Love and Illogic

As I watched the bus pull away this morning, I felt like beating my head against the couch. I was shrieking, "No, don't get ON the bus!" while my husband and 17-year-old son laughed.

Here's the scoop. Angelo, age 16 and adopted from Haiti three years ago, is habitually late. He always--always, always--makes people wait on him. Everyone will be in the car, engine running, clock ticking, and he's trotting out of the house without his shoes on, last minute as usual.

This makes my husband, Fred, kind of nuts when it means that he has to deal with it on the way to school in the mornings. He gives Angelo and our bio son, Alan, a ride. Alan worries a lot about being late and likes to leave in time to get there with a comfortable margin for error.

After listening to Fred harp and carry on at Angelo morning after morning ("We're leaving in fifteen minutes, We're leaving in ten minutes, Why are you brushing your teeth NOW when I told you we were leaving five minutes ago!") I finally suggested that Fred just tell Angelo the time they would be leaving every day (7:20) and let it go at that. If he isn't out there, you leave anyway. He'll learn, after he's late to school a few times. It's the Love and Logic approach, suggested by every psychological adviser we've talked to since we adopted kids. Love and Logic is the parenting fad of the new millennium.

What the counselors don't understand, is that older internationally adopted kids tend to be real short on logic. When Angelo and his half-brother, who was with us for a year, arrived here, they literally could not make the connection between something that happened and consequences that occurred even a few minutes later.

If they were watching TV when they were not supposed to, for example, we'd turn it off. A consequence, but a fairly minor, easy-to-understand one. You'd think. Instead of understanding what we were trying to get across, though, they'd assume either (1) We were just being mean, or (2) We wanted to watch TV ourselves and were turning it off so we could turn on our own show after they left the room.

Angelo has, very slowly and with obvious struggles going on in his mind, learned that we sometimes connect two events which appear to him to be unrelated. But the way he thinks leaves Love and Logic, and me, in the dust.

Shortly before winter break, three mornings in a row, he decided not to get up and go to school on time. Three times I took him late, when I took the little girls to their school. I didn't give him an excuse note, and I emailed the principal that these were not excused tardies and he should feel free to give Angelo detention if that was the policy (never heard back from him).

Finally, Fred and I decided on what the Love and Logic solution would be. Angelo was doing winter soccer--not a school league, but suggested by the school coach so as to keep in shape during the winter. He'd been to one game. (Discussing Angelo's inability to get across to us when he is supposed to play, be picked up, etc. from soccer would be blog entry in itself . . .)

As far as we could figure out, Angelo had another game that Saturday and then one on Monday night. We decided that when he was ready to go to those games, we would inform him that he would have to miss them because he had made us make three extra trips to his school by not being ready on time, and he would have to "pay" for those trips by missing the drives to the games. I swear he didn't hear us discussing this.

Waited. Waited. He never mentioned winter soccer again. I have no idea if they had additional games, didn't have them, or what. Now I'm irritated because I paid fifty bucks to sign him up for the league, at his request, and I guess he just didn't bother to go to more than one game. I dunno. One of our problems is that because of his age, the school and soccer org and so on don't notify us about stuff any more--they just tell Angelo. This doesn't work, because frequently he doesn't understand the details but he'd rather die than admit it.

My next effort at Love and Logic was to call and sign Angelo up to ride the bus. See, he's in the ESL program, which has to provide busing. At the beginning of the year, there didn't seem to be a reason to sign him up for the bus. He's attending the same high school as Alan (who attends out of our district), and Alan is not eligible for the bus, so we drive to school anyway. But logic dictated that, if Angelo was not getting out to the car on time in the mornings, he could just ride the bus. If he missed it, he could walk. That would put the whole school transportation problem in his lap, not in ours.

So I called and set up the bus, to start today, first day back after vacation. They gave me a bus number and pick-up time: 6:30 a.m. Now, that's just silly. School starts at 8:00, and although it's not the high school in our district, it's within about a forty-five minute walk. 6:30 for a bus ride was way early. So I should have realized that the Love and Logic gremlin was already at work.

Over break, Angelo said he would not ride the bus. He would walk. He would get himself kicked off the bus if he had to ride it. He would open the emergency exit door (he knows that this gets you kicked off the bus, because it worked for his brother when he was here).

I decided that I could not drag a kid this size out to the bus, force him on it, and expect the bus driver to deal with that, so I said, okay--this is your last chance. I will cancel the bus, but if I do, from now on you walk any time you are not ready for your ride. Love and Logic.

This morning, I got up at 5:30 a.m. so I could get dressed and write a note for the bus driver saying that Angelo would not be riding the bus. I knew they'd had to rearrange a route for him, so I wasn't thrilled with having to face the bus driver with the note. I told Angelo he didn't have to ride the bus if he'd go out and hand the driver the note. Since getting to school should be his responsibility, he'd have to cancel the bus himself. He said okay and was in a good mood. For some reason, he took his backpack out and set it by the curb, the way he used to when he rode the bus at our last house. I thought he was just trying to get ready to get in the car on time for a change.

"Dear Bus Driver:

Angelo will not be riding the bus after all. I realize you had to reschedule a route for him, and I apologize for the inconvenience.
Angelo does not want to ride the bus, and based on past experience, he might present a behavior problem if we force him to. We adopted him three years ago and are still having some control issues.
Also, 6:30 seems pretty early considering how close we are to the school. He could walk if necessary and still leave later than that, so we are making other arrangements.
Once again, I'm sorry for the inconvenience.
(Signed)"

I sat and watched for the bus to make sure Angelo got the note out there. I know that he tends to think of other things to do and wander off while supposedly waiting for something. He's likely to decide to go change his socks or something, two minutes before his ride is due to arrive. If the note didn't get out there, I'd have to call the bus barn later, which I didn't want to do. So it seemed worth it to watch for the bus and make sure this got done.

I sat there watching for the bus from 6:25 until it showed up. It showed up at, ta-da, 7:20. I have no idea if it was late, they got lost, or if someone realized that their route was not making sense and they could just get Angelo on the way back to the school and pick him up later than 6:30. I dunno.

Angelo took the note out. Handed it to the bus driver. I watched the bus driver open it and start to read. Then Angelo picked up his backpack and got on the bus, meek as a lamb, and sat down. The bus driver sat there a few more minutes, probably wondering why I wrote this note about discipline problems and the kid not riding, and then the kid gets on his bus. I sat there shrieking and banging my head on the couch--wanting to, anyway. Fred laughed.

The bus pulled away. Fred and Alan left for school. As Jean Kerr once said, I just feel old and tired, doctor . . .