I Can Has Running Start
So yesterday, despite obstruction from nameless quarters, the guidance counselor at the Formerly-Sullen-One’s school met with him for two hours and promptly bulldozed some red tape to get him into Running Start. Which touched off a series of events: I packed up the kids, picked up the Teen, hauled everyone down to the college, visited the Running Start office and fine-tuned the schedule in light of cancellations, got the boy registered, paid a small fee for materials for one class, and ended by taking each kid I own out to Mexican to celebrate.
The UnSullen One had a virgin margarita. He was feeling quite the slayer of dragons. He worked his patootie off this last summer in a college class we cash-paid for to get him to qualify for the program, and to have the Angels of Bureaucracy suddenly smile on him after months of frustration was a Good Thing.
He is delighted to be going to college. “It’s like being let out of jail,” he says, and I agree. When I did Running Start, it was such a HUGE relief to be out of the sinkhole of pettiness, idiocy, and meanness that is the high school social scene. The UnSullen One’s problems did not lie with school per se, they lay with an uncongenial home environment and the other bloody kids in school. I often wonder if, at eighteen, a metal curtain comes down and adults “forget” what a carnivorous, ugly atmosphere pervades high schools.
I know some people have “good” high school experiences. But the hormones plus the worship of youth in our culture, plus the socialization and indoctrination process that high school has become (rather than an educational process) all conspires to make it the very last place one should want to put their precious children. And many parents abdicate a great deal of responsibility once a kid turns thirteen-fourteen and becomes difficult.
Teenagers seem to require that a parent become less prone to bullshit and less rigid about the process used to get to a particular end. Kids have great bullshit meters, and a teen is likely to disregard one’s opinion if one doesn’t thoughtfully back it up and invite the teen’s opinion into the process as well. The biggest success I’ve had with the UnSullen One comes as a result of me saying “I don’t care how you do it, I just care that X gets done reasonably well in a reasonable amount of time. If you need help, ask.” Instead of saying, “You must do X like this because that is theway I have always done it and I will brook no change in the process.”
For example, “I don’t care how you do it, but I’d like your room reasonably tidy so I can get from the door to the bed without stepping on something painful. I’d also like to be able to tell which clothes are dirty when I’m collecting laundry.”
Voila. The teen goes to work, and when I next look an hour later his room is spic and span, and he has found a milk crate to use as a proto laundry hamper. Since I do two or three loads a day, a milk crate is all that’s required for his room; the laundry never builds up. And the kid is grinning from ear to ear, having that wonderful feeling of having excelled at something.
Now imagine what might have happened if I’d said, “You need to clean your room and I’m going to tell you how to do it.”
Yeah. We can all tell how well that would go over.
Frequently, when I was a teenager myself, it seemed my parents were not interested in what they asked me to do. They were interested in breaking my spirit so I did it their way and thanked them for the privilege of being browbeaten and forced to do petty sh!t that didn’t matter one way or another. Despite being in Running Start and practically raising my sisters (coming home from school, doing homework, waiting for the little ones to get home, making dinner, cleaning up after dinner, asking about little people’s homework, etc., etc…) I was labeled as “lazy” because I didn’t take the recycling out through the door they wanted me to. I instead took the shorter route through another door. Ergo, I was “lazy” and “ungrateful” and deserved to be beaten.
I can only attribute my success in dealing with the UnSullen One to my memory of how downright damaging this sort of thing is and my determination to find other ways of dealing with childraising. It’s very rarely that I outright forbid something, and when I do I’m listened to because the kids trust I have a good reason for doing so. I try to be reasonable in the chores I ask the kids to do, and I further try to get out of the way and let them accomplish the chores in their own way, enthusing about results and occasionally offering feedback or advice after the enthusing as if it is an idea that has just occurred to me that I’d like their input on. As a result, the chores get done regularly because the child in question feels responsible and Like A Big Person, and if they find a more efficient way to do it they feel great and get recognized for it. They also, the little dears, try to find new ways to help around the house and go far above and beyond the chores they’re negotiated into.
Yes, I am ultra-sneaky. The thing every child wants is to please the parent and to feel like a Big Person. If I talk about what a wonderful job they’ve done finding a new way to put the dishes away that maximizes cupboard space, they tend to look for even more things to do in order to get that glow of approval. Positive reinforcement is God’s gift to parenting, IMHO.
There are probably kids this doesn’t work on, but I haven’t met them. And I’m really not breaking my arm patting myself on the back–I have tons of things I’m not as good at, as a parent. I worry constantly and try to find ways to be better. Not a day goes by that I don’t have to stop and take a deep breath and say, “I’m sorry. I was wrong. Let’s try that again and I’ll try to do better.” Which is, incidentally, something I always wanted to hear from my parents when they had made a mistake.
Too many parents, I think, get caught up in the “I am the Parent, you must OBEY!” philosophy of parenting. Yes, it is tempting sometimes to just say, “Because I say so and that’s the way it is.” Sometimes I even say that. But the root assumption that a child isn’t a human being but an object, a vessel for the parent’s ego or a possession to be moved around the gameboard of life, is a false one and creates a lot of misery, for parents and children–and for the children of the kids who become parents.
You can force a kid to obey when he’s five, because you’re physically bigger. At fifteen, though, it’s a different story. The kid will resist however he can, because he’s maturing. There is a certain amount of frustration in dealing with teens because they don’t have the breadth of life experience an adult presumably has, but down deep teens want the same thing smaller kids want. They want to feel responsible, like a Big Person, and they want to feel loved and wanted for who they are–or whoever they have decided that week to be, as part of the teen stage is trying on different personas like Imelda Marcos tries on shoes.
I suppose one never grows out of wanting the approval of the people one loves. Just look at all the talk shows.
My, that’s quite a ramble, isn’t it? I just meant to share the good news about Running Start and ended up with the philosophy of parenting. Tangent, thy name is Lili.
Yesterday, driving home from Mexican, I realized I hadn’t told the UnSullen One the most important thing. “I’m really proud of you, you know,” I say, keeping my eyes on the road.
A breath of silence. “What for?”
“For working so hard. You worked your a$$ off getting into this program, and you’ve been very responsible and adult today, making your case and getting things done. That’s what for.”
“Oh.” Dismissive tone. But when I peek out of the corner of my eye, the Teen is wearing a grin wider than the Grand Canyon is long. He looks pleased. “Thanks,” he finally says. “For helping me.”
“No problem. I am really, really proud of you.”
From the backseat, the Princess pipes up. “Are you proud of me, Mommy?”
Thankfully, I know the answer to this one. “Every day, honey. Every single day.”
“What for?” she persists.
I list the recent accomplishments of everyone in the car under 18. This takes us a while, and we get home and pull into the garage while I still enumerate the several things I’m proud of in both of them.
I shut the car off. “And you are doing so well on your math,” I finish.
“Wow,” the Princess says. “That’s a lot to be proud of. I love you, Mommy. Can I go ride my bike now?”
For some reason, the UnSullen One found this tremendously funny…
*smiles fondly* Damn kid.
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