It's been a gritty weekend.
The first started by the 14 year old on Friday night with the fire he started in the bathroom in the house and all that ensued with that chaos and drama and then last night huge issue with the 16 year old that was doing pretty well but broke down and went haywire last night.  I had to talk to that boy for almost 2 hours to get him to calm down and refocus himself.  The problem here is that he has his first real girl friend.  Yeah, I know he's young and doesn't really know what that's all about but in this case, this is the first one he's been able to stay with. The rest lasted a week and it was done and over with.  He didn't have a clue how to treat girls so I helped him out with that too some months ago.

Regardless, when he's over at their house, life is grand and wonderful. They treat him like  a prince.  There isn't any of the "family stuff" and though that's all nice, find and wonderful, it's la-la land.  He comes home and has to deal with all that there is to deal with in having 5 younger brothers and sisters living there as well, plus a mom that demands he does his chores and plenty of it.  The situation further exacerbated because her parents are in love with him, they think he's just the greatest kid on earth and they buy him stuff and just do everything for him.  God knows if I were there I would be having sit down with these folks because what they are doing isn't really good.  They don't understand how that affects his outlook on things at home and from my limited conversations with them in the past, I don't really think they care.  It's all good for them, who cares what he has to deal with at home and in reality, if it's really that bad, then why not make him feel all googly and wonderful while at their home?

Why not? Because that doesn't help him learn how to deal with life, that's why.  Everyone has some rotten family member or ugly situation at home or whatever, I just about guarantee there isn't a person alive that when they think of family, some negative thing comes popping up and takes over everything else.  Or something close to that.

Whatever the case, I am going to start invoking those thoughts in his tiny little brain starting this week.

And further whatever the case, mom just said here you deal with him.  Not exactly like that, she loves him and all her kids but she is having way too much trouble dealing with them, just doesn't understand how the teenage boy's mind works and all the little intricacies that go along with it and how to effectively navigate through all that junk and get to a solution to things without the kid blowing up and having a conniption fit. I suppose that isn't always an attainable ending but if you throw out enough logic and reasoning and real life situations that they can look it, it does work most of the time.  At least for me it does, but then again I have been dealing with that gender and age group for over 20 years now.

So I said fine but I'm going to work a compromise here and you'll pretty much have to be happy with it.  She didn't want him gone today which is understandable but at the same time I'm trying to work this from 1,200 miles away and so for the here-and-now, it's compromise land for me.   It's one thing to try and sit here and deal with this, it will be completely another when I can be right there, in front of them, talking directly to them and no more of this phone and texting business. So,the boy is at church right now with mom and family and then gf's parents pick him up and bring him back by 7.  He cannot call mom to try and talk her into more time, either.  In fact, he cannot call her for any reason unless it's a real emergency.  He tries to play the game and get more time by having his gf's mother text m'lady and ask.  That won't work with me, in fact it will piss me off because that simply means that they are undermining her God-given authority and responsibility in that boy's life to have the final say and not have it questioned, especially by someone else's parents.

And yes, I am going to  text him while he's with that girl.  That's what I do.  That's what I did with my own son.  IMO, that's being a responsible parent.  Some have told me that is helicopter parenting and to that I say bulls***.  Helicopter parenting is a style of parenting that restricts the child from doing much of anything and constantly bombarding them with control and authority.  I let my son live his life and figure things out, but I was THERE for him and I made it known to him that I was going to be watching him. From afar, yes, but still.  Well not always from afar, lol, I showed up on his doorstep - wherever he was - several times out of the blue, unannounced, uninvited and I didn't care!

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Long interlude.  Just got home from church, awesome!  While there I received a text: Jacob, the 14 year old,wants to talk to me.  I put the feelers out through the 16 year that I would like to talk to him on the phone and discuss these issues with him and try to drag out of him why he is acting out like he is (such as setting portions of the house on fire twice now) and what can we do to change that?  So......yeah.......that's today.  Like in a few minutes.  Gotta get my mind and spirit man ready for that because this kid has got serious problems and I am not even sure I can help him but I am going to try and since he told his mom he wants to talk to me, definitely.

I think this phone call is going to take it out of me.

Soooooo, off to the races!

G'day.

ben