Sanity vs Holidays

And I said that I will not tolerate seven weeks of him sitting there on the computer, whining and yelling about how unfair it is that he doesn't win every, single, time.

OMFG it's the school holidays. He has no friends. He doesn't intend to leave the house. His idea of a holiday is to be on the computer for 18 hours a day, eat occasionally, and sleep sporadically.

Young Curly has been a teenager for one.whole.month and already I've had enough.

I've threatened a camp. Just to get him off the computer and out of the house. To get him out of earshot, mostly.  In my most vengeful moment, I've imagined a SPORTS camp. Bwahahaha. No. I couldn't really do that to him.**

Sigh.

Nothing has really interested him at school this year. Hopefully Year 9 with a few elective subjects will be better. As for the lack of friends, he's doing exactly what his big brother did - attempting to hang out with big bro's friends. Why are they never satisfied with age peers? Why are the older kids always looked up to? OK, don't bother answering that. I know. I know.

At least the olders aren't bad role models. They just enjoy, well, being older, and proving it by giving the youngsters a hard time. Then the youngsters try harder to fit in, and oh. damn. Why do the youngsters make it hard for themselves?

Anyway. So Curly's idea of being grown up is to win on computer games.

He is actually good. Even the older group grudgingly agree about that. It's just the tanties when he doesn't win that nobody likes.

At what age do people*** realise that 'winning' isn't everything? That being a good team member is important too? That having a go and improving is a worthwhile goal? That internet gaming the world is not a level playing field, and you can't expect it to be. That you often 'lose' for reasons beyond your control? That 'get over it' is a fair comment.

Right. Seven. Long. Weeks.

I can picture it being an endless loop of me talking myself blue in the face trying to get through to him, and he telling me that I know nothing.

I know that one day it will sink in, so I have to do it, and keep doing it.
Will my sanity last the distance?


** Medical reasons - mono vision means crap at ball sports, and heat is a major eczema trigger
*** People. Not kids, not teenagers. People.

Absentee Note

I've been away for a while, haven't I? Excuses forthcoming -
It was school holidays and my computer is in the main living room, so I had NO PRIVATE TIME, and I can't write about the boys when they're reading over my shoulder.
Once the school holidays finished, the first week of school was just horrible.

I've almost recovered from the trauma of last week, but now I'm on holidays, and have been learning to play on eBay in an attempt to clear the junk from our garage. And isn't eBay a black hole? I'll just do a bit of price research, and take some photos of the junk, and ooh, look, a bid... it's time for dinner already. At least it's a fun black hole, unlike the one I fell into last week.

You see, it goes like this - Dreamer is doing a University chemistry subject while at high school. They have classes after school once a week taught by their regular teacher. We'd received paperwork last term about the need to attend the Uni for 3 days to complete laboratory assessments. Said paperwork was promptly filed under 'worry about that after the holidays'.

Picture me making my first morning coffee on the pupil-free Monday at the end of the school holidays. I'm very relaxed, and plonk myself in front of the computer to do my usual email check. There's one from the University coordinator, with attached schedule of what experiments are to be done on which days.

I'm on holidays, the kids are on holidays, do I know what date it is? Nope. But a little warning bell goes off, and I check my diary...

Watch the coffee go flying. Watch Lisa look at the date, and the clock, and run around the house like a headless chook.

It was 7:30am, and Dreamer had to be at Uni by 8:30 to start day one of the practical assessments, and up until that minute, we'd ALL believed that it was going to be a quiet, last day of the holidays, and Dreamer was still asleep, and Dreamer has a - let's say difficult - time with transitions and coping with the unexpected.

I don't know how I did it. I have NO idea how Dreamer did it, but we made it, through peak hour traffic no less, to the University on time. Ideal preparation? Reading the provided workbook for the experiments? Calm and ready for an assessment? No, no, no.

Day one went surprisingly well, and Dreamer received great marks for his two experiments. During the drive home, however, he looked exhausted, and hardly said a word.

Day two was a disaster. It was probably a delayed reaction to the stress of the Monday, something that is a bit of a pattern here. He went all passive resistance, and just didn't get out of bed, and said he had a headache, and dragged his feet, and I pushed and pulled and nagged... but he got there. Fail marks on the first experiment, and scraped through on the second.

Day three was a half-day with only one experiment to do. Dreamer woke, ate breakfast, cleaned his teeth and went to his room to get dressed. I dropped my guard, and popped onto the computer to check emails.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.
He didn't get dressed - he went back to sleep.
I didn't realise until I called him when it was time to leave.

Recriminations, frustrations, encouragement, hair-tearing.

I remembered reading that the lab. doors opened at 8:30am, and closed at the beginning of the assessment at 9am. We were never going to make it in time, but we kept going. I dropped him off at 9:05, and parked nearby, expecting a call to let me know he'd been locked out and missed the assessment.

He didn't call. In fact, he did extremely well in that last experiement.

I felt completely wrung out. I felt like I'd been dragging a dead weight for three days.
He says he really, really wants to do something, and yet continually self-sabotages with his passive resistance.

Was the stress of unfamiliar surroundings and the pressure of  assessment that hard on him? He was at the Uni. from 8:30am until 4pm for two days, and 9am until midday on the third. He was effectively non-functional for the rest of those days.

Very soon, I have to stop dragging him and pushing him, not least because I'm exhausted by it.

If that's what's ahead in his life (and mine) if he goes to University, then I don't think he'll be going to Uni for a few years yet.

She canna take it Cap'n