Kids, age, and freedom

I recently read an essay by America's Worst Mom, Lenore Skenazy. She earned this dubious title by allowing her nine year old son to ride the subway home in NYC by himself.

Before I read the details, I too was ready to dub her an unfit parent. What was she thinking? Allowing a nine year old to navigate New York City and its public transportation system by himself? Then I read the details and her reasoning.

Skenazy makes some very interesting points. Crime is down relative to when I was a kid. In the 1960's I lived in Baltimore, where I rode public transportation three miles home from my first grade glass, admittedly with a group of other kids - but none of them was older than 10. Do we really think the streets are more dangerous now than they were then?

More importantly, how can we expect our children to grow into independent adults if we don't let the leash out a bit. How old IS old enough to maneuver a city's public transportation system to get home? Ultimately, the answer to that question is: When your child is ready. This is exactly the point Skenazy made. She felt that her child was ready for that level of independence.

How old does your child have to be to be able to stay home by themselves for several hours after school? How old to be allowed to have a friend over when there are no supervising adults in the house? How old to drive?

That last one is an ongoing discussion in our house. My son turned 16 in April. Many of his friends immediately got the driver's licenses within a week of the celebration. We are in no hurry. Grendel is very intelligent. However, Grendel can be a real space case.

This weekend, he spent Friday night at a friend's house. We asked that he take his cell phone. We also asked for the number at the house in case he didn't answer his cell phone (a frequent occurrence when he's at other people's houses). Around lunch time on Saturday, I decided to call him to find out when he was coming home. He did not answer his cell phone. I called the (supposed) house number. It turned out that the number was for his friend's cell phone, which also went unanswered. I looked up the parents in the local phone directory and called the listed number: disconnected. I eventually sent a text message to Grendel's phone telling him to call me. He did call me about 15 minutes later.

Considering the circumstances, and his past history with unreachability and inability to return home at appointed times, I informed him that he was grounded until he obtained employment. He's been talking-the-talk about getting a job for months. We have insisted that he work or volunteer his time this summer. He accepted his grounding gracefully, fully accepting that he had screwed up in this regard again. To make sure that he came home in a timely fashion, I put consequences on levels of lateness involving his ability to attend a church activity next weekend. Again, he fully accepted the arrangement. He even showed up 10 minutes before the first consequence would have hit.

I want Grendel to drive. I like the idea of him taking himself to activities when I don't feel like leaving the house. However, I am not willing to give him that freedom when I cannot trust that I will know where he is, be able to reach him, and be assured that he will make every effort to return home by an agreed upon time. I do not need that kind of aggravation.

There are probably plenty of nine year olds out there who are quite capable of navigating a subway system. Just like there are probably plenty of sixteen year olds out there who can remember to keep their cell phone in their pocket and make sure that they get home when they agreed they would. Every parent needs to know their child well enough to know when they are ready to attempt to take on the next level of personal responsibility for themselves. The parent also needs to appreciate their own tolerance for uncertainty.

Maybe I'm not ready for the level of uncertainty in letting Grendel drive just yet. Hopefully, soon.

And, he's off

Grendel leaves today, from school, for a five day trip to Maryland. He and his FIRST team are going to the Chesapeake Regional competition. He's been looking forward to this trip all year. I think the prospect of five days away from home with his friends was a major motivating factor in joining the FIRST team.

On Wednesday, they're going to the National Aquarium in Baltimore. He's highly amused by the fact that there is a tropical rain forest on top of the aquarium. He doesn't see the connection.

On Thursday, they'll do a lot of set up and practice matches at the Naval Academy arena. Then, on Friday and Saturday they'll compete. They'll spend all day Sunday on the road coming home.

They're supposed to spend the bus ride(s) and Wednesday evening doing homework. They're supposed to get some actual sleep in the hotel. (Grendel says he's going to try to sleep since he's actually a key part of their competition team.)

I'm sure he'll have a great time. I'm very happy for him. We'll have a nice break from each other too. (I really hope he gets his school work done... *sigh*)

A parent who doesn't understand

My son, Grendel, has fabulous grades. One B+ and the rest A's of one sort or another. However, if I dig into the guts of his grades, he regularly gets zeros on one assignment per class in a 3-4 week period. Upon further inquiry, it turns out that he doesn't get zeros on the work that he's done, he's simply failed to turn the assignments in. He can't seem to find them. He vaguely recalls doing them, or at least receiving them, but can't recall what happened to the assignments.

How can he be getting A's in all these classes while regularly missing entire assignments? (Hello, teachers???)

I know how he's losing track of them. Grendel has ADD. In the last couple of months he's missed taking his medication about a third of the time. We recently figured this out, so we're back to counting pills and severely monitoring his medication. We all let it get away from us because he was doing so well in school overall and was very busy with his FIRST Robotics team.

However, we've started putting his daily meds in one of those seven compartment M-T-W-Th-F-Sa-Su pill boxes. He needs this so he can take it on his FIRST trip to Maryland next week. He needs to stay on his meds to keep his focus for his team's competition. He knows this and is motivated to take his meds on the trip.

Powerschool, the computer system that the school uses to track student grades, was down for a couple of weeks. It just came back on line a couple of days ago. Grendel wanted to spend Friday night at a friends house. I said that I thought that it was ok, but that I needed to check Power School to give him my final answer.

Bah! He's taking six classes. In the last week, he's gotten a zero on an assignment in each of three classes. So, I called him into my office and showed him the grades. I told him 'no'. He shrugged and said 'ok'. He did not seem surprised that he was missing work in three classes.

I reminded him of the deal we made with him about the Maryland trip. The trip is costing us $250. Since he's going to be out of school for 3.5 days, he needs to make an extra effort not to miss any assignments. The deal is he is not allowed to have any zeros from 3/11 until 4/1 (one week before thru two weeks after the trip) or he has to pay us back for the cost of the trip. After I reminded him of this he stared at the ceiling thoughtfully for a moment and said, "ok" and then walked away.

I'm guessing he's figuring out how long it will take him to pay us back, at this point. *sigh*

Oh, and the biggest thing I don't grok at this point. The only class that he hasn't missed a single assignment or gotten a grade below a 95 on: English... The class he says he dislikes the most and has the most trouble with.

To quote DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, "Parents just don't understand."

Does this fit the definition of ironic?

One of the definitions of irony is "Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs".

On Sunday evenings, I drive my son to our church so he can meet with his youth group. The youth group serves two purposes. It allows like minded Unitarian Universalist teenagers to socialize, and it gives the kids the opportunity to talk (and plan to act) about social/political issues in a positive way. The group usually does some volunteer work during the year. They also talk about ways to improve the environment or further social justice causes. We love that our son is involved with these kids, and he has a lot of fun at their events.

On the flip side, I have recently gotten interested in learning how to handle a gun. This seems a bit odd, considering my generally left-wing proclivities, I know. However, I've always been interested in guns from both a self-defense and cultural perspective. This afternoon, I'm going off to actually have my first ever gun handling lesson at a local shooting range.

I've always been confused by the real definition of irony. Now, I wonder if this next bit is a good example of irony or not. Please feel free to chime in.

My son's church meeting is between 6 and 8 p.m. on Sunday evenings. The shooting range has 50% off shooting fees on Sunday's between 5 and 8 p.m. for "Ladies Night". Would it be ironic if I were to drop my son off at his church meeting so he can be a better social activist and world citizen, while I wander off to spend an hour learning how to hone my gun skills?

Just wondering. (grin)

Deer in the headlights

Last night, as I was about to fall over from exhaustion, my sister-in-law called us. She was crying and apologetic. She then told us that Grendel was on his way to the hospital in an ambulance, that he had complained of breathing problems, and then passed out for about ten minutes.

This was one of my worse nightmares. Grendel is spending the summer with relatives nearly two and a half hours away from home. I had no idea what I was supposed to feel or do. I calmly asked K, my sister-in-law, what had happened. She explained the days events, and we identified a few things that could have brought on the breathing problem (which he apparently developed nearly six hours before telling anyone about). She said that all the neighborhood kids had been thoroughly grilled within an inch of their lives regarding possible drug ingestion. All claimed that Grendel never took anything that they were aware of.

K was on her way to the hospital, after having stopped at home to get some insurance paperwork and power of attorney stuff I had provided them with. She promised to call from the hospital when she located everyone and give us an update. About half an hour later she called with an update and let me speak to Grendel.

He was relatively lucid and said that he was feeling better than before he passed out. One of the things I said to him, in my sort of autopilot parenting mode, was that he should have told someone he was having problems breathing hours before he did. We said a few more things to each other, and then he passed the phone back to K. K said that she could see that his eyes were filling up as we talked. She thought that it had been because he had been scared and was glad to hear my voice. I didn't tell her, but I guessed that he was hurt that I would pick the scariest time in his life to scold him about something.

We got off the phone after K promised to call us to let us know if they were going to admit him to the hospital or not, based on the results of his toxicology screening. She called back around 1 am and said that the tests came back clear and that they would probably be releasing him.

This morning, I dragged my exhausted butt to work. After taking care of some bare essential activities, I called where Grendel was staying. He answered the phone and sounded like himself. I apologized for scolding him last night. He chuckled and said "no worries". We talked about our theories on the cause of the problem.

Grendel is taking a mild amphetamine for ADD. Yesterday afternoon he was working with acetone to clean nail polish off a deck at his day camp. After, he had half an Amp energy drink before eating dinner. He started having problems breathing while working with the acetone. The situation got worse by the end of dinner. We think that the acetone irritated his respiratory system and that the energy drink magnified the stimulants in his ADD meds, making for a near deadly combination. This theory is based on Internet-based research conducted by my father-in-law and myself. The hospital had no theories, other than maybe he was having an anxiety attack, and that he should talk to his counselor back home about it. (WTF?!?)

If you know Grendel at all, you know that the last thing anyone would suspect of him would be an anxiety attack. He is an OVERLY laid back person. Prior to the ADD meds, it would take a large lever and a lot of verbal prodding to get him to care about much of anything. The meds get him up to the 'normal' level of teenage apathy.

Needless to say, we are extremely relieved that the situation turned out fine. Grendel is due back home for a 'visit' at the end of the week; we are a stop over for him on his way to a youth camping trip in central NH. We plan to take him out to dinner and to put forth extra effort to get along with each other. I'm sure he'll be a little smuggly spoiled by the time he returns to RI on Monday afternoon.

So, how would you do if your child were two and a half hours away and you got a call that they were being rushed to the hospital with breathing issues, and that they'd passed out for ten minutes? I hope I did ok in the great cosmic grade book on parenting.

Three shower Grendel

My very wise friend, ChangeJunkie, gave me some good advice a while back. When it comes to teenagers and hygiene, let peer pressure do the work for you.

Well, we gave up on making Grendel put actual shampoo on his hair. And, we've been somewhat lenient on the entire soap-while-showering thing. Until tonight. It's been in the nineties the last couple of days. So, needless to say, without the use of soap: Grendel stinks!

Grendel does condescend into taking two 'showers' a day. However, these activities typically involve him standing naked under a stream of warm water for five minutes (or more, if he's too lazy to move on).

Tonight, the running of water took less than three minutes. So, I insisted that he revisit the activity in such a way that his pits (which I sampled) didn't stink. When he came out smelling about the same (after the second shower), I told him that he had a choice:

1. Shower WITH SOAP


2. Bubble bath


3. Removal of his mattress from his room (sleep on the platform or the floor)

Choice #3 comes from the fact that we bought him a (somewhat) pricey mattress last year. He is rather tall. So, we agreed to get him a comfy mattress in the full-extra long size. This size is an utter pain, since sheets are hard to come by and never discounted. So, I refuse to let him stink up the mattress with his cloud of stench. I informed him that if he was comfortable going to school smelling like a swamp, that was absolutely fine by me. However, I would not be allowing him in my car for any reason beyond the absolute necessary transport (like doctor and dentist appointments, and guitar lessons) unless he lost the green cloud that surrounds him. Nor would I allow him to ruin his mattress with his putrid stench.

He agreed to a third attempt at showering. He came out with his hair smelling like shampoo and his body reeking a bit less (still some B.O., but to a smaller degree). So, he got to keep his mattress, for now.

I am a VERY MEAN MOM. Truly, I have given up on caring what he looks like or smells like. However, I won't inconvenience my nose for the sake of his rebellion. And, someday, he might want to sleep on a mattress that doesn't reek of the homeless.

Note: I know that there are worse problems that one could have with one's teenager. However, I had an epiphany this evening. The Fates assess what each parent's bar is for "acceptable teenage behavior" and they make sure that each teenager comes in JUST under that particular bar. It is a spiritually growth opportunity for both the parent(s) and child, regardless of the level of the bar.

I pointed out to Goblin that we should be grateful that we are not poor-white-trash, with a much lower bar for our progeny. Otherwise, Grendel would be stealing cars and shooting up on the corner instead of refusing to use soap in the shower.

Bonding with my son

Last night was a very strange night in our household. My husband is away, and my son (Grendel) and I both had problems sleeping for some reason. Around 3 a.m., we were both up contemplating using the toilet. I came out in the hallway and noticed that his door was open. I looked around but didn't see him anywhere. I wandered into the bathroom, but decided to come close the door (just in case). And just as I reached the door, he was about to come in. We scared each other silly. I sent him to the downstairs bathroom, and closed the door.

In the morning, I felt like I'd been run over by a truck (stomach issues and general lack of sleep). He opted to sleep in an extra half hour, and skipped his regular first breakfast (a bowl of cereal ... he's been having a pack of Pop Tarts on the way out the door as a second breakfast). I opted to stay home to try to achieve the rest that I missed out on the night before. I was only very partially successful.

When Grendel got home from school, he took a nap while I went out and ran a few errands. When I got back, we watched a little television and then went to a Pampered Chef party together. At fifteen, he was the youngest guest in attendance by at least twenty years. However, he knew at least half of the adults from our church. In addition, he's really interested in cooking.

Grendel participated in the cooking demonstrations, since the demonstrator is one of his youth group advisers. Plus, Grendel is usually pretty helpful and cooperative with non-parental adults. Grendel helped convince me to make a few purchases. He asked to go home just before nine p.m., because he was tired. He was actually having a nice time talking with a couple of the other guests. He also said he wasn't too embarrassed by some of the stories I told about him. I also let him sip my Mike's Hard Lemonade, which he really enjoyed.

On the way to the party, he picked the music that we listened to in the car. On the way home, I picked it. We chatted in the car about school and such. We both had a really nice time. I hope I can hold onto this warm feeling the next time he really torques me off (say, sometime tomorrow).

Ever get tired of same s**t different day?

The title of this post can be applied to so many aspects of my life. The most irritating quarters of my existence that apply here are my chronic pain issues, my job, and parenting a teenager.

I remember watching a movie years ago where a couple was having the same argument that they'd had dozens of times. The guy looked at the woman and basically said, "Do I really need to be here for this?" I SO get that! Couldn't I just hire an android to do my walk-ons?

School would be different if I cared about it at all this week. Sadly, I've been too utterly exhausted in the evenings this week to give a rat's butt. I'm doing the required reading, but I'm barely showing up to the group discussions (which I've been a major contributor to in the past few weeks). I guess it's just my turn to check out.

I have a pretty busy weekend coming up. Saturday includes a car inspection and an acupuncture appointment. Sunday involves several back-to-back church activities. And, though Monday is a holiday, I think I will dedicate most of the day to school work or gardening. If it rains, maybe I'll play at my crafts' table. It might be the only thing to pull me out of the miserable funk that I'm in. (That, or the Lottery.)

Oh, and 'good news, bad news', my brother leaves for Paris for three years on Saturday. I'm both happy and sad for the occasion. [ and a little jealous ]

Vacation is over a month away. Lots of land mines between here and there.

A blog name, my "K"ingdom for a blog name!

Some of us try not to advertise our full identities on our blogs. In addition, we try to protect our family's privacy by not divulging too much about them, especially not their full names. So, when I refer to my husband I will usually refer to him as "B" or "my husband". And, when I refer to my son I will usually refer to him as "K" or "my son". However, my good friend Briwei has challenged me to come up with a blog name for my son. I think it is probably appropriate, since I DO seem to blog about the woes of parenting him so frequently. (grin)

So, here are some ideas I have. Let me know if there are any that you particularly like:

1. Special K


2. Kid K


3. The Kid


4. Dobbie (see previous post


5. The King


6. Albatross


7. Grendel


8. The Wall


9. My Apathetic Greasey-headed Early-Onset Alzheimer's Curmudgeon (too long, I know)


10. Borgin (the greasy-haired forgetful dark arts proprietor of Borgin and Burkes from Harry Potter)


11. ???

So, who is this "K" of which I speak?

This week was K's fifteenth birthday, as hard as that is to believe. We got him "Rock Band" for the Xbox360. His other relatives sent him some much appreciated cash. He is about to go away for the weekend with his youth group. When he gets back, we promised to take him out for a belated birthday dinner at a restaurant he has wanted to try out. Oh, and school vacation is next week as well. However, he's volunteering at the YMCA (sort of a required servitude for kids who want to get into the camp counselor program).

He's on the tennis team while trying to keep his grades at B's and better. He's also pretty into his guitar lessons. He also likes skateboarding, and has a wild affinity for the sloppy slacker clothes that skateboarders wear. He likes to waste time on the Internet (particularly chat, myspace, and facebook - though he is currently banned from chat due to some school work concerns). He has several TV shows he likes to watch, some of which we also like to watch - though he prefers to watch them without us.

He can be a pretty humorous kid at times. Though, he is also forgetful, argumentative, and sullen. I guess being a teen is tough. But, so is parenting one.

Gushing over grousing

I'm having a REALLY crappy week at work, which I may choose to grouse about later. However, I have decided to gush instead of grouse.

On the way home from work this evening, I popped in Green Day's American Idiot CD. It really is some fine work, IMO. When I got to "Holiday" I got all warm and goose pimply.

A few weeks ago, we went to an event at our church put on by my son's youth group. It was a 'coffee house' (read: dinner with amateur performances). The theme was "Harry Potter". All the youth and their advisers dressed in costume. My son was Dobbie the house elf. He wore a large pillow case with shoe lace straps. Everyone loved calling for his aid, "Oh, Dobbie!!!" To which he eagerly came running prepared to be helpful. (Note to self: Maybe if we make him wear the costume around the house he will be pleasantly helpful? Not!)

Towards the end of the evening, my son and a friend of his got up on stage to perform. He plays guitar and she plays bass, and did the vocals to the songs they performed. The first song they did was "Baby, I'm an anarchist." It was an amusing song that they did a fine job with.

Next, they did Green Day's "Holiday". Not only did they do a bang up job with the song, but other members of the youth group shouted out at all the appropriate places in the song, quite boisterously. The camaraderie among the group was amazing. I was both proud and stunned. The experience made me see that my son has a very rich life and a great group of friends that he values very much (if I threaten not to let him go to a youth group event I can't get him to do almost ANYTHING I want him to do.)

So, every time I hear "Holiday" now, it reminds me that there is hope for my son. That he has talent and goodness in him. For the length of the song, at least, I can forget what a pain it is to live with a teenager.

The latest parenting experiment

For several years before high school, K was interested in playing tennis on the high school team. He took group lessons a couple times a week. He attended a couple of summer tennis camps. He made friends with the high school tennis coach. He asked for tennis-related gifts. Then, after starting high school he lost interest. We dropped the private lessons last fall, but encouraged him to go out for the team in the spring any way.

Today, I ran into the high school tennis coach. He introduced himself and asked me why K had not come to the team's informational meeting a few days ago. I was surprised that there had been a meeting. But, I explained that K was going through a somewhat lazy phase right now. His school work is kind of erratic and he's not overly interested in anything. This is supposedly typical for high school freshmen, the coach informed me. I told him that I would talk to K about the team. He hoped that I would and said that K would probably be his strongest player if he decided to participate.

As I continued my workout, I hatched a plan that may help motivate K with his school work as well as encourage him to play tennis. In the fall, K tried to get us to agree to let him get a job. We said 'no' because we wanted him to really focus on the challenges of high school, at this point. Plus, I wanted to make sure he had the flexibility to play tennis in the spring. K is highly motivated by cash.

When I got home from the gym, I asked K why he had not gone to the informational meeting for tennis. He said that he had decided not to try out. I then told him what the coach had said about how valuable K would be to the team. He thought about it for a few minutes, and asked me when the next meeting/practice was. I told him and he said that he would go. I then made him an offer.

In that past, we have rewarded K for good report cards at the end of each quarter. Consequently, its a long time between payoffs for good effort. So, I decided to change the game a bit. If K plays on the tennis team and gets nothing worse than a C on any assignment in any given week (while maintaining an overall 'B' average) I offered him $20/week for his efforts, in addition to the $5/week base allowance he already gets. This got him VERY excited. He said that constant monetary incentive was a good motivator.

I pointed out that playing tennis would make it that much harder to maintain his grades. He concurred. I suggested that he would need to maximize the use of his free time by studying/doing homework after tennis while waiting for his ride home. He said that would work for most classes, but that he needs Internet access for his Civics class since he has to do a current events report every day. He then suggested that it would be helpful if we got a daily newspaper. Score! I liked the fact that he came up with his own reasonable solution to a challenge. So, I put in for a subscription to USA Today for the next 13 weeks, which coincides nearly directly with the end of the school year.

Wish us luck!

I am not a prude

My son got in trouble with us this evening. (Shocking, a fourteen year old who ticks off his parents!)

K must ask for Internet access since he is really good at pissing away hours when he should be doing other things (like homework or sleeping). This evening, he needed to do some research for a Civics assignment. We caught him "taking a break" playing an online game. So, I re-enabled the proxy server on my linux box and configured his browser to point to the proxy server. I then configured the proxy to block several game sites and his favorite instant messaging sites.

After he went to bed, I decided to check the logs to see if he wasted any more research time with baloney. Shockingly, he did. He ended up going to a porn/game site. Wow! The best of both worlds! Naked women and games.

Frankly, I don't care if he wants to look at naked women. I just want him to get his school work done. However, I also do not want him infecting his computer with malware. Most porn sites give your computer the gift that keeps on giving.

So, after I made my discovery, I woke the kid up. I offered to buy him all the porn magazines his hormones could possibly want. I strongly encouraged him to not surf porn sites on the Internet. I then asked him if he remembered what I do for a living. He sleepily said "computer stuff". I chuckled and responded, "Yeah, kind of." I then proceeded to point out to him that I spend a good portion of my working day dealing with the fallout on our network and computing systems from morons who thought that visiting one or two porn sites was a harmless little lunch time activity. I then re-offered to purchase him some skin magazines. He said that it wasn't necessary. I think it is. Really. I would much rather give him all sorts of naked girls to look at, so long as it doesn't make his computer dysfunctional.

Aren't I a liberal-minded mom?