arrival

Sunday, Nov 5

Well, he's here. I have two kids.There's still lots of, um, stuff to work through with his mom, so right now, unfortunately, he's staying in school. On the up side, he's happy to be here and we're happy to have him. He has also given me permission to mention him by name [on message boards]- he says he trusts me "not to say anything bad" about him. Poor guy. So welcome to my home: Rayan age 13. Loves skateboarding, computer games and heavy metal music.---Meredith (Mo 5, Rayan 13)


Nov 11
Re: arrival
--- In AlwaysUnschooled@yahoogroups.com, Danielle Conger wrote:>
>>> How are things adjusting?

Well, the Good News is I've caught snippets of his phone conversations with his girlfriend where he's saying how much "better" it is to be at his dad's house - no yelling is the big selling point. Hooray! The less good news relates to his mom - she's out of town for a few weeks so we can't really communicate with her, but for now she wants him in school and his grades "kept up" or "she won't let us keep him". Nice. So we've been hassling with the darn school, which has included scrambling to find clothes, since his mom refused to send any with him. This could turn into a rant pretty quickly, so that's all I'll say on the subject.

On the unschooling side, I've been reminding George to "say yes" at every opportunity and suggesting that maybe we don't really need rules about the phone and computer. We have dial-up and just one line, so the two are directly related. There was one night of confusion with George saying "five more minutes on the phone!" and me asking "why?"but he quickly agreed that as long as we were all communicating our needs we could juggle in one more "user" without making arbitrary rules.

At the moment that means *we* are communicating *our* needs*to* him and trying to remember to ask him what his needs are. He's not used to have his needs be a factor in decision making.We're also trying to work him into the family logistics. Its pretty confusing at the moment - he's used to having no control at all, so we're discovering that (for now, at least) we have to be more proactive with him than we do with Morgan - asking him well in advance what his needs are in terms of food, clothing, supplies, personal hygeine.... I didn't realize teenage boys had such a love of hygeine products :0 I guess I've always hung out with a different kind of guy.

I guess the main thing for now is figuring out how to communicate with someone who has been dictated to - and is still being dictated to eight hours a day. Yuk. I told Jane (Powell) in a private email that I feel like the inverse of an "academic unschooler" - instead of unschooling*only* academics we're trying to unschool everything but.But he says he's happier. And really, its not like there have been any disasters. Just regular snafus, which I'm confident will smooth out with time.

I'm posting more over at CL about specific issues, since they aren't really unschooling related. If anyone knows of a board they think would be a "good fit" for someone with my quirky situation I'll be grateful - or if anyone wants to email me off-list on this topic,that's fine, too.In the meantime, Y'all are my lifeline for the moments when I go into full-scale Catastrophic Thinking Mode - blaaaaahhhh his mom's going to abduct him and we'll never see him again and he'll turn into a serial killer and ufo's will land on our barn and steal the sawmill!!!!Okay, I feel better now.

---Meredith (they would have to be small ufos to land on our barn, so they couldn't fit the sawmill in their cargo area - the drill press,sure....)

Same day, another list:
A sort of ticklish subject has come up with my dss and I'm wondering if anyone has experience or input to offer. Dss injured his knee recently- not badly, but he's been limping. This evening when he came home from school he mentioned that a friend of his had kicked him in his hurt knee. I asked if they had been "horsing around" - Rayan's a pretty active guy and rough trade is pretty normal for him.
"Sort of. I'm N's personal punching bag." I wasn't quite sure how to take that.
"Are you okay with that?"
"Its okay, he's a big guy."
"Well, okay, but are you okay with it - you don't have to get hit if you don't want to."
He started explaining just "how big" the other guy was and I got the impression he was "excusing" the behavior. I didn't really push (I don't think) just reiterated that it was okay to play rough and even hit, as long as it was consensual. I was really trying not to over-react. His mom has a history of abusive relationships and has always "excused" abusive behavior right up to the point when she feels her life is actively threatened. So I'm concerned, but I don't know how to talk about this in a way that is respectful all around. Any thoughts?---Meredith (Mo 5, dss Ray 13)

Replies:

Re: talking about abuse
> Some schools are very good about looking for (workable) solutions to
> bullying,
> and some just make the problem worse.

Oops, I should have been clearer about this. Its not happening at school, but at the other kid's house. This is why I'm expecially concerned - they are friends and I'm afraid that from Ray's perspective this is "normal behavior" between friends, to excuse non-consensual violence. As far as school is concerned, Ray is a "problem kid". I'm not sure they'd believe he was being victimized even if it happened on school property. We're planning on negotiating with his mom to remove him from school, but right now she still has custody so its her decision.

> If your son seems frightened about it you can even let him know
>that in the 'adult' world what is being done to him is illegal and
>that you can help him make it stop if he wants you to. Knowing he
>has backup might go a long way towards helping him feel it is
>something he can handle.

More fear from me, here. The father of his mom's second son hit him a couple times in ways that left bruises. Mom always blamed Ray -blamed him to the point that he believed it and describe the incident to *us* as though he was totally at fault. We offered to call the police on his behalf and he panicked - he's been told over and over that the police are Evil and will Take Him Away and force him to live with "Nasty Christians" (sorry, that's his mom's language).

> So I would ask my son "If you asked him to stop __fill in the
>blank__, would he stop?"

I like this phrasing. Its basically what I'm trying to find out. My impression at this point is that he's putting up with the behavior in order to retain the friend. I don't know what to do about that. I'm soooooo glad he's out of his mom's house and is getting a chance to see people who don't hit each other, scream at each other, verbally abuse each other as a matter of course.

I know Ican't "fix" Ray - that makes me sad sometimes, but I try to keep in mind that just seeing the way George and Mo and I all interact gives him another view of the world.He's feeling the difference already - I've overheard snippits in his evening phone-conversations with his girlfriend and he's telling her its *much* better at his dad's house. No yelling - that's a big deal to him. No fault-finding. He hasn't mentioned the lack of insults, but I'm sure that helps, too.---Meredith (Mo 5, dss Ray 13)