Start of the Summer

Thus far, it’s been an uneventful week. My son and I have talked about whether he will apply for jobs. The conclusion was it would be nice to have some spending money, but we also talked about how hard it can be just to walk into an establishment and ask if they are hiring. He went into a local video store on Tuesday with that intent and told me at dinner that evening that he “chickened out.” I can completely empathize with that feeling – one that I remember well not just from my own teen days, but at every job turning point in my life. I think the job search was most difficult after I completed my MBA, because the process was so different for me than it had been eight years earlier after undergraduate school.

I’m finding the thought of him not earning any spending money more than a little stressful and I let him know. I was also honest in telling him that Dad and I are not on the same page about this.

In the meantime, my son has had two driving lessons and seems to be doing well. He is definitely committed to getting his license, so we will get him as much road time as we can with this teacher between now and mid-July when his permit expires. So there will constructive activities going on over the summer; the only difference is they will be expenses instead of revenues!

Too Much Information

When I was in undergraduate school, I really did not take school seriously – especially in my freshman year. In fact, I took it for granted that this post-secondary education was somehow owed to me; but that’s another story…

So if I slept through a class, or skipped a class for whatever reason, my parents never knew about it. One reason that I never shared that piece of information was because I would have felt terribly guilty and it was easier (on me) to live by the “lie of omission.”

Not so, with my son. Last night he called and innocently mentioned that he had a really hard time getting to sleep on Monday night. When he finally drifted off (I think he said it was close to five AM), he slept right through his morning class. He was quick to add that it was no big deal, because he had already spoken to someone from the class and he had not missed any new assignments.

But wasn’t there a paper due for that class? Did you email it to the professor? Apologize for not being there to hand it in? “No, but I’m going to do that.”

If I had not suggested that, would he have waited to hand in the paper – which had actually been completed by the deadline – during tomorrow’s class?

More importantly, would it have made any difference? With his penchant for honesty, he chose to mention that he had missed a class. Did that give me the go-ahead to mention what I believed his next responsibility was? If the paper had been handed in at the next class, he might have lost credit because it was late -- but I have no doubt that I handed in my share of late college assignments.

Was I offering him some needed coaching? Or was I helicopter-parenting?

Another Source of Support

Each morning when I get up, I turn on the radio in the bathroom to the all news station and get my fix of what’s going on in the world, what the weather will be, which of my teams won and which lost. For the past couple of weeks, I have also been hearing an ad for the “Best Buddies Challenge.”

The Best Buddies Challenge is a fund-raising race that benefits the Best Buddies organization, a not-for-profit “dedicated to establishing a global volunteer movement that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment and leadership development for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.” Or, as the sign in their office says, “different abilities.” (Please visit www.bestbuddies.org.)

Fortunately for me, Best Buddies has an office close to where I work, and I just stopped by to get further information about their services and the participants. My goal was to see if they had a program that might help my son land a summer job. Even though I walked in without an appointment, the local director spent a good twenty minutes explaining the ins and outs of Best Buddies, how they operate and who they serve. The bottom line is they serve children and adults who are “differently- abled,” providing them with academic support, social connections and employment coaching. And (back to that continuum I wrote about yesterday) there are people served who, like my son, need less support than others.

I had suggested to my son that he look for a summer job while he is home on break next week, and that is the specific help I was looking for when I walked into the Best Buddies office. Since the process of applying for a job can be intimidating and daunting for anyone (neuro-typical or not), Best Buddies might provide a good starting point for his first summer employment as well as a good foundation for job hunting for the rest of his life.

Dean's List

When I drove my son back to his dorm yesterday, there was a small sign taped to his door congratulating him on his strong grade point average. It’s a testament to how hard he works and how determined he is that he achieved a 3.0 GPA, despite the poor grade in Stage Tech.

I’ve mentioned that I get a lot of daily emails generated by AANE discussion threads; some I wish I had not gotten. For example, there are some with the theme, “my 26 year old barely leaves her room…getting a job does not seem a remote possibility.” Others talk about the substantial expense associated with some residential programs that have gotten mixed reviews. Just as each of our children has different capabilities, we parents all face different challenges in nurturing them and helping them succeed.

On most days (though not all) I believe that my son will grow into a successful adult, even though he might define success differently and we as parents might define it differently. For the time being, succeeding in his classes is a phenomenal achievement.