Every once in while, we run into a family whose values and thinking wouldn’t even make a good science fiction plot. In those rare cases, we often find it impossible to identify any basis for common ground to work out our differences. It isn’t long before we part ways, mainly for the kids’ sake. In each case, there were early-warning signs that we should have heeded from the beginning.
Chloe’s classmate Barbara took a sudden interest in Chloe. Chloe was quite flattered and the parents began trading phone calls about connecting the two kids for play activities. The early warning signs for Barbara’s family were that they had no concept of how or why to respect our schedule.
Barbara’s family lives roughly fifteen minutes from our home. For the first get-together Amelia drove Chloe to Barbara’s house at the agreed-upon time, only to discover they were not there. Amelia called Barbara’s mother on her mobile phone. Where were they? Barbara and her mother were driving and wouldn’t be home for 45 minutes. It hadn’t even occurred to them to call us ahead of time.
We later arranged for a Saturday get-together, coordinating the time of Chloe getting picked up with the time Amelia would need to leave in order to see Philip’s Lacrosse game. I took Philip ahead of time and Amelia waited at home with Chloe. When Barbara’s parents were running 20 minutes late, Amelia called. “Oh. We’re running late this morning. I just got up and Barbara is still in her pajamas. How about we come by in two or three hours?” So Amelia took Chloe to her brother’s game and arrived some time toward the end of the second quarter. Meanwhile, Amelia helped Chloe fight back the tears over her play time with Barbara being delayed and cut short by over two hours.
So we should have known better (especially given the plan) but we let Chloe go to Barbara’s birthday party that began the following Saturday at 11:00am for a viewing of the Hannah Montana movie and wouldn’t end until early the following morning when we were supposed to pick Chloe up after a sleepover with Barbara and four other third grade girls.
Amelia arrived bleary-eyed at 8:15 Sunday morning. Barbara’s mother said she had something very important to tell everyone, especially Chloe’s mother. Normally in such circumstances, this is where a parent gets to make all the children feel good about what great friends everyone was to the birthday girl. Barbara was actually dancing about saying, "Hurray! My mom is going to tell Chloe's mother!"
So after lining all the girls up in a paramilitary fashion, Barbara's mother then declared that Chloe had ruined Barbara's entire birthday. What was Chloe's crime exactly? It took some time to get a clear idea exactly what the problem was. Amelia regrets not having immediately demanded that the discussion be tabled until a time when things could be dealt with privately to ensure each child's dignity. But Barbara's mother did not value ensuring each child's dignity. Instead she wanted to vent. Eventually we learned that any actual crime of commission or ommission took place after Chloe's normal bed time. The girls had already been watching television for over two hours. Barbara wanted to watch more television. Chloe—echoing her parents' values and way of saying things—tactfully said, "I think we've watched enough TV. It's probably time for bed." Barbara's mother then scolded Chloe, saying Barbara was the birthday girl.
Things only went down hill as the clock approached 11:00pm. One verbal altercation after another took place between Chloe and either Barbara or her mother. The two seemed to find pleasure out of there being a girl misbehaving that Barbara's mother could scould. By 11:00pm Chloe had quite enough. She demanded to call us so that she could go home. But Barbara's mother did not want the problem child to go home and so refused. (We now require Chloe to call us when settling down to bed at any sleepover to ensure she does not need to endure such abuse.)
In the end, Chloe will recover from her one difficult night in Barbara's home. Barbara will spend some number of years thinking Chloe ruined her third grade birthday party. She probably believes someone else ruined a lot of events that should have been special. Sadly, it looks like most of the birthday party was fun, but to say it was not ruined would challenge her family's most deeply held values. But a day will come when Barbara will be mature enough to think on her own and can decide for herself who really ruined things. For our family, we merely needed to explain to Chloe that some parents just don't get it.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Perhaps This is Mayberry 2009
Hermes is a small, stable, low-crime, high-test-score community. We have two public elementary schools, one public middle school, one public high school and one private K-8 school. The student population at Hermes High School hovers around seven hundred. I tell friends who live far away that the town in which we chose to raise our children is a bit like Mayberry, the small town in the 1960s television show, Andy Griffith. But the analogy is really only an analogy. Hermes’ two main arteries are always clogged with traffic. There’s a McDonalds, a Taco Bell and plenty of the other trappings of more modern, prosperous, and fast-paced life to remind us we are living neither in Andy’s Mayberry nor in Dorothy’s Kansas.
Hermes is also home to a small private college. Santa Carla, which is just ten minutes south of us, is home to a state university. San Geraldo, a city of roughly one million, is just half an hour north over a mountain highway. Most of Hermes’ working population rides that mountain highway to and from work each weekday. Active religious affiliation is diverse and disproportionately high. Kids’ sports dominate the town’s two large parks. There is more than one ballet academy and more than one martial arts academy. The town’s community center hosts no shortage of additional children’s enrichment activities, including art and music.
Lacrosse is a fast growing sport in Hermes. Philip is now in his fourth season. He’s looking forward to playing Lacrosse for Hermes High School next year. So a late Friday afternoon home game early in the season was cause to take Philip to the High School early last month to witness High School Lacrosse first hand. And that is when my image of Mayberry was shattered.
The player was particularly tall and particularly fit. He had either a tight crew cut or the beginnings of growth on a recently shaved head. I could see he had at least one visible tattoo. In the first two minutes of the game, he received a penalty for a particularly nasty-looking foul. The player mouthed-off to the referee for calling the penalty before the player took his place in the penalty box with a huff. The player continued to acquire penalties throughout the game and each time spoke disrespectfully to the referee. Somewhere in the middle of the third quarter, the player acquired the penalty that booted him from the game. There was no hint of contrition. The player stalked off the field, removed his jersey, pulled the back of his uniform shorts down below his underwear and strutted defiantly on the sidelines, bad-mouthing the referees to his teammates on the sidelines. The production continued until the game was over. I didn’t care that Hermes had won the game.
As Philip and I walked back to the car, I asked him what he thought. His answer satisfied me, but I wanted to take the conversation at least one level deeper.
“Here’s the deal, Philip. You can play lacrosse at Hermes High School next year. But you need to understand something. The way the coaches were tolerating that player’s behavior and attitude leads me to conclude that those same coaches will tolerate what I would consider unacceptable behavior and a toxic attitude from a player if he is a strong athlete. That player was not even one of the top players on the team. And yet the coaches kept him in and let him continue to acquire penalties. When tolerated by the coaches, players like that poison the whole atmosphere on the team. It is an atmosphere you’ll probably need to deal with and accept if you want to play lacrosse at Hermes High School. I’ll understand and respect whatever decision you make about joining the team.” It was a sober ride home.
This past Friday there was another late afternoon home game. I invited Philip to join me to go watch the game, but he declined. When I arrived the coach asked me if I could man the game clock. I accepted and the job put me sitting at a table directly behind the penalty box. I was especially curious to watch the player who had been kicked out of the previous game I had attended. It was shortly after seven minutes when one of the referees gave the player a penalty. It was a foul, but the foul looked a whole lot more genuine than any of the fouls I had witnessed from him before. There was no back-talk this time. He jogged off the field at an appropriate speed and took a disciplined one-knee in the penalty box. He watched the game intently. “Ten seconds, son,” I said as his penalty approached its end. The player made eye contact with me and nodded. Then he turned his attention back to the game. At five I began counting down for him. He released at the buzzer and rejoined the game. “Very nice improvement,” I thought.
And my thought proved correct. The player had no more fouls for the remainder of the game. He played hard and he played well. Whatever the coaches had done to bring about the change in behavior and attitude had clearly been a success. His coaches had confronted and addressed the problem in a time and manner of their own choosing, not mine.
I was very pleased to bring the good report home to Philip. And as I related the story, my image of Mayberry was restored.
Hermes is also home to a small private college. Santa Carla, which is just ten minutes south of us, is home to a state university. San Geraldo, a city of roughly one million, is just half an hour north over a mountain highway. Most of Hermes’ working population rides that mountain highway to and from work each weekday. Active religious affiliation is diverse and disproportionately high. Kids’ sports dominate the town’s two large parks. There is more than one ballet academy and more than one martial arts academy. The town’s community center hosts no shortage of additional children’s enrichment activities, including art and music.
Lacrosse is a fast growing sport in Hermes. Philip is now in his fourth season. He’s looking forward to playing Lacrosse for Hermes High School next year. So a late Friday afternoon home game early in the season was cause to take Philip to the High School early last month to witness High School Lacrosse first hand. And that is when my image of Mayberry was shattered.
The player was particularly tall and particularly fit. He had either a tight crew cut or the beginnings of growth on a recently shaved head. I could see he had at least one visible tattoo. In the first two minutes of the game, he received a penalty for a particularly nasty-looking foul. The player mouthed-off to the referee for calling the penalty before the player took his place in the penalty box with a huff. The player continued to acquire penalties throughout the game and each time spoke disrespectfully to the referee. Somewhere in the middle of the third quarter, the player acquired the penalty that booted him from the game. There was no hint of contrition. The player stalked off the field, removed his jersey, pulled the back of his uniform shorts down below his underwear and strutted defiantly on the sidelines, bad-mouthing the referees to his teammates on the sidelines. The production continued until the game was over. I didn’t care that Hermes had won the game.
As Philip and I walked back to the car, I asked him what he thought. His answer satisfied me, but I wanted to take the conversation at least one level deeper.
“Here’s the deal, Philip. You can play lacrosse at Hermes High School next year. But you need to understand something. The way the coaches were tolerating that player’s behavior and attitude leads me to conclude that those same coaches will tolerate what I would consider unacceptable behavior and a toxic attitude from a player if he is a strong athlete. That player was not even one of the top players on the team. And yet the coaches kept him in and let him continue to acquire penalties. When tolerated by the coaches, players like that poison the whole atmosphere on the team. It is an atmosphere you’ll probably need to deal with and accept if you want to play lacrosse at Hermes High School. I’ll understand and respect whatever decision you make about joining the team.” It was a sober ride home.
This past Friday there was another late afternoon home game. I invited Philip to join me to go watch the game, but he declined. When I arrived the coach asked me if I could man the game clock. I accepted and the job put me sitting at a table directly behind the penalty box. I was especially curious to watch the player who had been kicked out of the previous game I had attended. It was shortly after seven minutes when one of the referees gave the player a penalty. It was a foul, but the foul looked a whole lot more genuine than any of the fouls I had witnessed from him before. There was no back-talk this time. He jogged off the field at an appropriate speed and took a disciplined one-knee in the penalty box. He watched the game intently. “Ten seconds, son,” I said as his penalty approached its end. The player made eye contact with me and nodded. Then he turned his attention back to the game. At five I began counting down for him. He released at the buzzer and rejoined the game. “Very nice improvement,” I thought.
And my thought proved correct. The player had no more fouls for the remainder of the game. He played hard and he played well. Whatever the coaches had done to bring about the change in behavior and attitude had clearly been a success. His coaches had confronted and addressed the problem in a time and manner of their own choosing, not mine.
I was very pleased to bring the good report home to Philip. And as I related the story, my image of Mayberry was restored.
Friday, April 17, 2009
The Return of Written Correspondence
Young adolescents prefer not to delay gratification. For me as a young adolescent, the telephone was the preferred means of communication, particularly with gal-peers. If I wanted to ask a gal-peer to a dance, it was a whole lot easier for me telephone her at home than it was to catch her at school not surrounded by an audience of unsympathetic onlookers. Even if it was less serious than a school dance, I usually preferred the telephone. For three gal-peers I never even dated and my two closest guy-friends, I’m confident I logged over five hundred hours on the telephone with each of them before I graduated from high school.
The digital age has brought new mediums of communication to my kids’ generation. Chloe cannot wait for us to get her a mobile telephone. Philip has had his mobile phone for almost two years now. But the big difference for this new generation is the mediums of written correspondence: Email, text messaging, instant messaging and wall-posts. I can picture Jane Austen and Cyrano de Bergerac watching this generation from Beyond with great interest.
Philip has entered the world of digital written correspondence slowly and cautiously. When he first got his mobile phone in the seventh grade, Philip traded only a few text messages with a gal-peer with whom he had done some babysitting. For a while during eighth grade he was trading regular texts with one of his guy-friends. But that dropped off significantly when we explained to Philip that some parents reserve the right to view all their kids’ digital correspondences.
Two months ago, Philip put up a page on Facebook and began connecting with his peers, particularly his peers from Hermes Middle School who he expects to see again next year at Hermes High School. Philip’s correspondence on Facebook is slowly building. A gal-peer who once lived across the street “throws” a virtual pillow at him every other week or so. Various peers comment on his status and place posts on his “wall” where parents and peers alike can see.
Recently Jocelyn joined the list of those who are connected to Philip on Facebook and she began trading messages with him. Jocelyn began with a teen-sounding greeting and he responded in kind. Eventually, however, she put a post on his wall asking him to do her a small favor. It was a simple enough favor, but one that circumstances prevented him from granting. Suddenly, Philip was out of his element. He didn’t want to say “no” and he didn’t want to ignore her, but he was challenged to put into words the proper reply.
Having seen Jocelyn's request on Philip's wall and knowing it was something he couldn’t grant, I asked him if he had replied off-wall. He hadn’t. It was one of those potentially awkward father-son interactions that could misfire if I did not tread cautiously. But Philip proved quick to volunteer that he wanted to respond but didn’t know what to say. And that opened the door for me to offer help. In amazingly short order, he accepted the wisdom of email over the wall as the venue via which to respond. The email we (mostly me) composed (i) acknowledged the need and the legitimacy of Jocelyn's request, (ii) explained the conflict this time around, (iii) offered to grant the same favor when possible if needed in the future, (iv) thanked Jocelyn for something similar she had done for Philip in the past and (v) closed with some normal teen-sounding chat acknowledging the email was a little long.
My only disappointment with Philip was that he barely challenged my recommended wording and did not want to alter my proposed structure in the slightest. Instead he pasted the text into Facebook's email tool, read it over one last time, changed the smiley face from ": - )" to "= }" and pressed the send key. "If Jocelyn ever asks you if one of your parents helped you compose this email, I suggest you say 'yes'," was as scathing as I would get about it.
I wonder what Cyrano would think. I'm also curious to know what Jocelyn thinks. But if she responds by email, I may never know. I'm not one of those parents who demands access to my son's digital correspondance.
The digital age has brought new mediums of communication to my kids’ generation. Chloe cannot wait for us to get her a mobile telephone. Philip has had his mobile phone for almost two years now. But the big difference for this new generation is the mediums of written correspondence: Email, text messaging, instant messaging and wall-posts. I can picture Jane Austen and Cyrano de Bergerac watching this generation from Beyond with great interest.
Philip has entered the world of digital written correspondence slowly and cautiously. When he first got his mobile phone in the seventh grade, Philip traded only a few text messages with a gal-peer with whom he had done some babysitting. For a while during eighth grade he was trading regular texts with one of his guy-friends. But that dropped off significantly when we explained to Philip that some parents reserve the right to view all their kids’ digital correspondences.
Two months ago, Philip put up a page on Facebook and began connecting with his peers, particularly his peers from Hermes Middle School who he expects to see again next year at Hermes High School. Philip’s correspondence on Facebook is slowly building. A gal-peer who once lived across the street “throws” a virtual pillow at him every other week or so. Various peers comment on his status and place posts on his “wall” where parents and peers alike can see.
Recently Jocelyn joined the list of those who are connected to Philip on Facebook and she began trading messages with him. Jocelyn began with a teen-sounding greeting and he responded in kind. Eventually, however, she put a post on his wall asking him to do her a small favor. It was a simple enough favor, but one that circumstances prevented him from granting. Suddenly, Philip was out of his element. He didn’t want to say “no” and he didn’t want to ignore her, but he was challenged to put into words the proper reply.
Having seen Jocelyn's request on Philip's wall and knowing it was something he couldn’t grant, I asked him if he had replied off-wall. He hadn’t. It was one of those potentially awkward father-son interactions that could misfire if I did not tread cautiously. But Philip proved quick to volunteer that he wanted to respond but didn’t know what to say. And that opened the door for me to offer help. In amazingly short order, he accepted the wisdom of email over the wall as the venue via which to respond. The email we (mostly me) composed (i) acknowledged the need and the legitimacy of Jocelyn's request, (ii) explained the conflict this time around, (iii) offered to grant the same favor when possible if needed in the future, (iv) thanked Jocelyn for something similar she had done for Philip in the past and (v) closed with some normal teen-sounding chat acknowledging the email was a little long.
My only disappointment with Philip was that he barely challenged my recommended wording and did not want to alter my proposed structure in the slightest. Instead he pasted the text into Facebook's email tool, read it over one last time, changed the smiley face from ": - )" to "= }" and pressed the send key. "If Jocelyn ever asks you if one of your parents helped you compose this email, I suggest you say 'yes'," was as scathing as I would get about it.
I wonder what Cyrano would think. I'm also curious to know what Jocelyn thinks. But if she responds by email, I may never know. I'm not one of those parents who demands access to my son's digital correspondance.
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