Stop the World....

A friend of mine would tell me I am suffering from having too many windows open.

She'd be right. My spillover week from just about two months ago has been outdone by a few orders of magnitude the last two weeks. As it happens, the field trip and the teen harassment are the symptoms, not the problem.

The central problem, as it always seems to be, is that I too quickly conclude that Nic's problems are/were my problems--and while he runs into many of the same situations that I have, he has his own ethos--which I forget, at my peril. And as it happens, at his peril, and perhaps my family's peril, as well.

I can yell and scream about consequences, but he won't necessarily hear me; I can warn all I want, but will he really understand danger until it's too late? As hubby said, dangerous attracts him.

I want to do more than wring my hands. I want to throw myself in harm's way if it means saving him from himself. But I know, in my heart of hearts, that the only way he'll learn is the hard way.

And, oh, how it twists me up inside how fraught with hazards that is; how his whole future is threatened by his own stubborn short-sightedness.

But I will not wring my hands or stand to one side. He will learn to make better choices because he will be held accountable for the choices he makes. He will learn that you can't take back things that you have already said or done. But he will learn that you can put things right; you can make amends; you can ameliorate situations.

He just needs to be shown how. And he needs me to show him.

Game on.