Fate has been testing my resiliance since I stopped smoking in several ways, but funnily enough every stressful situation seems to involve Gadgeteen, so I guess it's not fate really.
The most recent test was during this last weekend.
Gteen had promised to collect Gadgetgirlie from school on Friday because they both finished earlier than usual for the last day of term. To cut an even longer story short - He didn't. Gadgeteen wasn't even answering his mobile or texts and I didn't have a clue where he was.
This was the Friday of the torrential rainfall in our area and the subsequent flooding to all the underpasses on the A3, which naturally resulted in the A3 being closed in both directions. I use the A3 to get home, and the journey usually takes me about 15 minutes from work.
So I had Gadgetgirlie stuck in an empty school with the last of the school staff still there finishing off bits and pieces. My last resort to getting her collected, was calling our neighbour, but I didn't have their number so I had to get the school to ring them, their daughter being in the same class as Ggirlie. I knew they wouldn't be best pleased as they had already collected their daughter and deliberately left Ggirlie because they knew the Gteen was collecting her.....Still, nothing else could be done until I got home....
My journey then took an hour and a half of driving slowly in the general direction of home, along the detour that everyone else was on. Aaaaaaah!
....I rushed over to our neighbour as soon as I arrived, only to be greeted by a very angry neighbour, who had a good old go at me for having to go back up to the school to collect Ggirlie. He went on to tell me that five minutes before the school had called him, he had received a call from his brother saying that his neice had just been involved in a car accident whilst crossing the road, and had broken her leg quite badly. He was cross and stressed, and worried that he might need to go and look after his other neices and nephews.
I felt so humiliated and ashamed at being told off and having a son that had let the side down like that. I collected Ggirlie and came home very cross and upset with Gteen.
The neighbour said that he had even seen Gteen at lunchtime, and it was obvious by the dirty crockery, that he had eaten lunch at home so I knew that he had deliberately gone somewhere and purposely switched off his phone.
Grrrr! I really wanted a cigarette many times that evening I can tell you but somehow resisted.
Through a friend, (Lala actually), whose number Gteen wouldn't know, we eventually found out that he was okay and somewhere warm and dry, then he hung up on her.
Saturday was Gman's parent's golden wedding anniversary and they had a huge party organised for family and close friends, to celebrate their 50 years of marriage. We were all expected to be there of course.
Gteen didn't get home before we left, so we decided to lock the house up really securely so that he wouldn't be able to get in if he did return during the day.
At the party everyone asked where Gteen was and all we could tell them was that he had done a runner and we didn't know where he was. We had a lovely day and the rain stayed away for most of the afternoon. We got back home well after dark to discover no Gteen, but signs that he had been sitting in the porch for a time. He eventually came in about an hour later. He disappeared up to bed straight away and we decided to deal with him in the morning.
Lala was 14 only 8 years ago and was a bit of a rebel herself. She was great on Friday evening, calming me down from my extremely angry state and offering her two cents worth of advice, which was a much calmer response than the way I felt like dealing with him.
We've dealt him a few consequences and banned him from a few things and told him that if he wants to live with us then he needs to follow the house rules that we all live by. If he wants to do something like that again then he can go and live somewhere else. If he thinks that he can do better with his friends then with us at home then don't bother coming back. Hope that he will take what we say seriously and realise that we love him and care for him and are the better option for his well being.
Monday, July 23, 2007
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8 comments:
Oh boy. We know how dad would have dealt with that .... never worked with you though! We seem to be lacking effective means to enforce limits.
So glad I'm not a dad .... I don't think?
It sounds so familiar Blonde. No easier for that I know, but families are going through this all over the country. Including the Townhouse.
He went off again yesterday and agin, wouldn't answer or return our calls.
So today we have had to stand by our consequence for this kind of behaviour and lack of respect for us and there is a bag and a note on the doorstep for him to go away and think about!
Oh, and meredic - so what does She of the townhouse resort to?
My commiserations to her.....
Dont let him move out because once he goes it becomes all the harder to bring him around. Once you have lost touch communication becomes that much harder. Keep talking to him and just try and hang on in there. Try and negotiate some sort of "compromise" that lets him have his freedom but he still has his base with you. Eventually he will come round and see that he is being unreasonable.
Anonymous - yes, you're right, I won't kick him out, I was advised to do that by a friend who hasn't got kids and only knew what worked for her when she was that age and was a rebel that went where and when she wanted to.
As another friend said to me this morning.....deep down he is a decent lad, with a good solid core that he doesn't see because of all the grit and dirt of teenage emotions sticking to it at the moment.......
We had problems with ours like that. We eventually did kick him out, and he wandered between friends. It was much less stressful on all of us.
Now, many years later, he turned out OK but at the time we were at wit's end with him, and had absolutely no idea what to do.
:-) Couldn't resist posting on this one. Lala sent me the link (I'm her long suffering Mum!). Please try not to worry too much about this, they do grow up and turn into terrific human beings eventually.......
Lala was picked up by the same ambulance crew twice or three times (not saying what for she will tell you herself) and was also on first name terms with the local law (now that is a laugh!)
One thing you can say is life is never dull!!!
Please don't despair over your little rebels - they will be great in a couple of years, or three, or four....:-)
Sends a hug to The Blonde for being a great Mum!!!!!
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