I walked into the teen center at the YMCA to take my seven year old to the bathroom.
"I wonder if JD's actually doing his homework?" I thought aloud. Inwardly, I answered my own question with a pretty solid negative.
I looked in the window to the computer lab; JD sat at a screen filled by the game Adventure Quest. I sighed. Even though that was exactly what I expected, somehow I had continued to hope that he would be diligently plugging away at his math.
The seven year old went to the bathroom and then headed back outside to soccer practice. I sat down beside JD, who had hastily closed the Adventure Quest window and turned to look at me guiltily.
"Why aren't you doing your math research?" I asked.
"I couldn't remember the guy's name that I'm supposed to be looking up. It made me depressed, so I just decided to play Adventure Quest." His head hung low and his shoulders slumped. His long hair hid his eyes.
"Uh-huh. Do you have it out in your backpack in the car? The backpack I suggested you bring in with you 40 minutes ago?" I leaned back in my chair, arms folded across my chest.
His face lit up and he jumped up from his chair, "Oh yeah! I do!"
And off he went to the car to search for the scrap of paper on which he had written some Chinese mathematician's name. I spent the minutes waiting for him to come back trying to let go of my annoyance and frustration. I thought about how he's only 12. How far he's come since he was 8. How smart he is once you get him focused in on the project. Focused in. Right. He hadn't taken his Adderall this morning. Ergh! Getting an ADD kid to focus on remembering to take medication to help him to focus is, well obviously that's a lot to ask.
A sense of sadness crept in to take the place of annoyance. My son really wants to do amazing things. He wants to build, to create, to discover. He once said that he might have to be a teacher because, "All this cool chemistry stuff just isn't that fun if you don't have anyone to show." He's passionate about justice too. He's been known to take boys at his school to task for not treating his sister well.
On the other hand, it's true that there's only so much I can expect when he doesn't take the medicine. I've seen a lot of half built inventions lying in the grass, and seen too much finished homework that never made it to the turn in box. Or homework that went undone because a crucial something was left somewhere else. Still, I don't want him to have free pass to be a mess if he doesn't take the medication.
He is a beautiful, smart, funny, sensitive boy. And all of that can be overshadowed by the chaos that can be swirling around him.
Should I feel happy that there is a medication that he can take to help him slow down his thinking enough to let the magic out, or should I be sad that the magic that is in him inherently can't just be let out in its natural state? Should I be glad that this medicine lets him focus on a project long enough to create something amazing - and finished, or should I feel sad that there is no appreciation for the joy of the process, only the product?
On the surface, the "half finished" life that he leads sounds so typical of a preteen boy. Is it my child who a problem, or the world he lives in? Does figuring that out matter? If there is a "brokenness" about him, should he learn to let it become some kind of a gift, or should he fight to get rid of it?
It's so tempting to jump in and answer these questions with the arrogance of an outsider. It's easy to see only two camps. It's so easy to point an accusing finger in one direction or another. I think there's more to this. Sadly, I can only sense that there's more; I just can't name it.
I think that the only question that I can answer right now is, "Does figuring it out matter?" For now, I'd answer, "No." I think that for now, I'm going to sit in this tension and watch and wait and see. I just hope I have the focus to do it.
1 comment:
This made me a little sad while I was reading it. I always wonder if ADD is really such a bad thing - it always seems to me that it somehow lends itself to creativity and ingenuity. I am not a parent of an ADD child, so I have no idea of the challenges that come with it. I do know though, how much you love JD, and it comes through whether you are talking or writing about him. Over 12 years ago I read an article about how children with ADD were being treated with biofeedback - Superman was on a computer screen, and they had to focus/concentrate on making him fly. In a sense they were training their brains. I thought it very intriguing. It's also interesting that JD can play his computer games with success. Maybe he just needs to be able to learn in a different way. Maybe homework is just boring (let's face it, this is often true). I don't know the answers, but I do know that God created JD to be the unique and special person that he is, and that God takes great delight in him :-)
Post a Comment