My Journey With Attachment Disorder

A Learning Weekend

March 17, 2008
A "learning" day, or week, or weekend means that we had lots of opportunities to learn some important lessons. It means that some bad choices were made (by children and/or adults), and that we used the opportunity to try to learn something from the consequences. Actually this story starts last week. One day I came home from work, and James said that he had given Tony and Vincent permission to ride their bikes around the block. When enough time had passed that they should have been home, he went to look for them. At long last he discovered they had ridden across town to Vincent's house (without permission). James talked to them about this, and scolded them, but gave no consequences for it. I was concerned about that, but let it go. Then Friday they went off on their bikes again, this time without permission to leave at all. Once again, he eventually found them at Vincent's house. Once again he scolded them and verbally took their bikes away (meaning he grounded them from riding their bikes, but did not actually put them away). However, he still brought Vincent back to our house to spend the night with Tony. I questioned him about the wisdom of that, given the fact that they had blatantly disobeyed him TWICE this week. He shrugged his shoulders and said that he hated to not let Vincent stay the night, and he thought they learned their lesson. (Well, that was a bad decision on his part.)

At 2:00 a.m. a police officer is at our door with both boys and their bikes. They had ridden to McDonald's! We were absolutely shocked. Our son, who is afraid of the dark, went riding on his bike at 2:00 a.m. I guess his friend gave him courage. So, James and I agreed that Vincent could stay until morning, and then he would have to go home. Besides, Tony still had jobs to do to work off the debt he owes for taking money out of our vacation can. Sure enough, James took Vincent home the next morning, but left Tony there with Vincent! I couldn't believe it! Are they not going to feel any real consequences for the seriously dangerous decision they made to ride their bikes at 2:00 a.m.? He had no real answer, except that he and Vincent's mom had talked to the boys "good" about it. Well, James was soon to learn his own lesson for making some poor decisions.

A little after lunchtime we got a call from a little store in town (Fred's). One of the employees knows us, and recognized Tony. She called to say that Tony and Vincent had been seen leaving the store several times with something in their pockets to set off the store beeper. They had been sent back into the store once to put whatever it was back on the shelves. Later they were told they couldn't come back without their parents. But, it is their store policy that they cannot confront the thieves and question them. They have to wait until they leave the store and then call the police. (Dumb policy, if you ask me) Anyway, since she knew us she just called us. We had hoped she would go ahead and call the police anyway, and let them pick the boys up from Vincent's house, but she said she didn't have the authority to do that and the manager wasn't there.

So, James heads down to the police station himself. He runs into a police officer that he knows personally and explains the situation. The officer agrees to go pick the boys up at Vincent's house, and give them a real scare. He takes them down to the police station and everything. He also finds out that there were a LOT of things the boys still had in their possession, and he carried the boys to the store and made them return the things before taking each boy home. He got Tony good, and told him he didn't want to see or hear of him breaking the law again, or he would be going to Juvenile Jail.

Now, that was pretty sickening, and exhausting. I was just sick about it, and so was James. But I think some good things came out of it. We informed Tony that he was grounded from everything--bike, Vincent, Nintendo, etc...Oh, he moaned and groaned about his terrible life and how miserable his life was. I was extremely surprised and pleased when I heard James using some good "Love and Logic" dialog with Tony. He said, "But whose fault is it that your life is so miserable right now? Is it because of something Mom and Dad did? Or is it because of something you did?

Of course, Tony didn't give up that easily. He continued to moan and groan all weekend about his misery, but we did a pretty good job of not engaging in the debate with him. But, when it really hit him was Sunday afternoon, when he realized that he was going to miss the carnival that is in town. It only comes during Spring Break, and he knows he won't get to go again until next year. Oh, the wailing that went on about that! Especially since Kellye was going with a friend. James and I stuck to our guns though and didn't budge. After listening to his wailing and moaning all day we were exhausted, but we still didn't budge. Finally, when he was calm and receptive, we talked about how serious it was for him to have ridden his bike in the middle of the night, and how very serious it was for him to have stolen from the store. Even though Vincent admitted that it was his idea, we explained to Tony that we had to make sure that the consequences were big enough so that he would remember to make better choices next time. He had said that he was afraid that Vincent wouldn't be his friend anymore if he didn't go along with him. "Still," we said, "you have to tell your own brain to do the smart thing. You can't listen to someone else. You have to talk to yourself and tell your own brain to think about whether it is a smart thing to do or not." He actually was able to put all of that into words himself finally, late Sunday night. He was so sad about the carnival, and he could see that James and I were sad, too. (If he only knew how hard it was for us to not let him go). But he did finally say that he knew that if we let him go to the carnival he might not remember to make the right choice the next time. Whew! It was an exhausting process for all of us. But, I think it was probably the first time James was as strong as I was in upholding the grounding. And, it really made an impact on Tony. For the first time he saw that he couldn't change his daddy's mind. He usually tries to get James away from my earshot, and persuade him to change his mind. I think it really sank in this time that Mom and Dad are going to work harder at being on the same page.

(James and I had a private conversation at one point. I reminded him that we had agreed in the Family Therapist Session that we would CONSULT with each other before making decisions about the children's requests. I pointed out that he had forgotten to do that several times where the boys were concerned, and that we might have avoided a lot of pain, if we had talked it over.)

One other "minor" learning experience--(minor, compared to the previous one): While at Wal-Mart buying groceries, Tony slipped a $5.00 movie into the buggy without being noticed. I guess they were on the way home when James found out. Now, first of all, we had already told Tony that there would be no more buying of things ahead of time. If he had money, then he could spend it. Secondly, he had still not worked off the $10.00 he owed back for the vacation money he took. Thirdly, he did it in a sneaky way, which we explained to him was the same as stealing, because he made Daddy pay for something that Daddy had not intended to buy. Oh, that little boy tried everything in the book to find that movie so he could watch it. We stuck to our guns, though, and that movie will not be found anytime soon. We would have taken it back, but James didn't have the receipt.

Well, as I said, it has been a "learning" weekend for Tony and for James. It's been exhausting for all of us. I am pleased, though, that in the end, I really see some progress in James as well as in Tony.



Warrior Mom

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