From: jareed@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Judith Ann Reed)
Newsgroups: alt.parents-teens
Subject: Re: ReAlright Judith!!!
Keywords: Should I let her use the car
Date: 5 Oct 92 17:13:56 GMT
Organization: Syracuse University

In article <1992Oct3.022626.20752@StarConn.com> alan@StarConn.com (Alan Deikman) writes:
>>
>>*p.s. - so far, so good this school year. She hasn't skipped any classes this
>>*year,
>
>How is your relationship with her?  Have any good talks recently?  How
>was this brought about?
>

 I'm not sure I can say with any certainty. I think some of it was maturing,
 some was hindsight, some was our efforts.

 For those who just tuned in, last year we found out in April, by accident,
 that our 14yo 9th grader had been skipping major amounts of school (3-8
 classes a day) most of the year. We talked, harangued, pressured, nothing
 changed. I came home one day and confronted her, slapped her (no flames,
 please - I am only human) and things turned violent. I called the police,
 she ran away, I had her declared a "Person In Need Of Supervision" thru
 the probation dept.. Tried to get her home, she refused to come to her
 senses, eventually came to uneasy truce. We had a probation officer thru
 the summer, met with him several times and eventually all involved came to
 where we were at an impasse - we wanted her out of the city school she's
 in, she wanted to stay, no one was budging, looked like another confrontation
 coming in the fall. Probation office suggested negotiating a contract thru
 a conflict resolution service, regarding our terms for allowing her to 
 stay in city school, vs. our right to pull her out into our choice of 
 schools if she violated those terms. We did this - another nasty session, 
 but at least all involved understood what was expected.. During this time we
 were doing family counseling, had been since early spring, no great 
 breakthroughs here, but an ongoing effort. 

 So - what happened? I think part of the problem was that the "skipping" 
 situation was so far gone that Tanya felt it was hopeless - she was behind
 in every subject, and didn't believe she could ever catch up, so why try?
 We met with teachers several times, and they tried to encourage her to 
 make the effort, she could catch up, but she didn't believe them. However,
 she did put in about a week's worth of effort at the end of the year, and
 managed to slide by on a minimum of 65 in all subjects, only failing the
 earth science regent. At the time I wished she'd failed, but in retrospect,
 maybe this was a face-saver for her, that allowed her to look forward with
 optimism to a new year. 

 I think the contract was a good thing. It forced us both to sit face to face
 and negotiate what was acceptable, in a neutral environment. I think the 
 neutral env. was critical, because there were times when we both were ready
 to walk out or throttle the other, but the presence of a neutral negotiator
 restrained us, forced us to continue. The ensuing document truly is a 
 compromise, with certain numbers of skips allowable per week, certain numbers
 of getting kicked out of class per month, etc. I think that the fact that 
 she doesn't have to be "perfect" may help her feel she can stick to it. 

 I think that she felt like she was really getting the pressure turned on her,
 and was glad that she could find a way to bring it back to the family, away
 from the court system. I don't think, however, that there was any way we could
 have recovered before the end of the school year. Having the summer to 
 reassess things and gain optimism was important. I think she has matured
 because she's getting older, and from the experience. I think we've learned
 some things about consistency of discipline from our counseling. One of the
 most interesting things we learned of late was a session where she kept saying
 she "didn't want us to worry about her", and so the counselor told us not
 to worry about her at all. When she had a problem, it was her problem because
 we were not worrying about her, she didn't want us to. It took a while, but
 eventually she realized there are times when you really do want some of the
 benefits that a family can provide, that she had rejected by not having us
 "worry about her", or take some role in her life. She wants so badly to
 be completely independent that she was not willing to admit that there was
 a place for a family in her life. 

 We continued to try to trust her, and to allow her to do whatever was 
 reasonable, and yes, we have had some more good talking time. Some of it 
 seems to be just getting past the stage of where she hid in her room all
 the time, to where she'll spend long enough with the family to interact a
 bit. I think it helped to take the T.V. out of her room!!!! She had an old
 black and white tv there, and spent a lot of time watching it. We decided
 it was younger sister's turn to have it in her room (sister doesn't hardly
 use it, thought) and moved it, and since then she's started coming down
 to join us in the living room occasionally. I think that may be a big 
 factor, actually, in retrospect, and will remove the tv from sister's 
 room before she gets to that age. 

 Well. I am still apprehensive, but am hopeful too. It's still early in
 the year, but I hope she learned something from last year's experiences.
 We have'nt succeeded in getting her away from her peer group that she got
 in trouble with last year, but we did have several discussions about their
 affect and how she was going to deal with it, during counseling, and she
 has indicated she is trying to associate with kids who behave in a more
 positive manner. One nice thing is that she has started talking about
 her boyfriends to me - makes me feel closer to her, more hopeful. 

 Wish us luck, and I wish luck to all other beleagured parents out there!!!!!

 Judith Reed
 judith@suhep.phy.syr.edu
From: karlf@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com (Karl Fengler)
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 19:15:43 GMT
Subject: QUIET?...advice with kids...
Organization: Hewlett Packard - Boise, ID