Well, it is the year 2010 and we live in the age of technology, after all. So, we thought nothing of it when we forwarded the home telephone to Ralph's cell phone for our upcoming vacation to Yellowstone National Park and scenic points in the Rocky Mountains. You know, it’s the home of Yogi the Bear, Boo-Boo, Ranger Smith, thousands of picnic baskets ready to be bear snatched, and Old Faithful……..
And of course, we didn't want to miss any calls from our son, Ed who is in placement or from his counselor.
Well Yellowstone and the Rockies didn't disappoint. While we didn't see Yogi, we saw elk, antelope, bison, a black bear, a grizzly bear, bald eagles, osprey, and just a huge variety of other wildlife and natural wonders.
Another natural feature of the area is the hundreds of geysers that populate Yellowstone Park. Some geysers are pools of hot water; some are steaming or boiling kettles of water or mud, while others just blow steam. Like a blow-hard with bad breath, the sulfur in the geysers usually smells like rotten eggs, too. Some of the geysers are famous for shooting water high into the air, or developing spectacular limestone structures at their mouths. One of the geysers is even so predictable that the rangers can tell when it will spew water a hundred feet into the air to within a minute -- named by the first Western explorers to the area as Old Faithful.
Now, in 2010, everyone can get great cell phone coverage in at least half of the area where the bison and geysers outnumber the humans visiting them.
In one of our many informative PSST classes, we learned the value of repeating to our teens the rule, Ask Me Again. This is useful and effective when they act like the rat in the maze that is looking to us for the nugget of enabling.
We need to be Old Faithful in sticking to the rules, not enabling, being consistent, letting our "No" stay "No", and staying empowered. Even when we do that, teens will be teens, and they will be Faithful to looking for a way around the rules or wanting us to go back to the old nugget system of enabling.
Well, Ed didn't disappoint either. Alice and our adult daughters, Trixie and Carney, went off down the wooden, boardwalk trail to find yet another steaming, boiling, bubbling, or spewing geyser, while Ralph sat down on a bench conveniently perched in front of a slow bubbling geyser pool that became a perfect meditation pond. Ralph's spiritual batteries had just gotten plugged in, so to speak, when Old Faithful went off. No, not the geyser down the road but the cell phone - with Ed at the other end.
Now Ralph was already in need of a "recharge". His batteries had been flashing "empty" for a few weeks as it stood because Norton (our other son) is making worse decisions about his life, and we're not enabling any behavior from Norton except zero tolerance on violence, disrespect, and drugs. This frustrates both Ralph and Norton because Norton doesn't want to be told what to do, and is out of places to live given his current lifestyle, but we won't let him do drugs, disrespect us, or be violent while living at our house. Norton has decided, despite possible arrest warrants, to solve his personal housing crisis by moving away, thus, making a bad decision worse, and frustrating Ralph.
Oh yes… Ralph answers the ringing cell phone. It’s Ed. Ed doesn't understand that Ralph is either deep into Yogi or Yoga, and is talking on a cell phone that is surrounded by exquisite natural beauty -- a vacation that Ed would have enjoyed, but missed, and forgot that we were partaking without him. They chat about family news, Yellowstone, and things of interest to Ed for several minutes. Then the bomb hits. Maybe Ed finally realizes that he missed whatever this Yellowstone-bear-geyser thing is, or maybe he just senses that Ralph is at a weak point this moment.
Whatever the case, Ed wants to know why we are so concerned about drug and alcohol recovery. And besides, he was never even charged with drug possession. Why, he has done more than enough of this drug and alcohol stuff -- Ed pronounces it like DNA (the irony is there somewhere) -- while he is in placement. And D&A is for those hard core addicts. (It does seem that denying he's an addict has finally gotten Ed nowhere, and he's changed that line.)
Ralph needs to pull himself up from the bottom of the geyser basin. And fast! And, to make things worse, Trixie and Carney have just passed on the boardwalk headed for the car to attack another geyser area and hear Ralph doing the "...Never-The-Less..." shuffle, causing them concern that Ralph is somehow wasting his "recharge" time. Alice soon arrives with help, on her way to the car, but three-way conversations with only two people on-line never seem to work, and it wasn't working in front of a geyser pool either. Ralph does his best. A few poorly worded "Agree-with-some-thing " gets in there. Then, a "Regardless, drug and criminal behaviors aren’t going to work anymore", manages its way to the surface, no doubt with some smelly sulfur.
Finally, recovering a little, a fountain spouts of "Never-The-Less, Ed, you are responsible for your Recovery plan", which may have been better placed after a Twix candy bar moment, gets Ed to request help (an acknowledgement of who is responsible regardless of who does the work) and then onto another subject. We can head back to the car while signing off with Ed and his counselor. Ralph's batteries will have to recharge in the Snake River on a 12-person raft, trying to comfort Alice who is worried about white water rafting deaths.
Do you get blind-sided by your Old Faithful teenager? Come and practice your parenting skills at a PSST meeting. It may just charge YOUR batteries.
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And of course, we didn't want to miss any calls from our son, Ed who is in placement or from his counselor.
Well Yellowstone and the Rockies didn't disappoint. While we didn't see Yogi, we saw elk, antelope, bison, a black bear, a grizzly bear, bald eagles, osprey, and just a huge variety of other wildlife and natural wonders.
Another natural feature of the area is the hundreds of geysers that populate Yellowstone Park. Some geysers are pools of hot water; some are steaming or boiling kettles of water or mud, while others just blow steam. Like a blow-hard with bad breath, the sulfur in the geysers usually smells like rotten eggs, too. Some of the geysers are famous for shooting water high into the air, or developing spectacular limestone structures at their mouths. One of the geysers is even so predictable that the rangers can tell when it will spew water a hundred feet into the air to within a minute -- named by the first Western explorers to the area as Old Faithful.
Now, in 2010, everyone can get great cell phone coverage in at least half of the area where the bison and geysers outnumber the humans visiting them.
In one of our many informative PSST classes, we learned the value of repeating to our teens the rule, Ask Me Again. This is useful and effective when they act like the rat in the maze that is looking to us for the nugget of enabling.
We need to be Old Faithful in sticking to the rules, not enabling, being consistent, letting our "No" stay "No", and staying empowered. Even when we do that, teens will be teens, and they will be Faithful to looking for a way around the rules or wanting us to go back to the old nugget system of enabling.
Well, Ed didn't disappoint either. Alice and our adult daughters, Trixie and Carney, went off down the wooden, boardwalk trail to find yet another steaming, boiling, bubbling, or spewing geyser, while Ralph sat down on a bench conveniently perched in front of a slow bubbling geyser pool that became a perfect meditation pond. Ralph's spiritual batteries had just gotten plugged in, so to speak, when Old Faithful went off. No, not the geyser down the road but the cell phone - with Ed at the other end.
Now Ralph was already in need of a "recharge". His batteries had been flashing "empty" for a few weeks as it stood because Norton (our other son) is making worse decisions about his life, and we're not enabling any behavior from Norton except zero tolerance on violence, disrespect, and drugs. This frustrates both Ralph and Norton because Norton doesn't want to be told what to do, and is out of places to live given his current lifestyle, but we won't let him do drugs, disrespect us, or be violent while living at our house. Norton has decided, despite possible arrest warrants, to solve his personal housing crisis by moving away, thus, making a bad decision worse, and frustrating Ralph.
Oh yes… Ralph answers the ringing cell phone. It’s Ed. Ed doesn't understand that Ralph is either deep into Yogi or Yoga, and is talking on a cell phone that is surrounded by exquisite natural beauty -- a vacation that Ed would have enjoyed, but missed, and forgot that we were partaking without him. They chat about family news, Yellowstone, and things of interest to Ed for several minutes. Then the bomb hits. Maybe Ed finally realizes that he missed whatever this Yellowstone-bear-geyser thing is, or maybe he just senses that Ralph is at a weak point this moment.
Whatever the case, Ed wants to know why we are so concerned about drug and alcohol recovery. And besides, he was never even charged with drug possession. Why, he has done more than enough of this drug and alcohol stuff -- Ed pronounces it like DNA (the irony is there somewhere) -- while he is in placement. And D&A is for those hard core addicts. (It does seem that denying he's an addict has finally gotten Ed nowhere, and he's changed that line.)
Ralph needs to pull himself up from the bottom of the geyser basin. And fast! And, to make things worse, Trixie and Carney have just passed on the boardwalk headed for the car to attack another geyser area and hear Ralph doing the "...Never-The-Less..." shuffle, causing them concern that Ralph is somehow wasting his "recharge" time. Alice soon arrives with help, on her way to the car, but three-way conversations with only two people on-line never seem to work, and it wasn't working in front of a geyser pool either. Ralph does his best. A few poorly worded "Agree-with-some-thing " gets in there. Then, a "Regardless, drug and criminal behaviors aren’t going to work anymore", manages its way to the surface, no doubt with some smelly sulfur.
Finally, recovering a little, a fountain spouts of "Never-The-Less, Ed, you are responsible for your Recovery plan", which may have been better placed after a Twix candy bar moment, gets Ed to request help (an acknowledgement of who is responsible regardless of who does the work) and then onto another subject. We can head back to the car while signing off with Ed and his counselor. Ralph's batteries will have to recharge in the Snake River on a 12-person raft, trying to comfort Alice who is worried about white water rafting deaths.
Do you get blind-sided by your Old Faithful teenager? Come and practice your parenting skills at a PSST meeting. It may just charge YOUR batteries.
