Lessons on "Making it Right"

After being grounded to his room for two weeks, David got so mad at me for catching him doing something else he wasn't supposed to be doing in a room that he shouldn't have even been in when I came home unexpectedly during the day that we had another turbulent teenager/ whack-job parent meltdown.

"Why aren't you doing everything in your power to earn my trust?" I asked.

"Because I don't want it." He snapped back at me and turned away.

"Really? Well then what do you want?"

"To run away."

I'm not sure whether or not he thought this would cause me to drop to my knees and beg him to never leave me and offer him everything he ever wanted if he would just please stay, but that's not what he got.

"Then give me back my key. Maybe a little time in juvy is exactly what you need. If you go, leave me a note so I can call the police and they can find you a place to sleep tonight."

I came home from work an hour early to make sure he either was or wasn't at home.

He was.

When I called for him to bring the phone back downstairs, he said, "A hole got in the wall accidentally."

"How did a hole 'accidentally' get in the wall?"

"I was angry with you so I kicked the wall and it accidentally left a hole."

I thought my head was going to explode. Seriously. It's a miracle that this boy hasn't given me a stroke.

He didn't even start with "I'm sorry." He immediately tried to do what he always does, which is minimize the effect of what he's done, and distance himself from the action, even though this approach has never worked with me.

In fact, in this case, he was trying to blame me because I made him angry.

"That's not an accident. That's vandalism. It's destruction of property. MY property. It's you disrespecting me, and what is mine. What did I do that would make you so made at me that you'd start destroying my home? I didn't do anything wrong. YOU did. If you want to be mad at someone, get mad at yourself. Drop-kick your boom box. Beat yourself up. Just keep your hands off my property. Now FIX it."

He shrugged, took a deep breath, and just looked around the room.

Again, the lack of remorse on his part worries me to death.

"I can't fix it."

After a longer than usual lecture on how he needs to get some sort of control of himself, especially when he's mad at someone who didn't do anything wrong, how his disrespect for me, my family, my friends, and our property is unacceptable, and how he needs to find a way to fix that hole in the wall before dinner and doing what he should in order to fix his relationship with me, I left him in his room and called the director of a puppet show he was participating with at the church to let her know that he would not be going to practice that night, and that I wasn't sure that he would be going to the Vacation Bible Camp at all. I then informed David that he could reimburse me the money I spent for him to attend, as I wasn't going to continue throwing money into events that I keep having to pull him from because of his unacceptable behaviors. Then I asked him if he'd thought about how he was going to fix what he damaged.

Finally, he said "If I had the stuff to fix it, I would."

Fine.

The next day we went to Home Depot. With his money, I purchased the wall patch, the patching compound, and the sandpaper he'd need to get this thing fixed. Lucky for him, I still had primer and leftover paint to match his room, which I told him would have cost him an additional $40, and that if we run out, he'll have to purchase the additional primer and paint.

We got the materials home, and I showed him how the patch worked, and how to apply the compound. While it was drying, I walked him around the house to point out all the other physical damage he'd done since he's been with me that he would be repairing this week: his bathroom ceiling, a wall on the screened porch, the surface of the front porch.

It took all day to repair the hole in the wall, but in the end, he felt like he accomplished something, and I was glad that the gaping five inch hole in my house was covered.

We moved on to his bathroom, where he scraped, then sanded, then waited for me to show him how to spackle, then sanded some more, then applied two coats of primer, then sanded some more. He liked the paint that goes on purple and dries white, which was good, since it took him a couple of coats and a couple of touch-up rounds to complete the job, but the end result was a ceiling that showed no signs of damage. He felt good about his work. I felt good that the damage was repaired.

I purchased a new diving board last summer, which arrived in a large, flat, wooden crate. I had it leaning against the wall on the screened in back porch, waiting for the weekend to install it. David had commented that he could probably lift it and carry it to the platform all by himself. When I gave him the chance to back up his words, he wound up bouncing the crate off of the wall a few times, scarring the white paint and leaving black marks on what was a perfectly good wall. As part of his work detail this week, I gave him the chance to clean that up. He sanded, primed, and applied two coats of paint to that wall, and then painted the opposing wall so that they were exactly the same color. He felt good that he'd done it all by himself. I was happy that the damage he caused was repaired.

He and his friend had done some damage to the paint on the front porch while attempting to grind or ollie or bounce off of the porch on skateboards onto the sidewalk. I handed him a paint scraper so he could chisel up the chips, which took a few hours, then he sanded the entire porch until it was smooth (which took another couple of hours), then masked, laid down two coats of primer, and finished with an even coat of paint.

A few days earlier, as part of this grounding, I'd given him the assignment of listing of all the things he's lost as a result of his behaviors since he's lived with me. Money, privileges, school trips, gifts, extra-curricular and after school activities... everything. I had glanced at the list, and told him that there was so much more he hadn't listed, a lot of which would be impossible to get back.

He listed things like "a good relationship with my dad," and "video games." He also acknowledged that he lost "credibility," "computer privileges," "respect," and "money."

I had him go back through his three-page list of "losses" and assign each one of them with a choice or behavior that resulted in losing whatever it was he listed. Over and over again, he wrote "disobedience, defiance, disrespect, abuse of privilege, arguing, aggression."

Whether it was a privilege he lost when he was eleven, or one that he'd just lost, it was the same behaviors that did the trick. He's said in the past that he thinks I'm wrong when I point out that he's still using the same behaviors that he always has, but is choosing to use them in different situations, so I had a chance here to illustrate my point.

"I have a difficult time understanding why you think you've changed your behaviors, when the same behaviors that lost you privileges when you got here are the same ones that got you grounded two weeks ago, and the same ones that you used to kick a hole in the wall yesterday."

It wasn't a glazed look, but his face did kind of freeze a little.

To be sure that he was clear on what those words meant, I gave him a list of vocabulary words to look up and write out which included the words for those behaviors, as well as "Christian, trustworthy, character, reputation, moral, father, family, child, adopt, respect, love" and a few others. It was a fairly long assignment.

Then I asked for a list of the things his unacceptable behaviors had actually gained him, and gave him three days to work on that list, which amounted to a sentence which basically stated that aside from a few moments of enjoying what he "wants," he didn't gain anything, and had actually lost everything.

I asked him if he needed a calculator to do the math here.

He has recently become interested in financial investments, how they work, and has even gone so far as to overlook the fact that he has no idea what's in his own savings account while trying to dish out "get rich quick" advice to me... so I broke it down for him in a language he's trying to learn to speak. I told him that what he's investing his time in is actually producing a negative return, which is a loss, which means it's not a wise investment of his time.

I also took a moment to quote Forrest Gump. You can read into that what you'd like. I'm sure you know where I went.

Then we reviewed the vocabulary words. I went through each one, and we discussed the definitions word-for-word, how they were written (the definitions of the negative words even sound negative, using words like "refusal to," "unwilling," and "unwarranted," and the definitions for the positive words actually sound kinda happy), and how a big pile of words can be used to either enhance or destroy a person's character.

Afterward, we went back through them to see which words applied to his life... and which could be applied to mine.

This was even more pronounced when we got to the point where we were discussing the difference between a father and a child, where the definition of a father is one who starts a family and is considered the head of a household. The definition of a child is one who is "not experienced or knowledgeable" and is not yet an adult.

Then we compared what he had going on in his life, and what was happening in mine.

He realized we were very different. Very different. I was able to point out at this point that his behaviors cannot yield the same results that my behaviors have yielded. His behaviors will get him exactly what it got the people he learned them from. They lost everything, too. Including him.

And we talked a lot about respect. I asked him if there was actually someone, or something for which he actually had any respect. He responded with "Father Jimmy," then fell silent.

I gave him a couple more minutes, thinking he was just getting started. But no, that was it.

"In your whole life, the only person or thing you respect is our priest?"

"Well, I would say you, but you'd just say I was lying."

"Only because I have three pages you've written stating that you've disrespected me through your actions and behaviors for over four years. Respect isn't something you say you do. Respect is something you show, and you've already admitted to how little respect you've shown me. You can say whatever you want, but where's your proof?"

So we sat in silence for a few very long minutes. He had no proof to share with me, so I decided to wrap this up.

I told him that he's lost more because of his behaviors in four years than I've lost due to mine in my entire life. We're nearly five years into this, and the years to work on creating some memories that he might want to look back on and smile are about to run out.

As we got up to walk back into the house, he held the door for me.

I know, baby steps. I'll take what I can get.