Parenting is the hardest job I’ve ever had to do. Tonight I learned something, I learned how to help Carter see rational. I’m sure many teenagers are like this, they beg and try to get things their way. Carter has been home sick for a few days. Today his temperature was 99.2, when I got home. I told him okay one more day to full heal up. Then I discovered he had done things he’s not supposed to do. When I asked him about it he said he had been bored. I said then it’s time to go back to school. He said I’m not going, and began to get defiant and upset. Did I mention I had only been home about 30 minutes when this happened? He stated his point, that I said he could stay home. I told him that was before when I thought he had been resting his body. However, if he was up to doing things he wasn’t supposed to do, he was up to going to school. He didn’t like that and told me he wasn’t going that it wasn’t fair. He kept opening his door yelling and closing it again.
Finally, he opened it and said I promise I’ll just lay in bed and be good. I replied with you haven’t been a man of your word this week in regard to staying home and doing the right thing or if you don’t do the right thing owning it. Therefore, I can’t trust what you are saying. He didn’t liked that and the door closed. He opened the door a few minutes later and said I am a man of my word. I said I’m not saying you’re not a man of your word always, just in this situation you haven’t been so I can’t trust it. He closed the door.
He opened his door, and didn’t say anything. Which I knew meant he wanted to talk. I then told him that at his core I knew he wants to do the right thing. That he knows he did the wrong thing, but that he can easily show me he’s sorry by getting up and going to school tomorrow. By obeying and doing the right thing. I said let me know in the next thirty minutes your decision. Then we can talk about going in a little later in the am, so he can shower. He shut the door.
He opened it again. Mom I have Algebra early tomorrow. I said do you want to go in later than we usually do tomorrow. Carter said can you wake me up at normal time but then I shower and we go in a little later than normal? I replied with yes. These are little ways that I give him power and control while also not sacrificing what needs to happen. Giving him a way to make it right with me, and a way out of the hole he is in. While not arguing back and forth with him either. That gets us nowhere. Let’s be honest, if he doesn’t want to go to school, it’s not like I can pick him up and put him in the car. So instead I need to show him the value in obeying me. That by obeying when he really doesn’t want to, is showing me he’s sorry for what he did.
I didn’t yell or raise my voice, I didn’t go back and forth with him. These are things I can and have done in the past. Instead I prayed and pointed out what was wrong and showed him a way to get back on the right path. It may have taken a few hours, such is life. Tonight was a parenting win and I’ll take it.
A day in the life of a Kinship Carer 