Family - My Warrior Mom Life

The Sleep In and No Talk Zone

As this saga continues, I want to share that this blog will be part of the Ultimate Blog Challenge and that it is my intention to blog everyday during the month of October. At least that is my goal. Our story will move along much quicker and I hope you will post comments when something moves you.

Life with a fifteen year old can be up and down to say the least. Teens have biological needs to sleep more and most will also begin to stay up later and later into the night. That was certainly true in our house this past year.

Freshman year in high school for my son was becoming more and more miserable. No school work was getting done, at least not at home and reports from teachers said that he was always tired at school. He would often put his head down on the desk and zone out while in class. He told his teachers he had trouble sleeping at night. I told the teachers it was because he was gaming and on his phone “Snapchatting” most of the night. He refused to use the family charger and get that “thing” out of his bedroom to be able to get proper rest. But NO GO!

So instead of repeating idle threats, we took action to get his attention! We took his computer out of his room and out of the house. Boy did that shake things up! He came home and went ballistic! He turned over chairs, put more holes in the walls of his room, yelled and basically threw a tantrum just like a toddler would. Only he was much bigger and stronger. Funny how much the teen years resemble toddlerhood! Or truthfully, not so funny!

The timing of the computer removal was at the beginning of Mid Winter recess also known as Ski Week in our area. We had planned a family trip down the state to visit some of our family, his aunt and uncle and cousins. He said, “No!” and wouldn’t get out of bed. He also said that he was sick and honestly I didn’t believe him, but in fact he did have a low grade temperature and sore throat as we later discovered.

We tried and tried to get on the road and at then realized we were not going to be going anywhere. He was controlling our house and it felt like we were helpless. It was his way of telling us that he was mad that we took his computer away. We stood firm. He stayed in bed. By the time school was back in session the following week, he was still in bed and by now not speaking to us at all.

The silence was “deafening” as they say. “Would you like something for lunch?” I’d ask. No reply. “Are you going to take a shower today?” was another line from me, but no response. NOTHING. It was becoming a huge stand-off. At least it was a peaceful protest, but difficult for me to swallow, none the less.

If only he could use that determination towards a positive goal or school work. It was an amazing thing to witness. No talking, at all! For over a week. Until……….(check back tomorrow to see what broke the silence spell!)

Until then, I remain a CALM:
WARRIOR MOM

The Summer of Nothing

Summer of Nothing

With the day to day exhaustion of 7th grade over, we headed into the Summer before 8th grade feeling guarded and still on alert. Clearly our son was unhappy, but as vacation took hold, things chilled a bit and the Summer of Nothing began.

What does that mean? Easy, he went to no camps (except for one week of house boating with a youth group), had no real plans, did lots of sleeping, played lots of video games, used his phone for hours and did lots of nothing. We went from a regular schedule of trying to get our son to school on time everyday to one that included no schedule at all. It was opposite ends of the spectrum for sure! I’m sure that sounds relaxing to some, but not ideal for a soon to be fourteen year old who should be kept busy.

It doesn’t mean that we didn’t try to make suggestions for a more productive use of his time. We did manage to take some short trips and to try all sorts of ways connect with our teen. It just seemed to be futile, with less conversation, less engagement, more seclusion and more silence from him. It was a terrible feeling in a household that once had vitality and energy. As normally positive people it started to wear us down.

I tried to keep the conversation going, but all we got were one word answers and grunts most of the time. As I shared our situation with other parents and friends, their comments included: “This too shall pass”, which happens to be my least favorite line of all time. What we were going through felt that we didn’t have time to wait for it to pass, but what could we do? So we just kept trying our best to make it work.

Our therapist suggested that we get to know all the families of our son’s friends, so we did. We invited them to join us for get togethers, hikes and meals. The parents commiserated about their kids behaving in similar ways. We got to know all the kids in the new friend group. Our gut feelings told us that some of these friends were negative influences, and a very few were what I call the “good ones”. We tried the old adage, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”.

No matter what we did and what we tried, the Summer of Nothing continued until the end of August. Thankfully then our last year of middle school began. Maybe, just maybe, new and positive patterns would develop with some maturity. Instead, we got back on the wild roller coaster of school again. Assignments were given, no home work was turned in. Emails and phone calls were exchanged with teachers and administrators. We were able to finally relax when they told us our son would indeed graduate from 8th grade because they socially promoted students, so he would have to move on to high school for their own needs. The middle school did not want fifteen year old 8th graders in their system.

We were very disappointed with the lack of help he received from the school, even though our son had an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) in place since 3rd grade. Some teachers cared, others didn’t know what to do. Well, we didn’t either. We asked for guidance but in a public school system their hands are tied and we felt like they dropped the ball big time.

iPads

And to top it all off, ALL the 8th graders were given iPads for the year to take home and use everyday for school work. Isn’t that giving kids a mixed message about electronics? Stay off your phone, but the school iPad is okay? No “games” were allowed, but frankly the students were more savvy than the teachers, so who really knows what was going on? The school’s defense was that they had the right to check any iPad whenever they wanted, to make sure things were safe for all.

I bought insurance for the iPad since I wasn’t sure it would make it a whole year without a crack on the screen. (And believe it or not, it was turned in fine condition!) What work my son was actually doing on it for school was questionable. But at least for my son, the playing field was leveled to a certain degree since he was good with electronics. My biggest question has since become, but at what cost does keeping up with technology have on some students who truly can not self regulate and know when to put it down? Perhaps it was causing a dependency that we all would later regret.

We did survive our Summer of Nothing and our son’s 8th grade year, barely. He did indeed move onto public high school and keep the same friends. But the challenges that were ahead of us turned into something we never expected. Come back to keep following our story. Thanks for reading!

Staying the course,

WARRIOR MOM

13 and the Beginning of Teenage Life

Do you remember being 13? Did you look forward to becoming a teenager? Was it a good year for you? I can barely remember it myself, other than playing sports and becoming interested in photography. However, I do very vividly remember the summer my son turned 13, just before entering 7th grade. That year turned out to be doozy and “the wheels on the bus began to wobble”, as they say.

The public middle school warned us parents that our kid’s friend groups may change and that their interests may change as well, but that didn’t prepare us for what actually happened in our house. Maybe other signs were showing up too, but one particular moment stands our clearly. It was Super Bowl Sunday and of course we were getting ready to watch the game with some friends. But not our son, he hates football. He was going to meet up with some friends and left on his skateboard. Soon after, I went into his bedroom for some random reason and was shocked at what I found. It was a bag of marijuana on the floor. I opened it and sniffed. Full disclosure, I never smoked pot, but had some brothers who did, and I immediately felt let down. “Really?” Oddly enough, those brothers have kids that are clean cut, so why did I have to deal with this? It was a pretty big bag of weed. This can’t really be happening is what I thought to myself.

Weed

I was quite shaken up but didn’t want to share this info with our guests. I hid the bag in my sock drawer. I decided NOT to let my son know what I found. After all, he wouldn’t dare ask me if I knew where he lost his “weed”! I began to open my eyes and see what other signs and evidence was lying around. I found lighters, wrapping papers, open packaging from eBay orders with suspicious return addresses like stoner.com. It was becoming quite clear that his illegal pot activity was growing.

I was called by the school one day and was told that my son’s name was being mentioned for a possible drug deal that was going down outside the local Starbucks. I intervened and questioned his friends, who all looked scared to death. But not my son. He just blankly denied it. More evidence would show up and I began searching his room when he left for school. It felt awful, but my detective work became a regular duty of mine. I’d find something, I’d dispose of it. He became more clever, I had to dig deeper. This silent game went on for the rest of the school year.

I brought up the subject of drug use with him and the research that showed the damage it had on the teenage brain and yet, there was more denial. Hold off for as long as possible is the advice from professionals, but Mr. Know-it-all didn’t think it applied to him. I have since learned that his use was about twice a month in 7th grade, twice a week in 8th grade and every day in 9th. Who says it’s not habit forming? My son had a problem and we as a family were suffering. To top it off, his phone use was getting out of control and he stopped putting it on the family charger at night. He held onto it 24/7 and simply became defiant.

He also had trouble in school in part due to learning issues that were finally diagnosed as ADHD and so meds were prescribed. His mood became sullen and his communication was distant. We sought help from professionals but they didn’t get very far with him. So we continued to seek help for ourselves. I noticed tiny spots of blood on his bed sheets. Those were signs of “cutting” and he hid it by wearing long sleeves all the time, no matter what the temperature was outside. And then near the end of school year, his counselor called me to say they received an anonymous message that my son was talking about suicide. “The wheels on the bus were barely hanging on.”

Ending this post with a cliff hanger…..more next time. Thanks for reading.

Keeping the faith…..
WARRIOR MOM

Wheels on the bus were falling off

In the Beginning….

My son grew up in the Digital Age. He knows more about technology than his teachers and his parents.

He used my computer to play Minecraft when he was 10. He could spend hours building Minecraft things and showed others how to play. And then when I could never get online to check my email, we broke down and got him a computer, so he could “do his schoolwork” and get off of my computer. That would have been fine, except for the fact that he never did any schoolwork with it. FIRST FATAL FLAW!

As time went on, he took my old iPhones and used them as iPods for music and silly games like Doodle Jump. That seemed harmless enough, except that he found that he could get a FREE phone number on Google and set the old phone up as HIS phone using a Google number. Without really understanding what he was up to, he had his first phone, as long as he was connected to the internet. Remember he was only 10. SECOND FATAL FLAW!

He spent more and more time connected to this device. In fact he rotated between two old phones, so that one would always be charged. I didn’t really give it a second thought. I believed that he would know when to stop. And that he would be able to control himself if he was tired or hungry. That was not the case at all. THIRD FATAL FLAW! What was I thinking?

Now before you rush to judgement, I was a super fan of all things APPLE. I stood in line for the latest releases. I had many subscriptions to Mac magazines. I loved this stuff. So if my son took a fancy to it, that was good, right? NOT EXACTLY. He was a child with a device. I didn’t get my first phone until well past the age of 35 and actually used pen and paper to write in school. I was really spoiled when I received an electric typewriter for my High School graduation gift. My brain was already developed. Many folks were jumping on board to the latest in technology. What could go wrong?

The pressure was mounting as fifth grade ended. I had many conversations with moms and dads about giving our kids phones as they graduated from Elementary School. There were two camps: the ones who did and those who said NO WAY. Where do you think I was? That’s right. My son got a phone. But it wasn’t new, it was last year’s model. And guess what? he cried when he got it! What? That’s right, some of his classmates received brand new, latest model iPhones and he was not in that group. Peer pressure is the pits for all concerned.

What did we do to make it up to him? We bought him a Wii game. Most of his friends already had one of those and at least with Wii, one could be physical and move around with the sporting games especially. Well the Wii lasted a while: Lego Star Wars games, Wii golf and Wii skiing were fun. We were happy that we held our ground: last year’s iPhone and this year’s Wii. But NO XBOX…….

Stay tuned to what happened next in my next blog post. This story is just setting the scene for what’s to come. It may sound familiar to some of you. Don’t forget to bookmark and thanks for reading.

WARRIOR MOM