Mom in 30 days (ish)

Yep, Mom's move-in date is quickly approaching! It is final weeks at work. When I am not here, I am working at the house. I know that we have done a lot of de-cluttering, but there is always more. Roland and Gary are going to clean out the garage. I told Roland that if there are any boxes that have been there since we moved in 18 years ago, he should take them to the thrift store without showing them to me. He agreed, after making sure I wasn't trying to make him do the same thing with HIS boxes.

Over the past few days I have painted the bedroom Roland and I are moving into. I really should have just painted it the soothing neutral with white trim that I wanted and never asked Roland what he thought. I asked Roland though and all he cared about was that the room was as light as we could make it. I let him pick the main color: a light neutral with yellow undertones ("Seaside Sand"). Then I tried to do the trim. I didn't like the white I bought to go with it. Then I didn't like the slightly darker neutral that I thought would coordinate well. So then I bought testers of two darker neutrals and picked one. I finished the trim and then when I went to work the next day I realized that I had painted my bedroom in the same colors as the interior of the building. I told Roland that I was very sorry, but I HAD to buy a new color for the trim in the room. When I told him why, he completely understood. So today I am going to buy a quart of a dusty rose color.

I hope I can get that mostly done this evening. Tomorrow evening I am committed to pre-baking pizza crusts for Thursday's department dinner at my house. Everyone knows the state of my existence right now, so I won't be trying to clean the house for them.

Friday I plan to clean the carpet in that room and Roland and I will move our things in over the weekend.

Wednesday, May 16, I have a meeting with the dean, must turn my grades in by noon, and expect my sister and niece to arrive in the evening. We will spend the next two weeks on the rest of the house. Then we fly to Pennsylvania to drive Mom back!

So I have constantly updating lists in my head: lists of things to be graded; schedule for the next three days; goals for the next week; things that will be easy to cook for dinner while my sister is here.

One thing I want to do is get estimates for bath renovation for Mom. The house is 80 years old and we still have the original claw foot tub. I love the tub, but it is definitely NOT ADA compliant.Nothing is going to be simple. There is no alcove. The walls are just painted; and there is a large window that would prevent installing most pre-made units. So I'm pretty sure the options are: freestanding, walk-in tub; custom shower; or a bath with hand shower.

In other news, today is Gary's first day at his new job. He is working in the kitchen in a small restaurant next between the winery and the "fruit ranch" just outside of town. You know the one, right before you cross the river at Lizard Butte.

The Rental Agreement

So I talked with Gary, over his 1pm breakfast, about his rental agreement. He looked like he was just barely able to keep from rolling his eyes. When I got to the payment for room and board being $50 a week, payable in 5 hours of course a week he said stunned, "A WEEK?"

"Yeah. 5 hours a week"

"That is freaking lot of hours."

We talked on and I mentioned some things he could do today. "I don't have time today! I have to train from 3-8, everyday."

I took a slow quiet deep breath and did not mention that that was 5 hours, every day. Hours that he is training because he wants to. Hours for which he is not getting pain. Instead I told him that I had a list that Roland had made of things he could do so the chores did not pile up. He did not quite resist rolling his eyes at that. I said I thought it was a good offer, and was actually less that Andrew and Alice were going to be doing. He said, "Yeah, but I don't even get my own room, so what's the point?"

He went on to tell me that he could move in with his best friend for $175/month. He would have to sleep on a sofa, but he could create a private space. It was in the same town as his gym and the community college so it made a lot more sense than staying here. Especially since he doesn't even have a car anymore.

I agreed that it did sound good and asked if he had made any definite plans yet. He said no.

I kept my voice calm and unemotional throughout. In the inside there was another voice being loud, yelling about how the ungrateful little shite has being doing nothing for months and offering to pack up his things and move them to his friend's right now. I don't like that part of me, but it has been trying to get out recently.

I feel badly about being so happy and relieved that he might really move out.

I want things to be better for him and I want to be able to help him to make them better. I just don't think he is ready for that though. He has to do it his own way.

You know that nasty voice that wants out? It wants to start nagging and bitching and fighting with Gary to push him over the edge so he will grab his things and storm out before his friend changes his mind.

I am not always proud of myself.

---

I have been keeping my sense of humor though. I have just found out about the wonderful "first world problems" meme and have been having fun with it. When Andrew caught me scowling while doing dishes and wanted to know what was wrong I told him, "I'm just so frustrated. I could make Gary's life perfect if he would just do what I want him to do when I want him to do it!"

Talking myself down

After more than a decade of foster care and time in therapy and (most of all) work in Alanon, I know this to be true:

As long as I am trying to figure out how to make Gary do what I think is best for Gary to do, I will succeed only in making myself crazy.

So, what I need to do are establish the boundaries I feel are necessary to protect myself and the rest of the family and the action plan I will take if those boundaries are not respected. Action plans are not threats coerce behavior, they are actions I am genuinely willing to take to protect the rest of us. This, of course, include protecting us from being treated unfairly.

The only real action I can take is evicting him. Evicting is both difficult and easy. On the easy side, he doesn't own very many things and the foster agency would store them in his basement. So evicting him would be as easy as boxing up his things. We might consider changing the locks, but I don't think that would be necessary.

That is extreme action and one I would be willing to take only under extreme situations. That means that I need to accept that I am in fact willing to continue to support him in a very basic way even if he doesn't behave in the ways that I want him to, as long as he behavior stays basically civil. In other words,the boundaries are in fact things like not stealing from family members. There is a point at which I would say enough, but for the sake of everyone's sanity, I am going to avoid going down that path where I only become willing to do evict after a long period of anger and attempted manipulation. Right now I don't have any particular deadline, but eventually I will. I will commit to not fighting with him, but at some point in the future I may give him notice. Start paying rent (or whatever) or you will be evicted.

I know that I am more anxious now because I really hoped and expected that Gary would move out (as he wanted to) before Andrew and my mother moved in. Once Gary does not have a private bedroom he will have no place to isolate himself. That means that we will all have to deal with him, and he with us. I spin possible scenarios in my head. Recently he has been spending most of the weekends with his friends and is only home on the days when he has the house to himself for much of the day. When people are here every day and he has no private room, will he start doing that all the time? Maybe. Though I think that "hanging out" and probably drinking is bad for him, storing his belongings while he essentially lives with friends is not bad for me.

I want help him succeed. I cannot however direct that path.

So...

I have written up a "rental agreement." It specifies what behavior Gary must agree to in order to continue to get free room and board. The agreement includes doing 5 hours a week of chores and not creating more work for others by doing things like leaving messes in the kitchen and dirty dishes in the basement. This agreement has no "teeth." There are no consequences I am willing to impose upon him for immediate failure to comply. Part of the agreement includes that we are not available for small loans or to pay for personal expenses, so I cannot threaten to withhold those if he doesn't comply. So all I will really be doing is documenting non-compliance in case I need to make it clear to him why he is being evicted.

In the meantime, I commit to trying not to create new anxieties for myself. I will not worry about how stressful it will be for me or others to live with Gary when he no longer has a private room. He avoids stress and it is just as likely that he will end up rarely being home as being here fighting with people.

How long am I willing to do this? I don't know. However long it is though I will remind myself that I decided to let him stay. I am providing him with a safety net, housing and food, for the indefinite future. This is a choice I am making, and in making it freely, I am not going to be resentful of him for accepting it.

I do have the power and authority to evict him if I ever feel that I need to. In the meantime, I will try to avoid that insane choice in which I don't take action but instead put emotional energy into trying to "help" (i.e. manipulate him into doing what I think is best for him).

Feeling less guilty anyway

I told Gary that Roland and I would pay off the bills from his ER visit (which look like they will total at least $1200) if he paid us $500 out of the student loan payment he expects this week. He has other bills, but the medical one is the largest and, I think, the most serious.

He turned us down. He doesn't think he can afford to pay that much one one bill all at once.

The conversation went on, but I don't feel it would be appropriate to post it all here. Suffice it to say that he seems determined to make decisions that appear to me to be foolish.  So we will be handing him the medical bills and letting him deal (or not) with them as he chooses.

--
Update: part of  his decision seems to be based upon a rumor there is a new law saying that medical bills can't affect your credit rating. I looked it up. There is a bill that so far as I can tell, has not yet been passed, which says that once medical bills under $2500 have been paid, the fact that they went unpaid for some period of time will have to be removed from your credit report after 45 days. I'll make sure he is aware of this.

I know that the reason that I am experiencing so much frustration right now is that I am trying to make him do what I want him to do. I'm going to have to think about this...

Feeling a bit stressed

Mom sold her house. She sold it after just two weeks. It was purchased by a local family who I guess had always admired it. In the paper work they agreed that Mom could stay until the end of May. Sis and I are flying out on the last day of May. Presumably we will be spending one or maybe two nights with an aunt or Mom's BFF. Then we will drive back to Idaho. The people who bought the house are finding it difficult to be patient. They now want Mom to move out by the end of April. That's not going to happen.

When I found out that Mom sold the house I had a couple small moments of panic similar to moments I had late in the second pregnancy when for some reason or another it all became very real. You know, that what-in-the-world-was-I-thinking feeling. I kept reassuring myself that I had meant it. I mean, I wasn't just trying to score good-daughter points by saying, "You know Mom, you can always come live with me."

No, I really did mean it. Really.

Anyway, Andrew is here for spring break. He and his girlfriend, whom I call Alice on the blog, are helping with some de-cluttering and reorganization of the house. Yesterday we sorted through books. A&A took three large laundry baskets of books to the used book store. Roland is taking one basket to church and two to his school. That means that all the books that are currently on the ground floor (the house has a ground floor and a finished basement) are now on the bookcases in the basement, which are again close to full.

There is much more to be sorted, sent away, and moved, but I will spare you the details. In the end, Mom will have the corner bedroom on the ground floor. It is the largest, and has lots of windows. I wanted her to have a room that would be comfortable to use at least some as a sitting room. I know she will need to be able to get some privacy during the day. Roland and I will have the slightly smaller bedroom on the ground floor.

Brian is going to be going off to college in the fall. He is definitely going to the college where I teach, a whole half-mile away. He will come home for holidays and maybe more, but starting in September, the bedroom would be mostly empty. Gary says he can't sleep unless he has a room of his own, but he has always regarded this as a fair option because, you know, he was moving out in two or three months anyway.

Alice has been unhappy with her living situation. She lived in the dorms her freshman year and liked it but decided that she couldn't afford it her sophomore. So she moved back home with her two sisters, mother, and mother's boyfriend. She doesn't complain much, but it is taking a toll on her. Andrew plans on living at home for a couple or three years so he can get take the courses to become a high school teacher. Alice would like for him to find a part-time job so they can rent an apartment together. Andrew sees no reason at all to spend money on an apartment while he is a student and he can have free rent at home.

I talked to them and told them that it would be helpful for me if they lived here. My mother is used to a much cleaner house. Andrew already knows that he will be paying for his rent by cooking dinner more often than not. I gave them a list of other things I would really like done, including be available to drive grandma to appointments. We've agreed on a limit an average of 5 hours of work a week each.  They would mostly have the basement to themselves, and could arrange the rec room however they liked to make it comfortable for them both.

I feel much less stressed about it all when I think of them being here. Alice says she has to bring her cat who doesn't like other cats. We agreed she could bring it and assured her that cats learn to tolerate each other. I know she is nervous about moving in here, but she also agrees that it is her best option. I believe that Andrew has told her that if it really doesn't work out they will find another option.

So far, so good. All is well. Brian will mostly be in college but will have his basement bedroom whenever he wants to come home. Andrew and Alice will be living mostly in the basement and helping with the work.

And Gary? Well, when I talked to him about this happening last summer I told him he could share Brian's bedroom. He agreed, but did not really think about what that would be like because he was going to move out in a couple of months anyway. In the summer I didn't think it would be a couple of months, but it would probably be in January. In January I thought it would certainly be by May. I know Gary doesn't want to keep living here. Now though? Well, currently he still has no job, no savings, and some debt. He gets a student loan payment in a few days, but after that nothing.* And for the icing on the cake, yesterday his car was repossessed. He is upset, but mostly I think he wishes he had given the car back to the dealer months ago instead of spending so much money on it. (No, I don't understand why he spent so much money fixing it and did not make any payments on it at all. I know he was counting on it not getting re-possessed before he got his second loan payment.)

He is applying for jobs and still wants to move out in a couple of months, but is now taking seriously the idea of moving into Brian's room.

Except of course he will not really move into Brian's room. It will not become "Brian and Gary's room." It will be the Brian's room with Gary's stuff in it. Gary will live and sleep in the rec room. This, by the way, is main reason Brian has no problem with the plan at all. Sure he can make room for Gary's stuff. Not an issue. I have been confident that since Gary planned to move out anyway and would hate not having a room to himself, that he would surely get his act together and move. Now I think there is a real possibility that he will stay, live mostly in the rec room in the summer and then take possession of the bedroom in the fall when Brian leaves.

We talked seriously about his staying the other day. I wanted him to know that he was not being kicked out of the house. He was losing his private room, but this is his home and there is room for him here. I also told him that we needed to be clear on what chores he did to pay for rent. He has not been doing much, and that really did need to change. I explained that Andrew and Alice would be doing about 5 hours a week each, and he needed to commit to something similar. He agreed he still would prefer to be responsible for the yard. There had been little to do through the winter, but that would probably mean that he would be making it up during the summer. He agreed, although so far he has been far better about agreeing to do work than actually doing it.  I also expect that he agreed because he is still imagines moving out soon.

So I'm stressed. Partly this is because I worry about other people's stress and I have been assuring Alice that living here will be acceptable for her. We have all been imagining the basement as something of a semi-apartment for them. Of course, Brian would be there sometimes, but otherwise they would have a bedroom and good size general room to themselves. As I imagine life with my mom, me, Roland, Andrew and Alice it feels very doable. Mom will like and get along with Andrew and Alice. Everyone living here will be committed to pitching in and making it work. There will be stress and difficulties, but mostly it feels right.

Gary here is not the same dynamic. He says he will pitch in, but doesn't. He doesn't even seem to understand that as a young adult getting free rent it is really, really tacky that he still leaves dirty dishes all over the basement and only brings them up when I demand that he does. He is still a teenager, acting like a teenager, expecting assistance without really believing he needs to do anything to contribute.

On the bright side he did yesterday announce that he has decided that getting drunk every weekend with his friends is stupid. This behavior has not had a much of a direct impact on our lives as he tends to just be gone for the entire weekend, returning with the tail end of a hang over. (Of course, this is not taking into account the emergency room visit, or the affect that this behavior has undoubtedly had on his ability to move on.)

So I hope that Gary will actually move out. Then I feel guilty about welcoming Andrew back and wishing Gary gone. Then I remind myself that I am counting on Brian leaving too, and that I would NOT be happy about Andrew moving back if he didn't have a clear plan for independence. Andrew and Alice will affect household expenses, but they will be responsible for all personal expenses. And because Andrew knows how to cook on a budget, my grocery bill is often no higher when he is here then when he is gone. (Having a reliable second cook also means that we almost never do things like order pizza because I just don't feel like cooking).

Gary does not seem to be any closer to independence. I know he is trying, but nothing is working for him. Right now he is talking about applying to living in the dorms at Boise State University in the fall. That he does not have the academic record to be accepted to BSU does not seem to factor into his computations. I understand that letting him live here is providing him a safety net so that his life doesn't sink in the ways his sister's has, but it also is not helping him to become more capable.

So I find myself hoping that the changes in the family motivate Gary to move. He will no longer have the house to himself when everyone else leaves for work or school. He will no longer have a private bedroom. I find myself hoping he hates it and figures something else out.

Then I feel guilty. I know it looks like all the related-by-birth family is welcomed with open arms while the adopted son is being pushed to leave. So I reassure him that he is not being kicked out. This is his home. He is welcome here. Meanwhile I hope that he moves on.

So yeah, a bit stressed.

And  in case you are wondering, I have no regrets about adopting him, although I do sometimes wish we had waited until he was out of the home like the other boys. The social workers from Casey Family Programs** were so very helpful during transition. I did not realize how difficult this part would be without them.

I don't know. Maybe it would help to be more formal about the work that Gary is supposed to be doing to pay for his rent. Maybe if he had to log the hours it would be more real.

____

* My current thought about Gary's medical bills is this: Roland and I take responsibility for them but insist that Gary pay us $500 out of his student loan distribution he is expecting in the next week. We then put that money aside and tell him that when he moves out we will give it back to him so he can spend it on his various expenses.

**That is not a mistake. I'm not worried about anonymity so much anymore. I live in Idaho. We worked with the Casey Family Programs.

"I just want to be taken seriously"

Gary has had 4 ER visits in the past year.

The first was for an injury he sustain in MMA practice. He was afraid he had broken a rib. He had not.

The second was for a panic-attack-from-hell that he had as a result of consuming something (or several somethings) at a party. He thought he was dying. He had his friends call him an ambulance which took him to the ER were they gave him IV fluids and an anti-anxiety medication.

The third was 10 days after he had his tonsils removed. He hadn't bothered with the routine anti-biotics he was prescribed and he was spitting up blood. He could not wait a few more hours to go to the doctor's office. At the ER they gave him sympathy, considered giving him antibiotics, but got an afternoon appointment with the surgeon. He was prescribed antibiotics which he did not take because "the doctor didn't think it was an infection." I argued that the doctor must have thought it was an infection, because he prescribed antibiotics. Finally I just started handing them to him on schedule.

The fourth was yesterday. Friday evening he was at a bonfire with friends. He was drinking, did something foolish, and hit his head hard. At noon he felt he had to have medical attention because he had such a terrible headache. We took him to the urgent care clinic, but he reported symptoms of a concussion and they sent him to the ER. There he was given Tylenol, had a CT scan and was told he was fine.

He has this pattern with his health. He has a symptom, is afraid he is seriously ill and must see a physician. The physician sees him, prescribes some treatment, and Gary goes home, ignores the treatment and usually feels better very quickly. He seems to have a strong need to be seen by a professional. This does not translate into any desire to follow up on the treatments.

And I have noticed at every emergency room visit, at some point when we are waiting for something or other, he will say, not necessarily to me, "I just want to be taken seriously."

My usual approach won't work with this one. I cannot just let him do what he is going to do and deal with the consequences himself.

Okay, I wrote that and then thought "sure I can. I just don't want to."

I can't imagine going back to yesterday and saying, "Sweetie, you have no bruise, no bump, and your eyes look fine. You are severely hung over and you hit your head. Of course you feel miserable. Drink some water and take a pill."

I wanted to say that. I think I would have been right to say that. On the other hand, what if I had been wrong? What if he had had a concussion? I no longer trust his reports of his own health. I don't think he is lying. I think he is genuinely frightened by what he is feeling. He needs the reassurance. Maybe he needs the attention from me. Even if I am right about that, he still could be seriously hurt.

Only the thing is ... I seriously cannot afford this. Roland and I are living on a very tight budget paying off debts from last year. Two thirds of that debt is a combination of Gary-related car expenses and Gary's medical bills. Before this latest ER visit I had hoped we would pay off all the debt before my mother moved in, but thought more realistically, we might make it by the end of summer. I know that "can't afford it" is relative. I know that if he had had a concussion and needed surgery I would be resigned to paying off a higher debt load. I would be worried, but I would cope.

Right now though? Right now I am angry because even if he had been seriously injured, it still would have been the result of getting drunk. He doesn't seem to think that is a big deal. When he was in the emergency room after taking the stuff at the party he seemed quite sincere when he said that he learned never to do that again. This time he says that drinking is just what teenagers do. (Does that mean that when he turns 20 in the fall he will change? I'm not holding my breath.) He won't try to do acrobatics and land on his head though. I do not want to be responsible for this bill.

On the other hand, he really can't afford it. He has to be at least $1000 behind on his car payments. He doesn't have a job and wants to move out. I want him to move out too, and saddling him with more debt won't help.

We've pretty much decided that we are going to take responsibility for the larger portion of the bill and make him responsible for a smaller part of it. The easiest way to do that will be for us to pay the money owed to the hospital and make him responsible for the bills from the docs. (We will get one from the ER physician and from the radiologist who looked at the CT scans). That feels right to me. It means he has to deal with the real-world consequences of his actions, but we have soften the blow enough that it is not going to destroy him. It will hurt real bad though.

Roland and I are getting resentful and that is not a good thing. Gary has been talking about wanting to buy a tablet computer. In the ER he told me that he was thinking that maybe all he could afford would be a Kindle Fire. I ranting about how much money he owes and our struggles to pay off the debts, but I didn't. On the way home I did tell him that the changes that he was seeing in our lifestyle were a result of trying to get out of debt and that I did not think Roland and I were going to be willing to take responsibility for the $800 (or whatever) the ER visit was going to cost. I told him we would help, but he was going to have to be responsible for some of it.

Right now the very best thing about my mom moving in is that Gary is determined to move out first. I warned him last summer that if this happened he and Brian would have to share a room. He losing the private bedroom when my sister shows up in the middle of May.  Since I started this post he has told me that he called his social worker to learn about getting assistance moving out. He just has to find a job first. (He also told me that he is feeling great and he googled his symptoms. He is sure he had a severe concussion. CT scans can't always pick those up, you know.)

I love the boy, I do, but I am past ready for him to move.

I'm angry that he agreed to do chores to pay for his rent and he has not. I'm angry that he leaves dirty dishes in the basement and I have to nag at him to get them back up. I'm angry that he doesn't understand that not doing chores and making messes is something I can tolerate in a high school student, he has passed into a different realm for me.

I'm tired of hearing about all his fantastic plans. I'm tired of feeling resentful.

So I think it helped to rant to y'all.

Maybe.

But I still feel like slapping someone.

My Mom

Plans are being made to move my Mom here at the end of May.

Last June I made the offer to Mom and she seemed to think it was a definitely possibility. I suspected that Mom would keep putting it off, agreeing that it was a good thing to do in a year or so. She couldn't delay moving indefinitely. She lives in a small house with a bedroom on the second floor and laundry in the basement. As the Parkinson's progresses she simply will not be able to handle the stairs. She says she doesn't want to live in an assisted living/retirement community, and that does not leave many options.

The big change is that her BFF is going to retire and move next fall. That decision wasn't expected, but it makes sense given the events in the BFF's extended family. Mom has become very dependent upon her friend for all sorts of things. Her friend drivers her to most of her appointments, takes her shopping, and carries the laundry up and down the stairs.

My sister is finishing her class work for college in early May. After that she does and internship and then she plans to get a job. Sis can take a month off early this summer to help with the move, but doesn't expect to be able to take that kind of time ever again.

So right now, here is the tentative plan. Sis is a meticulous housekeeper. I'm not. Sis will be flying out here when she finishes classes and will spend two weeks bossing me around and whipping my house into shape. I am by the way, pleased with this. I am getting professional-quality home organization service free. Well, I have to give her room and board and be her staff-of-one, but it should be worth it.

Then Sis and I hope to be able to fly to Mom's house. If all goes according to plan, Mom, with the help of her BFF, will have the closing of the house finished. Most of the furniture is going to a local auction place. Some will have gone into a small moving van. Lots of things will have gone to a thrift store or the dump.

Sis, Mom and I will then drive back here. It will take about four days. It could be done in less, but neither Mom nor Sis do much driving and I think 9 hours a day is about all I can expect of myself. Maybe we will take five days. The main advantage to driving is being able to bring Mom's almost-new car back with us.

We have not finalized all these plans, and Mom is still thinking about whether she would prefer to do it another way,

***correction: I just got an email from Mom's BFF. Mom is sending a check to Sis to help pay for travel. We're on.***

My niece will be coming along with Sis. She will help with the grunt work in my house and with the driving on the way back. With niece to help with the driving, maybe we can make it in 3 days.

I guess I am moving on to the next stage of my life. I haven't been a foster parent for more than a year. Soon things will be different again. Maybe it is time to start a whole new blog. I imagine there is probably a community of bloggers who are living with or at least caring for their elderly parents. I don't want to lose y'all, but it might be good if I connect with them too...

Catching up

(I just read the post below. Damn, it makes me feel depressed about my life. I think this is why I haven't been writing much at all. I don't really feel depressed. Actually, I feel pretty good. But there is not a lot of good news.)

Hi all, just in case you were wondering...

Gary has started taking classes at community college. It is too early to know what will become of it. One of his main motivations is financial. He qualifies for a significant amount of federal aid, and he needs it pretty desperately. He has car-associated bills that are unpaid leaving him in a very difficult place. If continues to live at home, goes to school, gets all the aid, maybe gets a part time job also, he might be able to be out of debt by summer. He wants to move out, but it is unclear whether and when he will be able to afford it. 

We gave him a rescue in the fall. We put a new clutch in the car and made an insurance payment so he could keep driving. Roland tended to wonder if this would "work," meaning would it get him set on a path that would lead to stability. I said that I did not expect it to work, but I needed to know that I had done it. The first time he got in over his head, I would bail him out. 

So, I don't know what will happen to him next. He can stay here and have free room and board indefinitely, but we are doing less and less for him outside of that. He is supposed to be paying all of the rest of his expenses, so mostly that means he does without. I get irritated with him sometimes and then do passive aggressive things like put onions in whatever I am cooking so he won't want to eat it. 

But he is trying. He is struggling with growing up. He makes poor decisions, but I know he wants to be independent. His plan is not to live off of our grudging generosity indefinitely. Eventually he will pull things together. 

His sister Helen is spiraling out of control. My theory is that she just rushed into adulthood too quickly. She did so well in high school. She graduated early, went to college early. She made a couple of really bad decisions which cut her off from her last foster family. Then she got sick and could not or did not ask them for help. She ended up not going back to school and is struggling in ways we all hoped she would never have to. There are people who will help her when she is ready to ask for it. Hopefully she will ask. I don't know how much I can do for her, our resources are pretty stretched. 

We don't get support from the agency anymore, which I am not complaining about, but the reality is that we are living on a tighter budget than we have in a long time. I've got out all my old vegetarian recipes and am enjoying meals with beans (which Brian hates) and onions (which both Brian and Gary hate) and loving it. I'm not doing it to make them angry. It is more that the budget issue has over-ridden my desire to cater to them and so I can enjoy eating things I like without feeling (very) guilty. Today I will be making pizza dough and baking up individual-sized pizza crusts. The boys can dump stuff on them and bake them when they want.

You may remember that Andrew is graduating from college this year. He wants to move back in and attend the college where I teach to get his teaching certificate for high school. It will probably take him two years. After cooking for himself at college, he is very good at eating on a budget. He cooks when he is here, and I am looking forward to that.

My mom's Parkinson's is progressing as Parkinson's does. Her best friend is planning to retire in the fall. She will be moving out of state, which almost certainly means that Mom has to move this summer. She has become very dependent on her friend. Without her Mom will have to either live with us or move into assisted living. So the chances are very good that she will be moving in with us this summer. I'm hoping she can manage the business side on her end ... putting the house up for sale, arranging for most of her furniture to be auctioned off. I'm not sure how exactly we will handle it if she just isn't up to it. The Parkinson's makes her tired. The disease may also be why her hearing is failing so badly. I know her friend will help her make the phone calls so she can get things done. Still, Mom must make the decisions and she is fighting depression. 

Ideally, it would be best if she and we sold our houses and bought a new house with a master's suite for her. After a decade of foster parenting, I've gotten fairly good at adjusting to new people in the house. The most difficult part is going to be Mom's obsessive need for things to be tidy. We will adjust our habits some, but most of that will have to be hers. I will need to remind myself of that frequently. The bottom line is that even if we worked very, very hard, we would never be able to keep our house as meticulously tidy as she does hers. This really is the only part that I am anxious about.

My sister is finishing up college. She is still living with her husband. He has a job that requires travel and is only home about one day a week. Sis says they get along really well that one day. Officially, Sis is still "giving him a chance." One factor is certainly that Sis cannot support herself until she finishes college. I have wondered if she is genuinely trying to make it work, or if she is just trying to hang on until she graduates with no expectation that it will succeed long term. I suspect she goes back and forth between the two thoughts. When she is done she should be able to get a job which will require her to move. I don't know if her husband will come with her or not. 

And I am doing far better than I would have been had I had to deal with all of this a few years ago. Somewhere along the line I just got better and not making other people's problems mine. When I don't need to think about them, I don't. 

Work is going very well for me. The two other members of the department retired in the past two years and we just now finally hired a replacement. We will be a department of two for the foreseeable future, but I am very happy about the person we have hired. For the first time in a couple of years I am not flying by the seat of my pants. The regular work of long-term planning and assessment is no longer the meaningless act of fiction it has been. 

My new colleague is so much younger than I am. I've decided that is what it means to get older.  I don't feel like I am older. I do notice that my body is not as cooperative about some things, but other than that, I feel about the same. What I do notice as that other adults are getting younger. Increasingly I got to professionals that are barely older than my children. Most of the profs we have hired recently seem hardly older than the students. It's weird, but not bad. 

And all this isn't as depressing as it might sound. The children have to follow their own paths to adulthood. I can't travel it for them. All I can do is provide some basic level of safety net so that things don't get too bad for them. I have confidence that eventually they will find their balance. And things will work out with Mom. I get frustrated living with the young men because they do things like leave dishes all over the house. Now I am nervous about living with a woman who will try not to be irritated at me for not washing every pot as soon as I finish using it. There is a stand-up routine bit in there somewhere.

I don't need your permission...

.. I just need you to rescue me from my mistakes.

I'm too tired to be writing. The new sleep specialist was very apologetic when, after I told her that I was feeling GREAT, that she had to say she had to change some thing and I might feel pretty bad for a while. Actually I think part of the reason I'm feeling bad is that I started feeling depressed as soon as she told me that I was going to feel worse. But see, that is totally irrelevant to the story, although it might be relevant to why I am telling the story.

There has been a certain theme lately.

Gary talks to us about some outrageous, unrealistic plan to see what we think.
We say, "If you do that, X will probably happen and that would be bad."
He says, "X is NOT going to happen, and even if it does, I have two great back-up plans. So what do you think?"
We say, "We don't think it is a good idea."
He does it.
X happens.
Our suggestion that he use his back up plan is met with incredulity. THAT won't work.
He indicates what he needs from us to fix the problem.
We indicate that he is not going to get it.
He tells us how truly horrible his life will be if we don't fix his problem.
We agree that it sucks to be him, but whatever happens he knows he has a place to live and food to eat.

And I am beginning to feel worn out. I know it is the sleep thing. I've been not-tired for a couple of months and it has been WONDERFUL, now I'm tired again and feeling pissy.

And I swear, if he comes up and says, "Question. I thinking it would be a good idea if I..."

I am going to scream
or hit him over the head with a hammer
many times.

I think 18 might be my least favorite age.

Thank you for listening to me whine. Sorry I haven't been writing. I kinda feel guilty not writing at all and then coming here just to whine, but well, I figure you will take it from me.

I'm going to bed now.

Strange Conversations Today

Conversation 1
Sis, "Are you sure you are okay with everyone going to your house for Thanksgiving? Because if you are not, I'll tell Dad we can't make it."

Me, "Everyone's coming to my house for Thanksgiving?"


Conversation 2
Setting: 3pm, Gary emerging from room for the first time (still in pj's)
Me, "Honey, this is is me asking for the 3rd day in a row that you bring up all the dirty dishes from the basement and get them in the dishwasher."

Gary, "I know. I know. I have more important things to do."

Me, "Like what?"

Gary, "Um... like fill out these job applications?" (said in the "parents are so stupid voice")

Me, deciding not to comment on the fact that he has apparently been sleeping all day, "Okaaay, do you think you could fit dishes in sometime in the next hour or two?" (I admit, there was a tone.)

*****
In case you are interested:
It is okay with me if my sister, her husband, 3 young adult children, my father and his wife all show up here for Thanksgiving, particularly since they will be staying at a hotel and I long since figured out how to cook two turkeys in one oven.

Also, Gary did get all those dirty dishes up into the dishwasher. It wasn't a full load, but...

Still growing up

Gary is still working at the frozen yogurt place. He has been there several weeks and yesterday he was called in to talk to the manager about his performance. This is a new shop and Gary was one of the younger people hired. Because of the way he presents himself, he was hired as a team-leader or assistant-manager.

There have been two sorts of problems. One has to do with irregularities with respect to money. It could be that someone on his shift has been lifting money. It is more likely that they have been making some small mistakes in the cash register. Gary himself has been making a fairly big mistake regularly. He has been adding change or singles without taking out larger bills to replace it. So when he adds $10 in quarters the register looks as though they made $10 in sales. It also looks like someone stole $10 in quarters from the safe.

There were other things, like not leaving the store properly stocked and prepped for the morning. The store has been very clean. It is obvious that Gary has not been rushing what he believed he needed to do, but that for some reason he did not recall that he was supposed to the other work.

So Gary has been warned. He is one part defensive and one part committed to making sure he proves himself and gets a good recommendation from this place.  am very glad that the manager gave Gary the talking-to and the second chance. He has left or lost other jobs and based upon what he told me I have concluded he was let go because of job performance, but nobody seemed to tell him precisely what he was doing wrong. This is of course speculation on my part, but it is based upon him telling me about his work.

 The point is, that it occurred to me this morning how really terrible it would have been for Gary if he had been encouraged to move out last fall when he turned 18. So many foster kids do, even when they legally are not required to. (In my experience it is difficult to convince them to stay, they do not like being in care.) Gary is still not ready to take care of himself.

Oh, he sounds like he is. He talks about savings goals, criticizes friends for not having a budget and saving money, talks almost reasonably about how much he expects to need when he lives on his own. Much of the information is there, but the habits of life are not. Not all of the knowledge, of course, he has been appalled at how little money is left after taxes and gasoline. When he calculates the added cost of car insurance he wonders if he can afford to work.

He is making progress, at least a little. I do have hopes that he will be able to move out within the next six months.

He still thinks he is going to be going to community college in a month ... even though he has not actually applied or done any of that other stuff. He simply doesn't believe me when I tell him that the classes there fill up quickly. He seems to think it will work like high school. You show up the first day, register, and get your scheduled.

Anyway, I am glad he is still here. I am the adoption made him comfortable with the idea of staying longer. He needs what I am beginning to think of of stage-two adolescence. He thinks he is an adult. He is doing what he thinks he needs to do to actually become one, but he still needs the safety net of parents.

Wait, he doesn't just need to safety net, he needs us to hold up all the ropes.

Like mother...

A few days after returning from visiting my mother Andrew and I were driving in the car and he asked me how it went.

I told him that mostly I got along really well with my mother. The only thing that bugged me was the sense that I was always being evaluated. Like at lunch one day she said, "I can't decide whether I like your glasses" which seemed to me to be a very silly thing to say. I mean, if I was decided whether I wanted them then her opinion would be relevant, but now they just were my glasses. I didn't CARE if she liked them or not. And she is almost never critical, but you can tell she is working at it. Like, her friend made me this new nightgown that I cut out from Mom's fabric stash. It makes me look as round as a pumpkin. Mom looked at it, didn't say anything, and then half an hour later said, "I guess that is a cool, comfortable night gown for you to wear in the summer, isn't it?" So sometimes it gets to me, this feeling like I am being constantly evaluated ... even when the evaluations are good.

And the silence in the car was very, very loud.

I said, "I do see my faults in my mother."

And Andrew said, "I was pretty sure you would get there by yourself."

Which is precisely the sort of thing either my mother or I would say.

Update on me & the rest of the fam

Did I tell you I had a sleep study done a few months ago? Yeah, I found out why I was so freaking exhausted all the time. I got a CPAP machine a couple of months ago and it has been wonderful. This has resulted in my spending less time on-line because I have energy to do things that don't involve sitting in a chair. It is all pretty cool.

I went to spend my now-annual visit with my mother. She is looking much better this year than last. Her tremors appears to have be no worse, and possible even a bit less. She reports though that they are more extensive. She feels this higher in her arm and in her face. I think they appear to be less because she was so exhausted last summer. In any case, she is serious about moving out of her house. I told her that Roland and I had already talked about her moving in with us. She was glad to hear it because she thinks she can't afford assisted living, hates the idea of living in a retirement community (though she would probably adjust), and is afraid that if she moved into an apartment she would just have to move again as the Parkinson's progresses.

So we talked about the details. She would take our room on the ground floor and we would move down to the basement where we were when Carl first moved in. I warned her that she could keep her room as tidy as she wanted, but the rest of the house would be a change for her. She has clearly been thinking about that and seems prepared. She wanted to talk about the details of moving. The most important part was, I think, that I assured her that I would fly back with her. Right now I would think there is a better than 50% chance that she would move in.

Most of the time I think that is a good idea and I am very comfortable with it. Every now and then I have a moment of panic. "OH MY GOD, MY MOTHER IS GOING TO LIVE WITH ME!"

So, just to give you a complete picture: Gary should almost certainly be moved out by next summer. Brian will have just graduated from high school and preparing to move a full half mile away into the college dormitories. Andrew on the other hand will have just graduated from college and is hoping to move back home for a year (at least) while he take courses for a teaching certificate. You know, so he can put that philosophy degree to use.

Roland and I are coming to accept that we will never have to deal with the anxiety of an empty nest.

Update on Gary

So, Gary got credit for his English class, on the condition that he take economics in summer school. Since he had a day-time job, he got permission to take Econ in the digital learning academy. Of course, the class started this week and by that time he had quit the job, but we won't go there.

So far this summer he has worked for about a week painting houses. He quit that job because, well, because he didn't like it, but officially because he had to drive into The City and couldn't afford the gas. He got a job in a plant and had to quit that because they wanted him to work 60 hours a week. (I was out of town and do not know if I could have persuaded him that that was a stupid reason for an 18 year old trying to move out on his own to quit a job.)  He only worked that job one day. He went to his martial arts class and cracked a rib later that day and was told not to work for two days.

We got a letter from the insurance saying that because he got a speeding ticket back in December his car insurance was going up. Again, I was out of town and Roland just isn't as good at being tough with teenagers as I am. When I got back I explained to him that he really could not drive, except to go to work, until he started paying us $25 a month to help pay for it.

I used all my tough-teen skills, which means that instead of telling him that I would not allow him to drive I explained that I would be happy to go with him to the bank to set up an account so he could cash the two checks he had. I would further be happy to let him use those checks to pay us the $25 first even though he has already asked us for a loan based upon both of them. I pointed out to him that this would mean that he would be able to drive again in less than 24 hours!

For whatever reason, he has been unable to present himself during business hours for the past couple of days and so has not yet gone to the bank.

Today he has an interview to as frozen yogurt store. I am sure he expects to drive himself, but I am considering given him a lift as I have an errand to accomplish in the same area. Of course I will once again be all that is generous, completely overlooking the fact that my generosity will prevent him from taking any side trips while he has the car.

It is obvious to anyone who is not Gary that he is anxious about moving out on his own. He may even be depressed. As always, everything that he plans to do will be easy. He is excited and confident. Everything he currently needs to do is either easy or not worth doing for some reason or another. We have been down this path with kids enough that it no longer makes me crazy. I've gotten really good at this supportive attitude during which I am actually making his life as uncomfortable as possible. You know, given that he has a job interview he will be able to buy himself deodorant and a hair cut very soon!

If I had been posting more regularly, you would have been on the roller coaster with us. Starting jobs at which he was going to be making lots of money allowing him to move out in two weeks, only to have those jobs crash and burn. You would have had to listen to me congratulate myself multiple times on how zen-like I have become.

I will try to keep you better informed as we progress through the summer.

Possibly up the proverbial creek

This afternoon Gary and I had a conference with his (previous) social worker. Here's the situation.  None of this is news to me, by the way. I just haven't been posting about it.

1. Since he has not done any of the things he was required to do to get funding for post high-school education/training he almost certainly won't get it. However, if he can show that he has been accepted to a college, applied for two scholarships, filled out the agency paperwork, and get his unofficial transcript to the committee by FRIDAY, the committee will consider him. She assured him that he still qualifies for some transitional support.  If he has a job and some savings they will pay the initial deposits on an apartment, for instance. He isn't worried about that because he has decided he likes living here. (Part of the adoption negotiations included that he would continue to qualify for anything he would have had he not been adopted).

He has been planning on going to community college in the fall. I have suggested that with their current enrollment rates he needs can't count on being able to go full-time, but he is confident.

He also is confident that he going to graduate at the end of May. The school says that you are not allowed to have more than 9 absences, but he points out that that really just means that you have to petition if you have more. Now I told him that back when he had 8-11 in his various classes. I told him it wasn't all over. If he turned it around he could still make it work. I called attendance for an update and found out that he as 21 and 16 absences in the classes he needs to graduate (24 and 35 in the other two). He may still be able to petition, but only if gets at least a C. Oh yeah, he is supposed to show very good reason for the absences, like providing documentation that he was too sick to be there. (Yeah, um, he can get a doctor's note for at least one day).

So I've decided just to expect him to go to summer school. If he graduates in 5 weeks that will be extra cool.

Oh, his younger sister is graduating next month. She's going to the state school in the fall and might move into the dorms in the spring when she is 18.

He has constantly changing plans for his future. The fire fighting thing seems to be over. Of course, if he is in summer school he would miss the fire season anyway. (For those in other parts of the world, being a wild land fire-fighter and being a structural fire-fighter are different things. It is relatively easy to get certified to work on a crew during wild-fire season.)

So Roland and I have already warned him that though he won't be homeless, he can expect less support from us. I have framed it as "when you are no longer a full-time student." I need to be more specific though. Given that he has unofficially dropped (i.e. stop attending and agreed to take the F) one class he isn't really a full-time student now. I told him that he would continue to get "full support" for 90 days after graduation. I think I need to change that to "after when you were supposed to graduate with the option to re-new if you are in school full time in the fall.

Today I made it a bit clearer what will be have to pay for or do without:
1. Free gas and car access
2. Car insurance
3. His MMA classes
4. Cell phone
5. Deodorant, hair cuts, and all other misc. expenses
6. Anything else I can think of

Oh, and rent is $50/week, and I somehow expect that I won't be buying any of his favorite foods.

Of course all this is about pushing him to independence. If doing more for him was helping, we would help. It is obvious to everyone but him that he is scared. He fears failure so much that he sabotages himself. Everything in the future is easy. Everything in his present is easy or stupid and not worth doing. He always has plans, but no action.

So well, we will see how it all goes.

You can't make this stuff up (update 3/9/11)

A few months ago, Sis sent me an email asking what I thought about Dad's new girlfriend. Having not heard that Dad had a new girlfriend, she followed up by forwarding his email to her about the nice family who owned a convenience store and their lovely 32 year old daughter. (For those who don't remember everything I may or may not have mentioned about my father, he has been living in China for a year and a half.)

Shortly after that, I got an email from my father telling me that he was trying to help this 32-year-old woman, the relationship he with whom assured me was NOT romantic, get a visa to come to the US. He needed to know the date he got divorced from my mother for the application and wanted me to ask her.

There were several emails that bounced around the globe, until I finally sent a rather short one to him telling him that I would not give him Mom's phone number. She didn't have the divorce decree at her house and she wasn't going to go to the safe deposit box for him.

He responded a week later with a long email in which he assured me that "never in [his] darkest hour" would he ask me to give him information about my mother, knowing that it possibly endangered all the progress he has made in rebuilding a relationship with me over the past two decades. He had intended to send that email to my sister. (Hey, don't ask me to make sense of that. I'm just reporting).

I haven't responded to that one yet. I thought about just saying, "Don't worry about it. You email didn't change my opinion of you at all." Except that I don't have any reason to torture the man. So I thought I would just let it be for a while and then email him about something else, demonstrating that our relationship is unchanged.

Then this morning I got an email from Andrew. Last night he was bored. He Googled his relatives just to see what would come up.

My father married the lovely 32-year-old woman 6 months ago. You know, the one he doesn't have a romantic relationship with.

Okay, put the age thing aside. My father got married 6 months ago and didn't tell me.

The thing that makes this hilarious is that if I had made a list of things my father might do while in China, "marry a much younger woman and not tell us" could totally have been on that list. This is definitely in character for him.

So, now I am wondering what and whether to email my father. Recall at his last email he was worried that he had damaged his relationship with me by asking me to give him my mother's phone number.

I'm so tempted to send him an email with a link to the marriage announcement that Andrew found and say nothing but "Um, congratulations?"

Meanwhile, I am trying to find out what her name means. See, my first two step-mothers were both named "Bonnie" (I kid you not). If her name means something like "good" or "pretty" then we could just call her Bonnie the third.

Maybe I could ask Dad in that email I don't know how to write.

Oh, if anyone has any idea about the etiquette  on whether and how to congratulate your father on his marriage he apparently didn't want you to know about, please share.

____
Update: My father sent me an email asking me a question about his Kindle. That gave me an opportunity to write him and include a brief congratulations in the context of a longer email. That worked and saved me from the danger of sounding sarcastic.

In his follow-up email he only talked about the Kindle issues, not his marriage or bride or anything. That's okay. Odd, but okay.

Stuff I didn't expect to have to explain

1. When applying for credit, you cannot list expected revenue from plasma donations as income.

2. Though you can't be arrested for skipping class, the penalties really can add up to failure to graduate.

3. All high schools frown on announcing in English that you plan on stabbing the vice-principal in the eye.

4. Threatening the vice-principal is a unhelpful response to a notice that you have a disciplinary referral for not going to detention for cutting class.

...somehow I expect I will be adding to this post.

Let's play, why don't you add your pearls of wisdom in the comments?

Inquiring minds want to know.

"I'm 18 and you can't tell me what to do"

Been there yet? Kids turn 18 and suddenly they think they should have all the freedom of adulthood with none of the responsibilities.

We're doing it now with Gary. He is doing appropriate things, like hanging out with a friend whom we like. But he is doing it at inappropriate times, like until 3am on a school night. He did that last night. Today he isn't going to school because "he doesn't feel well." Exhaustion will do that to you.

I told him a while ago that I was only going to excuse him if he was really sick. If just wasn't going because he was exhausted, he would have to deal with it with the school. He asked what the school could do, because he was 18 and all. I thought about it and told him the truth. They can hassle him. Tell him to go to detention and Saturday school. They can give him in school suspension, or out of school suspension. They can expel him, and they can not give him credit for courses.

He wanted to know if they can arrest him.

See, that's the thing about raising kids who have gone through real trauma. There really isn't anything we can do to them that compares with what they have gone through. I said I didn't think so.

I could see him thinking about it. How many days could he cut and how many detentions etc could he refuse to go to before they would do anything he would really mind. All he wants to do is graduate and all he needs to do to do that is PASS English and Economics. He can fail the other two. Of course there is no way he is going to fail one of them, because it is just a TA hour and he can usually just nap then. The fourth class is something that is incredibly easy. He can get the work done in class and still have time to be bored silly. So his grades will be okay.

And now it is a challenge. He's 18 and he shouldn't have to go to school if he doesn't want to. They can't make him. He asked if he couldn't excuse himself and I told him that the school doesn't make that as easy as they used to. I have no idea what they require for him to get permission to do that, but he could find out and let me know.

So this morning, when I learned he wasn't going at all, I went back to the kitchen and made some tea. I remembered when Carl did this and when David did. I wore myself out with being angry and frustrated and trying to make them see reason. I met with the dean of students. I talked with social workers. I am sure I cried.

I realized bow differently I felt about it this time. I am sort of interested to see how this was going to go. Instead of thinking "OH NO! What if he doesn't graduate? What will he do? How can I make him behave differently?" I was  thinking "Thank goodness he is doing this whole rebellion thing with the school and not me! I wonder if I should send them a thank-you note?"

And then I giggled.

Baggage is back

Here's the link http://baggageandbug.wordpress.com/

That's all.

P.S. I know cuz Crayon said so. http://carminecrayon.blogspot.com/2010/11/shes-baaaaack.html

What I wish I knew...

I got a comment and an email about adopting teenagers and it got me thinking about what the most helpful things I could tell someone, which got me thinking about what I would like to go back and tell myself. I started a list and found myself really wishing it were possible to send a note back to me. I thought I would share it with you, but let's be clear. This is what I would have like to know. You experience may differ.

1. if anyone tells you that if you do X, you will make long-term changes in the child's behavior, stop listening to that person.

2. punishment doesn't work at all and rewards systems only have short-term results. (At least for you, they might work for other people but you suck at behavior mod).

3. human beings do not learn when they are agitated.

4. children/teens change their behavior over time if/when they develop a relationship with you and start trying to be more like you. This means: (a) you will not be successful getting a kid to do something that you or your spouse do not do. As long as you leave your papers and stuff in the living room and Roland leaves dirty dishes everywhere, the kids will do the same; and (b) when you have messed up, lost your temper or whatever, you have provided the perfect situation to model appropriate response to set-backs. You don't expect your kids to be perfect, so model being reasonable with yourself. Calm yourself down, apologize if appropriate, try again.

5. Telling a teen "when you did not come home when I expected last night, I was very worried. I kept imagining bad things happening to you. It's important for you to come home when you say you will and to CALL ME if you can't" actually works BETTER than grounding them for breaking curfew (see #2 above).  This does NOT mean this is a technique that will make dramatic changes in their behavior (see #1) just that it is a better strategy.

6. Only try to make and enforce rules that are about keeping everyone safe and sane, not about trying to make them a better person (see #4 above). Keep the list short (e.g "Everyone knows where everyone is'). "Enforce" the rules by following them and reminding teens that behavior is required of everyone in this family. If you do keep the list short and reasonable and follow the rules yourself, you will be surprised at how well the kids accept and try to follow them.

7. Do yourself a favor and let go of academic goals right away. You can be helpful by asking kids what grades they need to meet THEIR goals. If they say, "All I need to do is pass" take a breath and say "Okay, do you need any help from me to do that?"

8. Telling them what the consequences of their actions is most helpful if they don't already know what they are. Reminding them that if they fail they will have to take summer school is not helpful. Making sure they know that they will have to WALK to summer school may actually change their plan for success.

9. The best training you will ever do to learn how to put this in practice you will get in Al-Anon meetings.