Parenting a teenager is kicking my butt.
The good news is that my now 15-year-old son has made enormous cognitive leaps in the past three years, and recent testing gives us a peek into his brain that we haven’t had before. He’s been in Special Ed. for three years, but is now essentially at grade level, and the person who conducted his testing has never seen progress like his before. It was she who said, “Maybe all that cognitive development work you’ve been doing actually helped.” By that, she meant Fast ForWord, which, through “games,” strengthens the cognitive weaknesses that make reading difficult.
The bad news is that my son’s behavior in school has him in danger of being suspended because he is so disruptive and disengaged. That behavior is going to keep him in Special Ed. As is the case with many teens, my son has developed an “allergy” to me and tunes out everything I say, which effectively closes the window of opportunity I had for influencing his development through nurture. At this point nature has the upper hand.
I have turned over stone after stone and done everything I know to do for my son, and feeling discouraged, recently told a friend (who happens to be a neuroscientist), “I wonder how much of this challenge is accepting my son the way he is. I keep trying to ‘fix’ him.”
He said, “So here’s the glorious opportunity that kids provide us: lots of practice by what they say and do in not letting our own adrenals be the boss of us. Remember the old Pink Panther movies? Inspector Clouseau had this manservant, Kato, whose primary job was to try to catch him off guard with a surprise attack. Your son is your Kato, inviting you to become more skilled in the game of mastering your own neurophysiology and escaping from Adrenal Hell.”
He’s right. Not only do I need to view the dynamic between myself and my son differently, I owe every mother I’ve ever judged an apology. I radically overestimated the amount of influence one can have over one’s children.
Though I did everything I could to establish a solid foundation that my son could eventually build a life on, the “house” he builds on that foundation is up to him. Now my task is to let go of the illusion that I have control over this outcome, hope my best was good enough, and comfort myself with stories of what men I respect today did when THEY were teens–including my dear neuroscientist. It is truly a wonder that our species survived.
Oh, and from now on, I’m calling my son Kato.
Finding my way home 