Time is a tough concept for Michael to grasp. We are working on it.
My rule is that he has to be home by 7:30, which is when we sit down to eat dinner and watch Jeopardy. (Don't laugh. The older I get, the more Jeopardy intrigues me, and Mom is a devotee.) If he's not home by 7:30, the next day he is grounded.
Thursday night, he wasn't home until nearly 8.
We keep having discussions that go like this: "Michael, you needed to be home by 7:30. So you needed to leave the mall by 7, to give yourself time to get your friend home and get here. You have to account for driving time."
He truly doesn't get it. He's not willfully being bad.
So yesterday, he was grounded. However, I was trying to work on an article and so I let him go to Walgreens for his prescription, and to Walmart to pick up a couple of things, and to get Mother's sandwich from Jersey Mike's. Friday is sandwich night.
He should've been home by 7. He wasn't. At 7:20 I called him and asked what was going on. He replied that he was giving his friend a ride to McDonald's and his mom was picking him up there. I reminded him that he was supposed to be grounded and he didn't have permission to do that. He came home, dropped the sandwich off, and then I let him run his friend up to McDonald's, which is less than 10 minutes away. "Just go up there, drop him off, and come home!" I barked.
He didn't come back for over an hour.
By the time he did come back, I was livid. "You didn't have permission to stay there and wait with him. He's not a kid. You've lost your driving privilege for the entire weekend," I told him. He had no reaction. That's his way.
The worst part about it is that he had agreed to dog-sit for a friend of mine, which entails going over there three times a day and letting them out of their crates and feeding them and playing with them. SO now I have to go with him every time. I already have the duty this afternoon, as he is working from 12-8, at his lifeguard job. I don't mind that. They are sweet dogs and it's not really a chore. It's just the principle of the thing.
I told Mike last night, though, that when he does things he doesn't have permission to do, it makes it very difficult for me to trust him. He has always been my honest kid, my good egg, unlike his sister who will lie every time she opens her mouth.
This friend of Mike's always seems to get him into trouble, and it worries me. He seems to be a sweet kid, but he has a bad reputation, and I don't want that rubbing off on Michael. Mike will be 18 in a couple of months, though, and then I can't tell him what to do, which looms like a huge, scary milestone.
Part of the sad thing about parenting kids who have been traumatized is that it's hard enough to get them to obey a parent's rules, but when they turn 18 they figure they can do whatever they like. That's the age where my daughter started listening to bad friends who gave her terrible advice.
Michael is a very different kid, but he's still susceptible to listening to friends rather than mama. When they ask him for rides, he can't say no. I have to keep reminding him it's my car. My name is on the title.
So time management skills are needing a lot of work.
I am praying about it.
I've got an incredibly busy weekend ahead of me, and a long To Do list beckons.
photo by Lisa Amos
