Change ME

So, I’ve taken on a new job. It will eventually pay well, but not in money. It’s certainly a time investment, and, like all other jobs I’ve had over the years, it is starting out with me feeling not-very-competent.

It is the job of understanding my son’s special brain.

I wrote last time about Boy’s ADHD diagnosis, and the merry-go-round we’d been on until last month. How stepping off of that ride only led us to the current rollercoaster of ADHD. We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto; we’re in the land of alphabet soup: ADHD, IEPs, WISC-IV, PAI-A, and the like.
Moms, at least those of us who are inclined to, pray for grace all the time. Please, Lord, don’t let me kill this child. Or, Please let his dad come home so I don’t have to handle this alone. Or, my personal favorite: Lord, DO something with this kid, will you?

Lately, however, I’ve been reminded of the much more powerful, more effective prayer. Change me, Lord. Change ME.

Although I’m very good at it, I don’t love to yell. I don’t enjoy getting a major attitude, or giving my teenager the silent treatment, or letting him know with every stiff, jerky movement of my body just how angry I am at him for whatever he has or hasn’t done. But that has been my go-to position for so very long, I am awesome at it.

Part of my new job is to rein that in. I finally realized that I’ve been doing the same thing for fourteen years, and it hasn’t worked – and isn’t that the common definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? So I quit.

Hear that, world? I’ve given my notice. I quit being the hair-trigger bitch who snaps at the least mistake. Who fires off hurtful one-liners as if I were starring in a sitcom with a laugh track and timely commercial breaks. I’m done.

A few days ago, my son informed me at 6:00 PM that he had to write some poems for English class the following day. “How many poems,” I asked warily. “Thirteen,” he answered.

Now, understand that his computer account unlocks for his use at 7:00 PM and locks again at 9:00 PM, his bedtime. He had left himself a mere two hours to get this project done – despite the fact that he had just gotten off of April vacation during which he had insisted he had no homework. I began to steam immediately.

I unlocked the computer until midnight, knowing full well that he wouldn’t get enough sleep, that his poems would be utterly terrible, and that he’d have issues in school the following day.

Sure enough, his math teacher sent home a note saying that Boy had fallen asleep in Math class. Really. Imagine that.

That night, I sat down across from Boy, turning off the TV to get his attention, and . . . didn’t yell. Instead, in a calm and patient tone, I offered to help. “Boy,” I said, “I’d like to help you organize yourself so that you don’t have another last minute scramble like you did last night.”

“What do you mean?” he asked innocently. “My English teacher said my poems were ‘beautiful.’”

Not likely, I thought uncharitably. Aloud, I said, “But think how they might have turned out if you’d spent five days rather than five hours on them.”

He thought for a minute. “They’d be amazing,” he said quietly.

“And you might have been able to do some cool artwork to go with them,” I added. “But because you left it to the very last minute, you had to stay up way late, Daddy had to print them off early this morning, you were all stressed out with your wrinkled brow thing going on” (he laughed) “and you fell asleep in class.”

“Oh,” he said. “I guess you’re right. But I work better at the last minute.”

True, that, I thought. But I countered with, “What happens when you end up having two or three projects due around the same time? In high school, you’ll have more work, and when you get to college – well, your professors won’t know or even care what other class assignments you have. If you try to do everything at the last minute, you’ll run out of ‘last minutes’ and not be able to get everything done.”

You could almost see the light bulb go on above his head.

“So, I’d like to help you organize your time and your assignments so you don’t have to struggle like this again, okay?”

And, so, did it work? Depends on what your measure of success is. Do I expect him to be Mr. Super Organized all of a sudden from that one conversation? Of course not. The kid has ADHD, remember? It's going to take a lot of work to train his brain to get from point A to point C without a detour to Outer Mongolia in between. But I got buy-in from him to at least let me try to show him a better way.

But that’s not the success of the story. Remember, I prayed for ME to be changed. And for the first time, a botched assignment didn’t turn into a why do you leave everything to the last minute, haven’t I told you before, blah-blah-blah blame fest. Rather, I took a major step toward understanding Boy’s brain, and in return, he took a major step in understanding mine. And we ended the conversation without either one of us shouting, crying, stomping away childishly, or pouting in our rooms. Maybe next time he feels overwhelmed by an assignment, he’ll ask for help sooner rather than later, knowing that I want him to succeed. Maybe next time I see him flailing, I’ll step in kindly, with an offer of assistance rather than a declaration of impending failure.

I could grow to like this job. Maybe I’ll even get pretty good at it. I think it might have some pretty good benefits, after all.