Troubled teen boy reaching out
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| Sun, 10-14-2007 - 12:26am |
A few weeks ago, I posted about one of the kids that I work with at church. He has been suspended from school several times already this year for dress code violations, vandalism, and not sure what else. He admitted to me that he was doing whip-its (a form of huffing) and sneaking out at night. He has a difficult home life with parents that have problems of their own. After his last suspension for dress code violation, he had agreed to give school another chance. Less than 3 days back, what does his mom do? She bought tickets to a video game expo! Since it was out-of-state (long way), that meant that he would have to miss another 3 days of school! I couldn't believe it - why on earth would a parent do this? We have a very strict attendance policy in our school system - 6 absences, for any reason including medical, and you fail. Now, there is an appeal process but I seriously doubt that dress code violations, vandalism, and a video game expo will qualify, especially, when my DD's mono only partially qualified - she had to write 4 term papers over Christmas break in order to pass her courses, even though she had already made up all the work she missed and had straight A's.
He called me late last night b/c he and his mom were fighting and he needed a mom. They were fighting over what movie to watch and according to him, she threw an ashtray at him. He said he started to swing at her but remembered my telling him that sometimes the kid has to be the mature one and walk away, so he went into his room and called me. I'm very proud of him for walking away and not letting this escalate. We talked a little while and he told me he was thinking about not coming back to church for a while b/c he doesn't feel like he fits in (and really, he is quite different). I tried to explain to him that this group needs him to be complete. The world is made up of different types of people and, even though, it's tough, we have to learn to get along. Plus, I would really miss him. I also reminded him that he doesn't come to church just to fit in with the other kids but to worship and hopefully learn something about being the person God wants him to be. He seemed to get that - but we'll see!
Please send A and I all the prayers and positive thoughts you can - we need it!
Thanks for letting me vent a little.

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I agree with the thought that suspending A from school would be a total disaster for him. His parents just seem to worry about how far behind he's getting. He's so far behind in his work already, I don't see how he's going to pass anything. My kids always knew that if they missed school they had to make up the work whether the teacher would accept it or not - I wanted to make sure they learned the material so that they weren't so lost when they returned. He's allowed to sleep, play games, visit with friends, etc when he's suspended. I've told him I'm available to help him whenever he wants to get caught up but I can't force him to want to. He just doesn't see the need in an education - his parents are disabled and they get by fine either not working or doing minimal work, plus they have their spouses to help support them. He can't seem to understand that this is not very realistic for most people.
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