Boy news

Tuesday we went to parent-teacher conferences at Vincent's school. Vincent has always gone to these at Brown. He argued about going - I think partly because he knew - despite his claims about his grades otherwise - what we were going to hear. But then he was sick again Tuesday and didn't have to disappoint us by not showing up. Sure enough, he was failing all the classes he failed last year (I learned indirectly from his social studies teacher later in the week that he was also failing her two classes), except for his easiest class, Journalism, the one class he passed last semester, which he has a D in. It seemed that he was paying attention and participating in class somewhat - he has done Ok on some tests - though teachers still said he was listless and/or agitated sometimes - but he was clearly not doing any work outside of class - or - if he was occasionally doing it - wasn't turning it in. I hadn't seen any evidence - or heard him really talking about - him doing homework at least since Christmas. We didn't get a straight answer about whether the school would actually exit him. Some teachers thought it was hoax - that the school was more trying to persuade us that he couldn't graduate (he could but won't) and that we should exit him. Others thought it was imminent. Some teachers proposed the drug haze theory, that he hasn't been able to pass classes because he's been high, whereas his friend's mother - who called me during the week - proposed a conspiracy theory that the school has kept him in school partly to milk his good standardized test scores - and now wants to dump him because they fear he'll hurt their perfect graduation rate. We were skeptical of both theories and I have mixed feeling about him staying. We missed talking with his old English teacher, but, by the time we had left talking to his past and present English teacher for 45 minutes, Stephanie and she had talked themselves into trying to keep Vincent in school for his own mental health (lest he stew or become too depressed sitting at home all-day supposed working on on-line classes). Vincent would have to pass all of his six classes this semester and pass two on-line classes - plus finish his senior project in the next few weeks - to graduate on time from his school. Alternatively, he could just pass a couple of classes and then take six classes (including four electives) on-line, plus put together a senior writing portfolio, to graduate from the district's virtual high school. Stephanie and I talked with one of our counselors Thursday about my interest in exiting Vincent from our home after he turns 18 in 56 days or after his senior year, unless he will be less obnoxious, do some school work and/or get a job, and do more around the house. Stephanie and the counselor spun a host of possible diagnoses around - old ones like attention deficit disorder and oppositional defiant disorder, my favorite depressive personality disorder, Stephanie's favorite rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, and new ones the counselor proposed - narcissistic personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, even conduct disorder (Vincent didn't seem to qualify for this). They and - the next day - Vincent's would-be mother-in-law, mother of his girlfriend (whose house he spends more waking time at - for better or worse - than at our house), thought Vincent might profit from counseling or even pharmacological intervention. On the other hand, I think Vincent has a short-term time horizon and succeeded and was less somewhat less obnoxious in the past because we presented him with incentives and discincentives - ones that over the summer he unveiled as unenforceable - so he just ignored them and went on a year-long parents-free, rent-free, tuition-free, rules-free permanent vacation. I also think Vincent would under no circumstances submit to counseling again. Friday after work (and after getting the dog from doggie dentistry) we met with Kathleen (pictured above), who had called more than a week ago to ask about Vincent's school status and called back to ask about the parent-teacher conferences, suggesting we three get together. I was tough occasionally with her, and Stephanie and she concurred with more things than she and I did. The two of them (especially she) still think Vincent has some chance of graduating on time (he's conned her more on this) and both of them are more determined than I am to find a way for Vincent to stay with us, post-May 1 and post-June 15. Without mentioning the house, we talked - at Highland Coffee (not too far from their home where I had picked up Vincent and she and her husband after they saw a movie at the Baxter Theater - (Oscar-nominated "Slumdog Millionaire") that Vincent had told us after seeing "Gran Torino" that he didn't want to see - about Vincent being less obnoxious and passing (I said - just two - reasonable expectations) classes - de facto - as a condition of him staying in the house past then. You might recall that Vincent had resolved at New Year's to be more cooperative - but that last for about two weeks - until he was doing things like jumping out of the car when we wouldn't let him stay overnight one weekend with his girlfriend (of course we eventually relented - instead of caling the police). I don't think Vincent can pass two classes and I don't think he can make it through two whole months without reverting to continually yelling at us, calling us names, and using bad language with us. But maybe - with Kathleen working on him, Stephanie home monitoring, and me essentially staying out of the way as much as possible - he'll surprise me. We've got 56 days to find out. So far this weekend he hasn't gotten off to a bad start, as he supposedly worked on some homework and one of his on-line classes and did his laundry (though not all of his other chores).

-- Perry