I need to correct something.
It reads like I'm apologizing to my kid for the fact I took away her phone, or even apologized for breaking it. There has been no such apology and there will be none.
Instead, it goes like this:
Eldest:
If I don't get my phone back then I'm not going to learn to drive because I'm not going to drive without a phone.
Me:
Me:
I'm sorry you feel that way.
Eldest:
I'm feeling really depressed and I need to talk to someone.
Me:
I'm sorry you're depressed. You should use the house phone.
Eldest:
If I don't get my phone back then I've got nothing to work for in school and I'm just going to fail.
Me:
I'm sorry for you. That'll suck because then you won't get your social life back either.
This is a script I worked out with her psychologist. The choices are all hers ... make bad choices and suffer; make good choices and life is normal. My role is to define the goal and provide the incentive. The choices are all hers and I have to be willing to live with whatever she decides. No skin off my nose! Or at least that's the impression I have to leave her with.
My responses are all like I'm responding to a three-year-old; 3-y-o says, "I hate you"; you say, "That's too bad because I love you." Three-y-o threatens, "I'm going to break this toy"; you say, "I'm sorry, honey, it will be too bad when you don't have that toy." I'm just busy picturing her as an irate pre-schooler and ignoring the allegedly-logic-capable teen-sized person in my face.
That image works REALLY, REALLY well.
So while I'll be greatly disappointed if she wastes the brain she's got, it's her life and she has to make the choice to succeed. I cannot make her succeed. On the flip side of the coin--I will not let her flunk. Therefore, the goal is staying off academic probation. If she slips into probation, like now, then she's lost her social
life and her texting. If she gets off probation, then she gets back her social life and her texting. (Maybe...maybe not...I'm still making up my mind on when the texting comes back).That's Sigmund Freud's house in London.
7 comments:
can you get a phone that isn't capable of texting anymore? Maybe a prepaid phone...something very uncool.
then again, the Palm Pre is on the Now Network. She should have that. a Now Network, that is.
this is shaping up to be one really long summer for her. who cuts your grass?
I can only imagine the scope of what you're dealing with with Eldest and how frustrating it must be, but I must say I respect and admire what you're doing in responding to her and the actions you're taking, and wish you well as you go through this.
I'm curious to see how the phone issue works itself out. I would have gone out an gotten hammered, too! I don't blame you!
Question -- and I've never met Eldest so I'm only guessing here...
My mom and I had similar go-arounds when I was in high school. Often, there was some underlying boy issue that my mom was unaware of -- it had nothing to do with schoolwork or phones or whatever.
Has Sasquatch been in the picture a lot lately?
Also, how is Youngest holding up through all of this?
Like I said, only wondering.
Hope things improve.
I echo FADKOG - I really admire the stance you have taken. I hope for everyone's sake it works out sooner then later.
My sister, who is a child-development GENIUS, calls these "natural consequences." We use those all the time.
I am sending my children to live with my sister when they get to be teenagers.
Well, this settles it. The Tonklings are headed to a Swiss boarding school the second they hit middle school.
I read your conversation (and, btw, I totally knew you weren't actually apologizing) and though, "Hmm...I'm pretty sure I have those conversations with JP and SG on a daily basis."
She's a stubborn little thing but I have to believe, tenacious as she is, she's going to pull her head out of her ass and get it together if for nothing else than to prove you wrong (or, at least that will be her thought process).
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