I acted on a suspicion

[Lil]

Things are actually better NOW if you are different. Please continue reading.

You see...I DO believe that. I'm quite certain that things are better for kids that need help; the learning disabled, physically or mentally disabled, etc.

So WHY is it that the world seems to be getting worse? I don't really think it's the handicapped being accommodated that's doing it. My kid didn't need accommodation. Maybe it's that those who don't need accommodation are being ... ruined somehow?

Or maybe I'm just filled with doom and gloom and looking for someone to blame?

Yeah...that's more likely it.

 

[Lil]

@SomewhereOutThere - I'm just going to post this since you don't take p.m.'s.

I actually thought of you a LOT when I was typing that. Because I KNOW that you are a person who really needed help in school and didn't get it. I don't actually think that accommodating kids who need it is a problem or what's wrong with the country...but something is. I guess I was just trying to think back to when then were no accommodations and what the world was like then. And as a general rule, I think the country was a better place, say in the 40's and 50's. Worse in some ways, obviously, but people seemed to be better people.

I said 20 to 40 years...because that's how damn old I am that it seems to me the 1950's should have been only 40 years ago. lol

And of course, I wasn't alive then, so what do I know?

But I think I'm just really upset and looking for something to blame for ... everything.

I'm sorry if what I posted hurt or insulted you. This is what happens when I just "think out loud" or whatever the typing equivalent is called.

Now I just feel like a heel.

 

[Copabanana]

Watch some videos of Cesar bringing a mad dog, a dog doomed and marked for destruction, back into the fold.

You guys. The dog is us.

I began work today. In dog language, I had rabies. Inside of myself, I went bonkers.

The people were as nice to me as could be. There was nothing about the setting or work that was very new to me, but I had no sense of personal safety, or control or confidence. I felt doomed and marked for destruction.

I felt the locus of my power was outside of myself, and saw myself doing that thing that M hates--desperate eyes beseeching somebody else, who has power, to help me, save me.

I did not hold steady state. I abandoned myself. Instead of calm dominant, I felt and exuded desperate submission. I would have grabbed hold of anybody I could to feel reassurance I was so panicked. The more aware I was of how I was feeling, acting, and perceived, the more desperate and exposed I felt.

calm dominance.... Over ourselves.

Honestly, I listened to the video. I do not know where to begin except he stresses the need to ignore the excited state.

This:

The concept of detaching, not from our children, but from our emotions

Somewhere I have come up with the sense of having failed at life. Being a failure. And that is not because of my son, or my mother--really. Somehow I have this sense that I am losing powers and capacities as I age. My driving. My looks. My energy. I am in pain.

And yet, it cannot be this, because when I am out (especially with M) when we go about our day together, I exude confidence. Not over-confidence, just a sense of peace and tranquility about who I am am, a sense of mastery of life. Like at the top of my game, which is 100 percent opposite what I felt today at work.

So it must be something that I do to myself--I am forced to think it has to do with disempowerment or punishment.

I have been at this forever. In the day to day devastations, in the ten thousand times I do not have an answer or even a clue

You see, Cedar, what you are saying here is the sense I begin to have about myself--about life--when I know it is not true. I do not feel I am failing with my son. I am grateful to have M.

OK. While I was at work, I began to have the sense of comparing myself to this man, this supervisor who was orienting me. He was about 45, gorgeous, charming, confident--his wife was the CEO at a neighboring prison, the chief hospital administrator.

So I started putting myself down in comparison to him. He is the kind of man who appears to have started with every advantage--social class, family--and I just felt such a failure. I even compared M to him.

I do not know why I did that to myself.

Come to the table calm dominant in your own lives.

I am not sure if the whole day was a means to punish myself for seeking to return to work. To tell myself I no longer had my mojo in anything. I was so cruel to myself.

 

[Jabberwockey]

You see...I DO believe that. I'm quite certain that things are better for kids that need help; the learning disabled, physically or mentally disabled, etc.

So WHY is it that the world seems to be getting worse? I don't really think it's the handicapped being accommodated that's doing it. My kid didn't need accommodation. Maybe it's that those who don't need accommodation are being ... ruined somehow?

Actually, I think this is closer to the truth than you realize. The more severe cases need the accommodation but because our society (Within the U.S. anyway) is so hyper focused on everyone being treated not just equally, but EXACTLY the same that those who don't necessarily need the accommodation get it and it becomes the system enabling them. I think what Lil meant about the past is that so many might have been helped by the accommodation but didn't NEED it managed to muddle through and do what was necessary to survived and thrive. I don't think that we've had an outbreak of ADHD amongst our children, I think that we as a society are treating the VERY mild cases where the belt or paddle would be effective in exactly the same manner as the severe cases that need medication and special accommodations. I see this all the time in my job. We get a new program and its the latest and greatest and its just going to fix EVERYTHING! Bull. There is no such thing as that magic pill that will make me drop one hundred pounds while eating ice cream and not working out any more than there is that one program that will fix everybody. We are all individuals and need to be treated as such. That's why counselors have so many different tactics in their bag of tricks in order to help people. Ladies and Gentlemen, ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL!!!

 

[Jabberwockey]

OK. While I was at work, I began to have the sense of comparing myself to this man, this supervisor who was orienting me. He was about 45, gorgeous, charming, confident--his wife was the CEO at a neighboring prison, the chief hospital administrator.

So I started putting myself down in comparison to him. He is the kind of man who appears to have started with every advantage--social class, family--and I just felt such a failure. I even compared M to him.

I do not know why I did that to myself.

Don't do that Copa! I'm not the most attractive man on the planet but I'm not exactly ugly either. Was never popular. SEVERELY introverted in high school. Always been over weight. I used to want to be like the popular kids, good looking, lots of friends, blah, blah, blah. That was when I was younger. Now, I'd still like to lose some weight but could give a rats ass less about the rest. Me chasing popularity is like a dog chasing a car. I'd have NO fricking idea what to do with it if I ever caught it!!

We are individuals, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. NEVER compare yourself to someone else. Its pointless unless we all start off with the exact same things, right down to having the same parents, going to the same schools, having the same opportunities. How boring would that be???

 

[AppleCori]

You're very popular around here, Jabber!

And much appreciated!

 

[Lil]

As always, Jabber said what I was thinking and better than I managed.

Obviously it's not kids who need help getting it that is the problem. But in some way we're failing all of them. It's like we celebrate mediocrity and turn everyone into special little snowflakes and now they expect it. They expect to get applause for finishing last, just because they showed up for the race...or in the real world...for their job. Why should they try to be the best employee? Aren't they all deserving of the same pay, the same compliments, the same pats on the back?

It's not the Special Education kids. It's not the natural leaders, they find their way. It's everyone in between.

 

[InsaneCdn]

Maybe instead of teaching kids how to learn

THAT is what went wrong. Schools stopped teaching HOW to learn, and instead, started pushing specific knowledge. Standardization and testing made the focus on content, not on process. And so, we create kids who can spout off all sorts of random trivia... and don't know HOW to learn. And it doesn't matter if they are special needs, or not. In some ways, the special needs kids who are getting help, are also getting help in HOW to learn, because it's obviously the only answer that will work. But... every kid needs that.

 

[Copabanana]

Schools stopped teaching HOW to learn, and instead, started pushing specific knowledge.

In my experience public schools never taught this.

The kids that came from families who were verbal, more focused upon the news or culture--and at home--practiced the skills that would facilitate learning--could get by, even thrive. Those that did not have those early environments were kicked to the curb.

My own son was a combination to the two. Because of early developmental challenges--he was always a handful, highly distracted, anxious and hyper. But because we traveled, he learned languages, and he came to believe in his capacity to learn in some environments, his intellect flowered.

But his motivation did not. Not in school. There is a huge disconnect. He is interested. He knows he is very smart. He knows he can do the work. He is just afraid and anxious of the process, when it is within a formal academic context.

This is a kid that taught himself 3 foreign languages and for a decade has been reading scholarly books on linguistics and culture. How is it that he can have no confidence in succeeding in school?

 

[BusynMember]

It's to me the attitude of certain kids and helicopter mothers who obsess over them.

I really think that the only reason things seem worse is that we have so much more information. We only had newspapers...now there is the internet. And cable news. And they love to blast negativity. It sells. We don't hear about all the mostly successful young people in college, working 50 hours a week, our military kids and those like Sonic and Jumper who never abuse us and openly appear to love us. Those who work hard and are good people..
Where is the story in that? Or a drugs to success story, like Princess? That's not what viewers want to see. Those of you with easy kids know what i mean.

If we do have difficult kids, we are in touch with other similar kids. Birds of a feather and all. That is not everyone though. The majority of adult kids are nice to us and successful in life. But again that doesn't interest people. They prefer watching the bad of the world so it is exploited.

When I was young, difficult kids were not splashed all over an internet, but that doesnt mean we weren't there, just hidden. There was a little girl who lived by me. She was "slow" and hidden in an institution. One man, a CEO, who lived in the house directly across from us developed schizophrenia..He hung himself.

Neither were in the news. But they existed.

In my liberal high school, 35 years ago, kids stole from nearby stores with $300 in their pockets. Kids did drugs badly. We had many overdoses. Some deaths, some kids went to rehab of the day or mental institutions.

But the internet didn't scream this.

Things were not able to be transmitted to the world so our little piece of the world was all we knew. Except for the secrets.

There were always the mentally ill who refused help. And those who didn't thrive. And parents who enabled, especially in my rich neighborhood. Every good kid or brat had a new car and access to credit cards, except for a few of us. Many were left with nannies while parents traveled. The kids told us.

The homeless were always there. The numbers exploded once the mentally ill had nowhere to go. We see it all on the internet today. But it's not new.

I think many kids feel happy and successful in school. Sonic and Jumper did. I think that a lot of how we feel about ourselves in all situations comes from within. Schools can't change what is inside us. They are educators only. Sometimes a school with a different philosophy can help a differently wired child. Sometimes they still feel lesser than. Life experience can teach us we can do or we can't do. The workforce being unfriendly to hard workers who process more slowly did me in. And I shown in many areas I was known for my creativity, wrote books, plays and music. I was a good actress and singer. But that didn't matter in the workforce. I also love to read and learn. But I can't always apply what I know intellectually to the jobs I work at. I am not sure why there is this disconnect.

I ranted enough lol. I rest my case.

 

[InsaneCdn]

But, are there that many MORE kids with problems now? Or does everyone just know about it now thanks to instant contact throughout the world?

Just my opinion of course. But I believe very strongly that the changes in the way general education is taught over the last 60 years or so has made it so that general education works for fewer and fewer kids.

Example: When I went to school, when the teacher lifted his/her pointer, the entire class "shut up and listened". Which meant we could hear what the teacher was saying. No background radio playing. We frequently broke into small groups spread out across the school (not just in corners of the same room), where we could more effectively work together. We had a schedule - and stuck to it. An interesting question at the end of science class was noted, and used as a starting point for the next class - not an excuse to avoid the next period's subject. We were taught reading, and writing, and math - not just given worksheets and expected to figure it out (or given 15 ways to do the same thing). I survived because there was structure, and quietness, and direct instruction - things that are sorely lacking in most modern classrooms.

 

[KTMom91]

In our district, the emphasis on everyone being ready to attend a four-year state university is shifting slowly. I fought with Miss KT's counselor for four years over graduation requirements. I obsessively read every handout that came home, so I knew that there were three sets of requirements - state requirements, for a four-year state college, and for a four-year state university. Miss KT graduated on state requirements, not district requirements. She would never have made it through four years of math and four years of science. She can't figure tax or percentage off.

Our district is finally increasing their Voc Ed courses, and they're practical things. Construction, careers with children, welding, fire fighting, vet technology, medical careers, music technology...and one of the high schools has a working farm. Appropriate since we're agriculture based around here.

 

[BusynMember]

It was like that for me too, Insane, but being so slow to process and with many learning differences and a short attention span, I still could not focus. Never did homework either sinceost classes, except anything to do with English were Greek to me.my grades were ok until fourth grade and middle school was when I got so confused I stopped trying. Even got my first C in English from A and B work.

In high school I cracked jpkes, cut certain classes and put my head down on my desk to sleep. Didn't learn. Didn't try to learn. Barely graduated. They had no extra help back then. My parents were called and told to take me thank you o a psychiatrist once. I didn't want to go. Thought it meant I was crazy. My parents didn't try to help.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Obviously it's not kids who need help getting it that is the problem. But in some way we're failing all of them. It's like we celebrate mediocrity and turn everyone into special little snowflakes and now they expect it. They expect to get applause for finishing last, just because they showed up for the race...or in the real world...for their job. Why should they try to be the best employee? Aren't they all deserving of the same pay, the same compliments, the same pats on the back?

I think the problem is less the values presented in our schools than it is the dead hearted, dead end values celebrated in certain segments of our media. We need to have a look at what passes for thought these days, and at what passes for thoughtful conclusion. We need to look at the mores and values that support the horrific prevalence of drugs. And we need to ask ourselves why we are not protecting ourselves and our kids from it.

I know I am going to sound like the worst kind of old fogey here, but why is it we cannot opt out of programming we disapprove of. That is wrong. We should be in control of what comes into our homes electronically. We are not. And that is a huge part of what is happening to all of us.

And that includes ourselves.

We are not immune, either.

Other than that, I think we are progressing. We are trying things never tried before, and our hearts are in it and our hearts are good.

Except for the drug culture and the everyday banality of the horrific evil in it ~ the everyday darker moral slippages required for that culture to exist at all ~ we are working toward better, kinder societies.

Here is an example. I am reading The International Bank of Bob. It is about KIVA, an organization for anyone in the world to make a business loan to anyone else in the world.

And business by business, everywhere in the world, poverty is being addressed.

https://www.kiva.org/

We are a good and generous people.

Cedar

 

[rebelson]

Our situations are very much alike.

Tanya & Lil, add me to that. Situation very similar.

 

[AppleCori]

We have gone from "father knows best" to parents are idiots and teens know everything.

Now, I know that kids throughout history probably always thought that they knew everything, but the culture certainly didn't promote that theory.

We have gone from 'wisdom of the elders' to' youth culture' to 'me culture' to 'youth worship' to, finally, 'wisdom of the youth'.

Then we wonder why young people don't listen to adults and think they already know everything. And why some of them never mature. And why they all want to go to Colorado and start a pot farm.

 

[InsaneCdn]

We should be in control of what comes into our homes electronically. We are not.

Cedar, we ARE in control. It's called the "off" button. As in - our family chooses to not have TV, rarely listen to the radio (it's handy when there is an emergency going on, like a major storm), avoid movie theatres, and keep our internet footprint small. If enough people STOPPED watching/listening... this stuff would go away. Because it's driven by advertising $$. Ads go to where the volume of audience is. So, take away the audience.

We have gone from 'wisdom of the elders' to' youth culture' to 'me culture' to 'youth worship' to, finally, 'wisdom of the youth'.

Pre-note: I'm talking in general terms here, not about specific families.
We have gone from "family oriented society" to a "work oriented society". Work is more important than kids. So kids are raised by daycare from very young. School is an extension of that. We have gone from extended families living fairly close together, to nuclear families spread far apart. Kids grow up surrounded by same-age peers, rather than being surrounded by uncles and aunts and cousins of different ages. We raise kids to only relate well to their peers... and then wonder why they ONLY relate well to their peers.

 

[BusynMember]

Once our kids are grown up they watch what they want to and even kids see things in other homes and school. When i.volunteered at the humane society, a few young home schooled kids who were overly protected and brought up eith.religious morals were doing communot service for breaking the law.

We can not shield our kids from ills of the wotld. It is impossible. At times they resent it and rebel against it anyways. I feEl their morality cones from inside of them. They hear the good, the bad and the evil. (All of them) and decide which values to apply themselves. Some kids are more easily lead to trouble than others.

There are very.level headed good young people out there. They see it all, take what seems helpful and leave the rest. We want to ble domething. I get it. I just think certain people are more grounded while others crave varying degrees of excitement and otherspy love the thrill of getting away with even crimes. If we were not all different, we would all end up in the same place. We dont.

 

[Childofmine]

Lil, I just sat down and read this whole thread. And I'm sorry. I know you have slept several times since the first post here, about your son, and I hope you are feeling better.

Just a few thoughts...

I guess the biggest thing here for me is that I want a better life more for my two than they do.

I think this is fundamental. You talk about his lack of self-care, how he washes the dishes, etc. It sounds like my son, when he was in the throes of it all. At one point he was living in an apartment, sharing it with his brother, we were paying for it, going to college (well, not really, but that is what we thought he was doing), and later I found out that he left so many half-filled drink cups around the apartment that all grew mold, burst and spilled out onto the carpet. He never would pick a single one of them up, empty them and put them in the trash.

We can't want it for them more than they do. And so much of the pity party talk is just that, a pity party, and it's a colossal waste of energy---theirs and ours listening to it. There is nowhere to go with this kind of talk. Life is hard, life is very very very hard, and just surviving in the world takes consistent, ongoing effort. For all of us. We all know that. Until THEY KNOW THAT, and that the alternative is....NOTHING (no place to live, no food, no money, no nothing)...it's not likely to change. I hate to be harsh, but in most cases (not the severely mentally ill) that is what it seems to me.

will just offer you this. You deserve peace. I am making that my theme, "I deserve peace."

Yes. Absolutely yes. I know you feel there can be no peace until he is...situated. Housed, clothed, fed. I so get that. I used to feel the same way. Until I didn't anymore after a TON of work on myself. I still loved and cared very very much about him and for him, but I no longer gave him all of my emotional power.

e's real big on the "Everyone should accept me for what I am" philosophy.

Well...that's just fine as long as you can support yourself doing that. That's the rub here. In our world, people have to work. It's just required, unless someone else is going to pay the freight. When we pay the freight, we do them the worst possible disservice. We don't give them that chance they need to learn how to navigate the world. I had one son who got it like we hope most of our kids get it...and he grew up and has a good life now. I had one son who didn't. Both were raised in the same household by the same bio parents. I believe my younger son, Difficult Child, triggered his addiction genetic makeup early on. The same makeup of his bio father and his bio grandfather (paternal) and his bio grandmother (maternal) and uncle (maternal). It's on both sides. Difficult Child triggered it early and the rest is history.

It is a process, but first we have to start with: nothing. No leeway. No nothing. That is what worked.

I believe this. For many of our DCs, we can attempt all of the full measures....then the half measures...then the quarter measures...but as long as there is a flow of money flowing toward them...they are never going to have a chance to make it happen on their own.

I know he had a fire, and you needed to do this, and that is okay, there is no "one fatal move." You did what you did. I so get that and I probably would have done the same thing.

But now...here you are again...and now what? Learning how to completely stop gives him a chance to figure out what he learn about himself, what he is truly capable of, how he can excel, how he can totally surprise himself, how he can make things happen under his own steam, his own power...which is the best way for him to build self-esteem and confidence in himself.

You can sit all day long and try to figure out why, and I did that obsessively, but it didn't change anything. Drugs, culture, helicoptering, bad friends, too much money, too little money, divorce...on and on and on. What matters is behavior. That is clear to us every day. We can see it and identify it, and we can measure it on its face. Either our kids get up, take a shower, get to work, work all day, figure out their money, clean off the table, wash the dishes, go to bed and get up and do it all over again...and thus build their own character inch by inch...or they don't. Today, my Difficult Child has figured out that he can't get drunk and go to work the next morning, he can't stay up all night playing video games and go to work the next morning, and he can't use drugs or he will be back in jail, and he doesn't want to be there ever again.

Warm hugs. I know how hard this is. Stopping completely nearly killed me. I mean that. Now, looking back, I wish I had been able to do it sooner.

 

[BusynMember]

So true, COM. I see over and over again on this board that until we stop the "helping out" with money, groceries, housing, they don't change. I am convinced that continuing to support them in any way, other than emotionally, is the death of them ever being self sufficient. You can give a fortune to these adult kids and the money will be blown in a month and they still won't have a job, goals or quit the drug of choice. They will be back like Oliver twist.

"Please, sir, I want some more."

Most of our difficult loved ones who start to become independent and responsible have to have that support and help rug pulled from under them.

COM, I have admiration for you and continue to cheer on your growing son. Something finally went off in his brain to bring him to adulthood. And I know it was not you helping him!!!

Kudos!