Family meeting plus

Once or twice since Vincent had come back from Denmark, the three of us had a "family meeting," almost like group/family therapy we'd done in Tallahassee with Grandma Martha plus counselors (before they fired us) (minus the counselors). Vincent had come back from Denmark high partly on the lack of parental supervision, permissive culture, and lack of school/lack of homework. He tried to extend this into the school year, which meant he butted heads with me. In the past two years we had hosted Danish exchange students - a somewhat trying experience at least for Stephanie and me - but we contemplated doing it again - with the kid whose families had hosted Vincent in Denmark. But when as we found out Vincent was failing (eventually - it turned out - 4 of 7 1/2 classes already) - we explained we wouldn't do it again. Vincent was in denial until a weekend in which I realized there was no way Vincent was going to raise his grade in time in all of the classes he was failing by the end of the six-week grading period, and I spelled it out more emphatically: no Danish exchange student. I suspected that - if we allowed it - that Vincent's teacher Carrie would still allow Vincent to some of the events/hanging out with the Danes. But Vincent didn't necessarily anticipate this and he got mad and I actually egged him on a little and he took a backpack with a few shorts and his bank card and left at 1 p.m. Saturday.

He left with his cell phone and we called him periodically - even in that terrible wind storm - usually eventually hearing some bad language. In this exchange and others recently, Vincent had said some terrible things about leaving after he turns 18 or graduates and never talking with us again, not liking us, blah blah blah. Sunday I uncovered lost contact information for Vincent's classmates and we started calling his friends and their families. Jon, our exchange student from last year, had also started out with what became my cell phone, and so we had a few more numbers off of that. Eventually, we began to get closer to finding him. After the storm, you'll recall, we had also called and reported Vincent missing to the St. Matthews police. In the early aftermath of the storm - when they had no power either - an officer came out to take the report. Late Sunday a friend of Vincent called, asked to speak with Stephanie, and arranged for us to meet (family meeting) with Vincent - and a mutually agreed upon mediator (?!) - at Heine Brothers in the Highlands. We called Ian, one of the church youth ministry coordinators, and asked him to join us. Unbeknownst to us, Vincent asked his friend Aaron (who turned out to be the real mediator) to join us too.

The next morning Ian, Stephanie, and I were there as planned at 10:30 a.m. That's when Stephanie took pictures of that butterfly. Stephanie has explained - in "Mediating Mariposa" - that Heine Brothers was packed - in fact, a bunch of Vincent's friends swung by at some time or another. Aaron and Vincent - perhaps to make a point - showed up about 70 minutes late. Vincent had a statement which he read, in which he explained that he was sad, and didn't want to be, and outlined essentially a serious of demands. Several that have stuck is that we wouldn't require him to keep going to church and youth group and Children's Fellowship activities and martial arts classes (ironic and a little sad since there was "our" mediator, the youth group co-coordinator). Some seven weeks later, Vincent has since never set foot at church or at the martial arts school - which has disappointed me because Vincent was really friendly with some of the adults and kids at both places and was occasionally helpful at Children's Fellowship (where his spring prom date also helps out). Vincent's KY Governor's Scholars application had talked about his participation in all of these. Now, it is true that Vincent is very busy with school work this semester - but this didn't and hasn't stopped him from doing lots of other socializing.

Some of Vincent's other demands were preposterous - or struck me as so then. We had traditionally asked Vincent to come home right after school to do homework and rescue the dog from the crate in the basement. We had Vincent on the electronics holiday - which meant among other things he wasn't supposed to play video games or watch TV - because of behavior and grades. I also asked Vincent not to ride in cars that his classmates driving because that tended to get him home late. Vincent also had a 9 p.m. bedtime (which goes back to Grandma Martha). (After a previous family meeting, we had experimented with later bed times, but Vincent soon got sick and didn't quit saying he was "tired' all the time.) Vincent still felt - as after Denmark - that he should be able to wonder the town at will every day - school night or not - and even spend the night at people's houses. This is essentially what he did for most of the next week - when he did almost no school work even though he was behind and failing four classes - at least as long as the power was out. We set up an elaborate arrangement in which Vincent was supposed to be able to go out late a couple of weeknight evening a month- but Vincent quickly failed to follow up on many of his corresponding responsibilities. An underlying issue is that Vincent didn't think we should be able to ask him to do things - "I take orders from no one" was his declaration in a later argument. Stephanie wanted Vincent home - even more than I did - and she was willing to compromise a fair amount to get him back.

Amazingly, Vincent's 17-year-old friend Aaron did mediate - and essentially arbitrate. I clashed with him initially - partly irritated that this teenager was making final decisions. Aaron dismissed some of Vincent's positions as preposterous - for example, that he should be able to swear and use bad language at home at any time - he's still gotten away with lots of that - ADD-tending Vincent also got bored at the end and he and ADD-tending Ian went off and chatted until Aaron and we hammered out the final details. Later Vincent complained that Aaron had been too "soft" and that he had never really agreed to much of the stuff.

One exchange opened the door to greater intervention on my part in Vincent's schooling. Aaron agreed that Vincent could not maintain these wandering around privileges. But we didn't want to wait until the end of grading periods for report cards we rarely receive anyway. We also insisted that we didn't trust whatever Vincent had written as school work to do in his planners - which he's rarely used anyway this school year. So Vincent was supposed to get back to something he did in elementary school where we were supposed to hear from each of his teachers each week to see how he was doing. We've never quite managed that - but we did carry out some rather extraordinary interventions which I'll blog about later. I am continuing to go through Vincent's school bags each day and visit the school regularly and e-mail back and forth some with Vincent's school teachers to keep an eye on his school work and push him to do it. I have also prioritized some skills and some classes in my mind - for example, Vincent's senior project partly for AP senior English, which Vincent must pass some version of to pass English, and math review for the ACT, which Vincent takes - probably for the last time - Saturday morning. I have helped Vincent find scholarly books and articles on teens reading and writing and pushed him to read and take notes on some of these (some books he's claimed to have read in 20 minutes, and so this is a constant struggle). I have also tried to push more on major projects in other classes. If anything, I am involved as I've ever been on this - which Vincent doesn't like - but I doubt he'd have the 10 pages of notes he's got to give his English teacher tomorrow if not for that prodding/help.

Even with the spelled-out agreement, much was ambiguous. As annoying as it was at times - and Vincent has periodically subsequently threatened to run away again - as well as cart out an argument he hasn't made explicit much in the past to me - You're not my real parent. - this family meeting - with the two mediators - was still pretty incredible. In the picture below, there is long, wavy-haired Aaron - at the table outside of Heine Brothers with the somewhat cloudy September sky, a day after Ike - in the middle between Stephanie and Vincent.

There (below) is Aaron making a point, while Vincent (who was initially - like me - was quite pent up).

Here (below) is another dark picture with the three of them (no Ian yet).

And again:

Before all leaving, we agreed that any of us could call a follow-up meeting, perhaps with Aaron (and Ian?) again. In practice, many provisions of the agreement lacked enforcement mechanisms - and Vincent quickly failed to honor some of his responsibilities - while denying - when it suited him - that he had agreed to many of the things. Later that day, however, Aaron e-mailed me what he had typed up - partly from my notes:

Daily Obligations:
-obligations that that must be completed each day before utilizing privileges.
If undone, Vincent may not utilize ay privileges the next day.
-Must walk dog 1 mile, and have started by 4 PM
-Homework must be completed before 7:30 PM
-Must be at home at 7:30PM, unless organized with parents earlier
-Must be able to answer phone from parents
-Complete morning chores before 7:00 AM, before coming downstairs
-NO CURSING
-Must contact at least one parent at each change of location

Weekly Obligations
-Must be completed by 7:30 PM Friday
-Must be able to get verification of all scholastic work each week
-Must have gone to gym twice a week, cannot go twice on Friday, or any other day.
-If uncompleted, Vincent may not utilize privileges the next week

Other Obligations That Are Not Necessarily Recurring
-Family may call meeting, with mutually acceptable moderator to review decisions
-Must participate in family events
-Must take and pass Geometry final by end of September
-Must take late October ACT
-Must respect each other all the time

Vincent and Aaron left - and Vincent appeared several minutes after he had promised - after 7 p.m. Monday- about 51 hours after he had left initially. He said little to us and slept up in his room that night. But the rest of the Ike aftermath week he usually stayed over at friends - which we wouldn't normally had let him do ad nauseam - sometimes when we didn't necesssarily know where he was. We've gradually reined him back in - including with some threats to call the police again when he hasn't been home. The return of the Danes - and Vincent' s friendship with Tim and infatuation with Christina - coupled with his love for being out and about now - have encouraged some backsliding - even while I've worked on getting him to finish his core senior projects tasks, prepare for the math section of the ACT, and - in general - try to get him to do what we ask and pass one or two of these four classes he's been failing - by semester's end.

-- Perry