I got an email this morning and decided that I would blog the gist of the email and then my response, in case there are those of you out there sharing the concerns of the person who emailed me.
She is concerned that we are not handling the situation with Mike in the right manner, and I understand her concern and appreciate her willingness to let me know. She says that she would completely ground him, take away all privileges, etc. in order to keep him safe. He can’t handle making adult decisions, so he shouldn’t be treated like he can. Her email makes complete sense, and oh how I wish we could do that. But....
Anyway, here’s my response.
Thanks for your opinion. I totally agree with you. EXCEPT that we've parented him this way and it does not work. At all.
If we restrict him, instead of letting him make his own decisions, he runs. When he was 13, 14, 15, even 16 we did it anyway, because we didn't want to send the message to our other kids that you can get away with breaking the rules. But with him, when we take away his privileges he starts to feel super desperate. If we say, "Those aren't good friends to hang out with" that is the ONLY people he spends time with.
Yesterday, we reacted with a "wow, those were a lot of pretty serious consequences for a stupid choice." I told him we would need to talk about his decisions at some point, but that he was 17. Last night he was with the kid for an hour or so, and then he came home. He spent the rest of the night at home with the family.
Historically, i would have done exactly what you told me I should do. I would have grounded him, taken away the phone, etc. He would have sulked a little, but because he is so defiant and so impulsive, he would formulate a plan to get what he wanted. He would have snuck out of the house to find this dumb kid and hang out with him. Then he would have realized at some point that night, that he was going to be in more trouble if he came home. So he wouldn't come home. For a day, or two, or a week.
When he finally came home, we would talk to him, remind him he was grounded, even give him more consequences, and then within hours (sometimes minutes) he'd be gone again.
We've made it clear that this time he is forfeiting his future if he starts up with this crap. We aren't going to pay for college courses, or a driver's license, or any of that junk if he is going to head down the wrong path. But if he wants to do it, we know we can't stop him... we've tried that for yeas and it's never worked.
Grant it, I would love to be able to do what you are suggesting. But it has NEVER ever worked with him... it always begins a downward spiral. This time, he still may end up starting his spiral, but it will be with him making his own choices, not with us making them for him.
I wish that I could make this make sense to anyone, but the combination of diagnosis make it nearly impossible for him to be parented in any kind of manner that we're accustomed to. In his sake, he is really safer if we allow him to make the wrong decisions than to try to force him to make the right ones, because when we do that, he proves to us by making the worst possible decisions, that he is his own person.
Thanks being concerned about him and offering your suggestions. I hope this explanation helps you understand a little better where we are and where we have been.
8 comments:
This is just what the book I told you about advocates. No more consequencing or attempts at controlling a kid's behavior. www.beyondconsequences.com It doesn't "feel" right not to consequence to me either, but it sure seems to work better with our 5 year old. I really don't know if I would be able to be as non-consequencing with a teenager, though. This is a hard enough change for me!!
Linda
By being sympathetic and not adding any artifical consequences/punishments you are telling Mike, "You are smart enough to learn from this." The only thing he has to think about are his own actions and natural, dangerous, unpleasant result of those actions.
Adding an artificial consequence on top of it tells him that he is not smart enough to figure this out on his own, and gives him something other than his own actions to think about. What would have been "I took all these pills and nearly died and had to go to the hospital. It was awful; I'm not doing that again." becomes "I made one little mistake and my parents went crazy and started treating like a little kid. They are horrible people."
Regardless of the child's age or abilities, when there are strong natural consequences to their actions, our punishment only get's in the way of God's lesson.
"We aren't going to pay for college courses, or a driver's license, or any of that junk if he is going to head down the wrong path."
That IS a form a grounding; a natural consequence...and he won't like it, but he was clearly informed of this.
Consequences work.
Ummm, let me rephrase that: Consequences work when they work. :-) When you have years of experience to prove that consequences such as grounding don't work, though, then it's time to try something else. Definition of insanity: Doing the same thing again and again and hoping for different results.
In addition, at some point, children become legal adults. It is a good idea to have relaxed the leash a bit before that happens.
You can't MAKE a kid do something he doesn't want to do (or not do something he wants to do).You can't force them into good behavior or good choices.
Not to mention that sometimes the "quiet voice" of letting the "natural consequences" speak is a whole lot louder and more efective than a parent's lecture. Beth said it well. (I need to remember that more often myself. :-( )
Ah yes... Consequencing did/does work with my 10 bio kids and three of my adopted. But my 5 year old RAD kid... that is another story. Don't get me wrong, I fully believe in letting the natural consequences fall. Everyone should learn early on that certain behaviors are gonna incur certain results. But consequencing this little girl just led us on a downward spiral of her behaviors escalating with every consequence I gave. The jury is still out on whether this non-consequence will work in the long run, and like I say, I don't have any idea if I would have the courage to try it with a teenager.... but so far so good with an attachment disordered 5 year old!
Mike is old enough that you can't ground him anymore. He's nearly an adult, and needs to learn that his screw-ups will hurt, not because you will punish him, but because the world has sharp edges and doesn't coddle anybody.
It's hard to stand by and watch a kid fall on his face, but you have to do it anyway. Ignore your e-mail critic. Until she walks a mile in your shoes, she'll never know what you are talking about.
Consequences rarely work with kids who have FASD. To make a consequence effective it means that
1) they need to understand the connection between what they did and the consequence
2) they need to be able to generalize their learning (If I get a speeding ticket I learn from it and apply that knowledge every time I drive from that point on- but a person with FASD might only make the connection in the same car and on the same road as the one he was driving on when he got the ticket)
3) they need to be able to remember what they did, remember the consequence, remember how the consequence affected them, apply that knowledge to future behavior, etc...
FASD is permanent brain damage that often affects the frontal lobe of the brain (decision making, impulse control, understanding abstract thought and cause & effect, etc..)and several brain areas involved in memory- especially short term memory. Consequences do not fix brain damage.
i appreciate this post because it helps to understand mike and your reasoning for this most recent 'bringing home' and how youve reacted so far. much respect and admiration for going against your gut instinct and other's pressure as to what you 'should' do with him. kudos for realizing what wasnt working and therefore trying a different approach.
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