Do you find yourself wondering some days: Am I nuts? Am I over reacting? Am I not being caring/strict/compassionate/etc. enough?
Oh mama, we so hear you! It is really hard under the best of circumstances these days to comprehend what reality is. And, during the transitional teen years, when their brains are literally, in reality, transforming? Toss in a pandemic? What IS reality?! THAT is the question.
Reality shifts moment by moment. Poor dears. It must be hard for them. Poor parents! For us personally it really was crazy making. He’d come down for dinner and we’d have a lovely meal, and then the next morning trying to get out of the house was like dealing with aa completely different human. And, yep, that was reality. Both.
Were we giving proper consideration to the shift in time and next place? Like that the dinner table was a familiar place and even if we were nuts, we were predictably nuts? And in the morning he was headed off to school and we really had very little real idea of what was going on there. Oh, it wasn’t that we didn’t know how he was doing-which varied by teacher and by day, and it wasn’t that we hadn’t spent plenty of time with teachers and administrators, but, what he was feeling about it? How he was being treated by kids and teachers? No real idea.
What now?
Dinner, from where we sat? Well, we probably spent half of diner trying to figure out if he was high. We don’t recommend that. You can’t be really present in the conversation if you are staring at their eyes, cursing edibles because they leave no scent and otherwise distracted by what might be. And to think, we could have been having a conversation about the previous morning, because reality those days was that most mornings were pretty much a horror show-for all concerned.
As you read the above paragraph are you thinking about having a conversation with him if he was high and how you wouldn’t want to do that? I’ve heard that from a few parents. I hear that, and I don’t know about you but I have had more than a few conversations with people who are high-on weed or wine, or just a little tipsy. Those conversations are different than if the person wasn’t under the influence, but, they still have value unless the person is clearly drunk.
What to try?
So, what could we have done differently? We could have asked open ended questions about school. And asked more. And shut up and listened. We had had some questions about things that had gone down at school that we weren’t entirely comfortable with, but, either he blew them off as not a big deal, or the school did the same, and then focused on him, his choices. Were they concerns? Probably, because I was just wrapped in “concern” by high school. I never sat down and truly pondered or discussed what those concerns were specifically. What we could have tried? Letting go of trying to figure stuff out, and just talked! We love now, and loved then, that sensitive, kind interesting kid!
And, reality? I was suffering from resisting and ignoring reality, ignoring and resisting and denying the details. I had a therapist, but she like so many others, tried to talk me down. I probably could have stood a little more self reflection, having a chat with myself? Pausing, I have come to learn, is a very good idea. Reality? You are real humans, being a teenager is real hard.
Much of our reality is our take on the current state of affairs. If you want to try to keep it real, talk to real people who have traveled the path before you. It is super great awesome to have friends going through the same thing. Really great. And, you are all in the thick of it. Remember that forest/trees thing? You can’t see the forest for all of the other parents. Reality is hard to grasp. So, here’s a thought, stop grasping. Find a real professional whom you feel comfortable with and you trust, be that a school counselor, a therapist, a local non-profit helping parents, an educational consultant or a coach. This is not us being self serving, this is us caring.
