the early hours of this morning, and is being held on three charges ranging from the stupid, to the Serious, to the Really Serious. 

Gasp, horror, why am I writing this and not driving down to the Police Station?  For one, I am sleep deprived which is my excuse for not thinking straight. Secondly, he’s not being cooperative with the Police so there’s a little bit of cooling off required before he goes through the formal charging and release processes.  Thirdly, I’m a mean mother and I don’t yet have the energy to deal with him (here’s an absolute ‘Claire’ piece of advice: Get Your Sleep.  If nothing goes awry and your child comes home of their own volition, you wake feeling mad but reenergised.  If it all turns to hell, you cope better the next day with a situation that you had no control over anyway).  Finally, I have two other boys asleep here and I’m not leaving them.

Not yet.  I just need to hear the birds chirp first.

Serenity

The way positive affirmations work is to say them repeatedly.  It's about training the mind to accept the affirmations as the default belief, rather than allowing those mad little demon voices in our heads undermine our very human need for positive emotions, growth, evolution, change and development.

Prayer is similar.  Saying the rosary.  Using Worry beads. Or Komboloi beads.  Chanting.  Saying a mantra out loud, or silently, when meditating.

It is the repetition that helps.  These quiet, personal, and often short, meaningful stanzas that we can recite to ourselves to give comfort and hope and bring peace.

It is all connected to the breath.  Deep, quiet breathing, as we say our word or verse.  Letting the body and the mind slow down.  Like meditation, prayer and affirmations can slow the heart rate, release the negative energy, prepare the body for the intake of the new and fresh and restorative energy.

So I'll cut to the chase about now:  All the above went through my head in a blinding flash this morning as I turned off the car engine and prepared to step out into the car park at the High School.  (You know what's coming, right?).  This is what I'd said to myself repeatedly since I woke at 4.30am:

God.  Please grant me the courage to change the things I can change.  The serenity to accept the things I cannot change.  And the wisdom to know the difference.

By 7.35am, over scrambled eggs (I burned them to a ruin - never done that before) I'd shortened the prayer to:  "Courage.... serenity.... wisdom... ".  Over and over.

Meditation and mantra chanting is heavenly at the end of a hot yoga session, lying in shivasana pose on my purple yoga mat.  But the serenity prayer was coming out of me in short wee bursts of breathlessness as I crossed the car park to go into the school office: "serenity wisdom courage serenidom wisage courity doswim serecour wisnity..."

Maybe it worked, to pray a little, or a lot, or even in gobbledegook, today.  It isn't going to save my boy necessarily, but it allowed me to talk through the options reasonably calmly with the school, with my prayer going around in my head, and occasionally slipping out of my head and onto my knee where it looked at me compassionately and quizzically (really, it did) when I almost got a little emotional.

He's got one good grace left.  He's been asked to leave the school.  Only four weeks of school left, they would have kept him if they could, but he's made it unsafe for the school community to keep him there.  There's only so much abuse teachers will take (although it's a fraction of what I get from him, and I don't get paid for it) and only so much disruption classmates should have to tolerate.

So he's out.  Not expelled, but released.  Until February.  Oh, good Goddesses and Angels:

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

 grant me the courage... the wisdom... 

and most of all, the serenity to get through this...

Wishing as always, courage, wisdom and serenity to all parents.  Just say the words.

Absence

I start with apologies for an absence of well over two months now... and I have a little and a lot of explanations I could make.

Lovely readers have checked in and asked how things are going: thank you one and all.

I got tired.  I was writing over the last year as much to capture the moment, as try to find answers to esoteric questions that  usually started with the word "why....?".

I got sick of myself.  Writing about the cruddy stuff of life seemed defeatist at times.  I countered it by writing every night in my Gratitude journal, by meditation, positivity, and achievements and fun stuff in other areas of my life.  But I tired writing about a child who it seemed I could not help.

I'm hopeless at the technology, I just can't seem to get it right. Or have my blog look the way I want it too (cool, funky, bright: hmmm, wrong blog subject for that!).  So my blog was blogging me up.

I got busy with other work, and with family life.  There's been five birthdays in my close family, numerous visits, school holidays, two weeks of illness and a few too many snow days.

I got writer's block.

My other two boys needed more attention, and I gave it, reaping rewards for them, and by extension for the whole family.

I needed time for me, time to concentrate effort on my business, on my colleagues, on my extended family, and on healing an injury that had been causing debilitating pain for some months.

It was a conundrum for me to write here about this very personal, difficult parenting and family life, while developing a business that centred on positive emotions, on future focussed solutions, on creating and developing positive mindsets, of working and assisting people to reach their potential.  I needed instead to focus on keeping myself and my business contacts ethically safe, and to do that, I needed to walk away for a time from complete concentration on one child so that I could get other parts of my house in order.

I was exhausted from wringing my hands in front of genuinely caring school educationalists, social workers, friends and people in extended networks.  Without coming up with any answers.

I'm still asking the same questions and making the same mistakes.  It is just that I am asking the big questions less frequently, demanding less of myself, accepting more the things I cannot change, and forgiving myself and my dearest lovely lost boy for our mistakes and for missing each other as we travel along on this life journey we share.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose: the more things change the more they remain the same.  This was the first French saying I learned years ago.  It is kind of defeatist, but in these circumstances, as my lovely 16 year old boy travels down his lonely road, it does sum up the last couple of months for him and for my parenting of him.

I look to the light in the east... as we all must when the new day dawns.

Until soon

go gently
Claire

Poetic Parenting: A mother's contribution...

In answer to my call, I have received this lovely poem from KJ, which I am reposting...

"My teen has recently moved in to the world, so mine is more on the journey from start to transition (quickly) and I'm more at peace than I realised so not much swearing either... But I tried..." (KJ)

In LA Rodney King had been beaten
Russia chose Yeltsin to rule
Schumacher appeared on the racetrack
And you had me covered in drool

My friends were all sneaking to pubs
Wishing 20 was their real age
I was at home with my baby
Social welfare was paying my wage

Each year I did what I thought best
Screwing up as all parents do
My reward was always amazing
When you said “Mum, I love you”

Then one day I opened your door
And fell to the floor in a fit
Your room was a tip, you looked a wreck
With a weird whiff of B.O and shit

Putin was now ruling Russia
Schumacher was world number one
The drool that I wore as a badge
Was ripe from disease of the gum

You were not there in the morning
‘Hooking up’ as you said on your ‘page’
I was at home with no baby
Fucked off with sadness and rage

Each day turned in to a struggle
With battle lines now set in stone
We both began with the countdown
When you at last would leave home

Then one day I opened your door
And fresh paint now filled the air
No more were you here, now out in the world
Just remember I love you my dear 





How fabulous to put your experience into words that capture the essence of you, your child/teen and the whole experience.   


Are there any more from other readers??