A Family With Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has completely altered my perception of us as a family. Before Dakota hit 14, we were the parents of three children who were joyful, easy to discipline, whose idea of a great time was Friday Night Family Night jumping on the master bed and playing cards while eating pizza, children who came to us with their problems easily and trusted our answers, children who were polite, respectful, well behaved in public!, openly loving, children whose natural creativity and innocence seemed remarkably intact in a stressful world of high competition, children who adored their family unit and our togetherness in a way that felt uncommon in our suburban neighborhoods. Mr. Curry and I were extremely proud. Perhaps a bit smug- but who could blame us? We damn earned it- both coming from dysfunctional households and abusive situations, both of us damaged and dinged, both of us working our asses of to parent these children beyond our scope and to push ourselves to meet their needs even when we did not know if we had the internal resources- somehow, we always found them, and solutions, and joy- and that was- is- something to be proud of. Pictures from those years show the kids hugging, running, laughing, playing with our dogs, wrestling with Ed, arms wrapped around each other with grins the size of Texas.
Then there was last Christmas. When we attempted our family photo. This time, Dakota was 15, Ian 13, and Lola 7. The very title of the post signals a serious fork in the road: There Are Some Things You Only Laugh About Later. ( it's still not later enough if you know what I mean...)
Our family had it's bubble popped. All the outside forces that we had kept from our internal, intimate world had invaded the boys, and they were changing. Middle school had absolutely wrecked Dakota. I don't think he would disagree. He was in private school until fifth grade. His sixth grade year was god awful. I wept often for my sweet boy, who was rapidly becoming jaded, angry at adults, full of false bravado ( to keep his chin up against the bullies who we spent that entire year dealing with in the Principal's office, after Dakota was jumped by three boys and then SUSPENDED for punching the leader back- don't get me started, I'm turning red as I type..) and insecure. School and grades became a completely insignificant part of his life as he was completely focused on getting through each day without getting in a fight, being humiliated or feeling like a social failure. And it's important to note that Dakota had never, ever had social problems before this- he was a very gregarious, popular kid who always had plenty of friends, who knew how to approach kids he didn't even know and strike up a conversation and end up hanging out.
Ian was struggling too, still pulling in straight A's, but finding the later years of elementary school almost as hard as Dakota found middle school. Ian is brilliant, wears glasses, and isn't a kid who cares about having a style or making sure his hair is cool. There was bullying, and then Ian turned to being a bully, and his jokes began to have a hard, mean edge to them. The defense and protective posturing was so high and so poignant in both Ian and Dakota that I felt almost feverish- how to protect these boys? What was happening? What could Mr. Curry and I do? Why was the school system such a colossal failure in preventing or helping us deal with these issues?
I will never forget when Dakota accused me of ruining his life. Why, I asked, terrified to hear the answer. What did I do? You set me up to think of the world as a good place, Mom, he answered. You put me in private school for all those years where kids act completely different, and the teachers all listen to you and care about you, and you guys ( Mr. Curry and I ) were always so calm and never spanked and freaked out on us. The real world isn't like that Mom. The teachers don't give a shit about the kids. The kids don't talk things out, they fight. You told me how to handle problems in a way that no one else uses. You made me a wuss, Mom.
My heart broke then in a way that still aches on the fault-line.
I look at blogs where all the children are 13 or younger, and I remember so vividly, so gratefully, when our worst problems were the occasional sibling beat down between the boys, teasing that went too far with Lola or refusal to recite those spelling words one more time. When middle school and high school with the intense scholastic pressure, drug and alcohol availability and pressures, physical fighting and interaction with burnt out adults did not begin to make life hard in a way that I'm glad I had not forseen. It was all the fault lines of our family and our past that were pressurized, that opened, that cracked underneath our boy's feet, and ours.
We had circumstances that set the boys up for worsening problems at this age: the boys, although they've known each other as best friends since Ian's birth, are not biological brothers, and both come from 'broken homes'. Both were born to extremely young parents ( I was 20 and alone when I had Dakota ) who had childhoods that in no way, shape or form set them up to be successful parents. Both were born to parents with emotional problems, although Mr. Curry and I had tackled them head on, with all resources we could scrounge. Both were born into poor families. These things were circumvented throughout their childhood's by the sheer force of our love and our willingness to get and use therapy for healing, and our dedication to providing a stable and loving home life focused on a close family unit, but in the teenage years the weight of their angry stomping at the shock of teen culture and stress broke the lines. It was no longer enough that Mr. Curry and I were loving, supportive, solution based, and spent all our free time with the kids.
Teenage years are incredibly hard, with the enormous brain changes, the intense and before unrivaled pressures to succeed higher faster better at school, the 'training' to be scholastically focused and successful from a young age, the culture of pill popping and pot smoking ( especially here in California ) the sexual activity that keeps setting back the starting line younger and younger, and the constant reminders to be 'well rounded' and ' goal oriented ' and have plenty of outside hobbies and interests, as well as the final blow of overcrowded and under-functioning public schools where emotional intelligence and guidelines are practically non-existent. It's Lord of the Flies on the middle school lunch grounds.
So what to do? We began with emotional, panicky fumbling and are the more stabalized thick of it now, with some resources and tools we have begun to master, and many more, I'm sure, that we will utilize in the coming years. Books, therapists, programs, banging down doors at the school- these are all common experiences for parents of teens now a days, for a wide variety of problems and conflicts. The glut of books out there on how to help your struggling teenager is a hard reminder of how intensely our society is struggling to figure this out.
Humbling yourself is the first step. It was very hard to admit, at first, that what we were doing was not working. At. all. After all, we had it all figured out before, survey says. We were batting high and the kids were thriving. To go from a noisy household with happy children to sulking teens punching holes in the wall was completely shocking.
And now? We are adding a newborn. But I think we are up to the challenge.
Batter up!