Getting to Wilderness: T's Story
I'm not sure the exact point at which we realized something radical needed to happen, it progressed over about 11 months, though if I'm honest with myself it was brewing for years. My husband and I inched towards the difficult decision together, alternating steps towards and away from change. It was a dance of uncertainty. Input and support from friends and experts made it possible to come to a solid conclusion. Trust and surrender were the two conditions that made moving forward with our decision possible. We trusted a friend who is an adolescent psychologist, an incredibly talented educational therapist who already knew our children, a new ed therapist who specializes in kids in crisis, and ultimately our own gut. The second, and key condition for us moving forward on this endeavour of radical change was to surrender ourselves to being uncomfortable, in pain, and utterly vulnerable. I'm getting ahead of myself, though.
The beginning goes further back to our son's kindergarten experience, ten years before we found ourselves at the present day point of radical change. We had been living in Silicon Valley for a little over a year, transplants from back east. At the end of preschool, our son's teacher recommended kindergarten the following year. He's got a September birthday and back home that wouldn't have been an option, we thought entering kindergarten at four years old was crazy. She assured us he would be "bored" with another year of preschool. We were on the fence until we won the charter school lottery for an amazing arts charter school in our town, walking distance from our house. It was a coveted placement, how could we pass that up? That was the beginning of the downward spiral with school. A brilliant, happy little kid with curiosity and a sparkle in his eye entered that school and towards the end of kindergarten it was hard to get him out of bed for school, he couldn't sleep at night, he was so anxious and seemed deeply unhappy. His sparkly eyes no longer sparkled. That year set the stage for his education, his understanding of who he is in a classroom/school and how he feels about himself. And it started off our stumbling through this parenting role making what seems like one wrong choice after another. To give you an idea of how poorly kindergarten went for him, his kindergarten teacher was not "invited back" the following year and teaches somewhere abroad - if she teaches anymore at all. And ten years later our son still talks about how traumatizing it was to be yelled at every day by his "evil kindergarten teacher".
We were befuddled and limped along for another year, ultimately deciding to move to a community that put more emphasis on balance between nature and education, one that was more relaxed and relatable to us. We moved to Santa Cruz and decided to have our son repeat first grade so he could spend more of his focus on social skills and relax in the academic arena. First grade was a magical year the second time, his teacher was remarkably talented and her capacity for compassion was profound. Fast forward through eighth grade and I would say we had few interactions with compassion and were ourselves completely ignorant of what we could do to repair his original story that school = shame, conflict, pain, and struggle. There were definitely moments when we saw some light and hope. Football, for instance became an amazing outlet for our son, he gained so much through participating in our local Pop Warner league. Thinking about it right now fills me with gratitude for the coaches and parents we met along the way. And to the parents who judged us for permitting him to participate in such a dangerous sport, it wasn't our first choice. But, it was the first time in years that we saw his eyes sparkle again.
Towards the end of eighth grade began some alarming changes, access to and use of weed, too much freedom, friends with too much freedom. It was at this juncture that I began to wake up and examine the road we'd built and where it was leading and knew deep in my bones I didn't want to stay on that road. I had the definite belief I could change it. I just wasn't sure how yet. Suddenly we needed to learn how to build a new road in order to get where we wanted to go. We stayed connected with the parents of his friends and had hard conversations and multi-family meetings with the kids talking about being responsible and making better choices and the future. Parents texted one another to know where the boys were and what they were doing and in what condition they returned home. We took away phones, Xboxes, sleepovers and everything we could think of. Our son was not on this road alone, he was on it with friends and they were building up velocity at an alarming rate. And so began our 11 month parental dance of uncertainty.
When the parenting network was clearly failing we took to threatening boarding school, military school, moving him in with distant family to finish high school, but these were all too punitive and didn't seem to address the need for real care and healing. Nothing we did felt like a real solution. His behavior continued to devolve and our behavior only escalated and conflict ensued. Once we reached out for help things moved quickly, we didn't even have to use a transport team, he went without incident to Hawaii where we chose to send him. We were racked with doubts and guilt the entire time until the moment our son was safely at wilderness and I suddenly and completely felt relief that he was safe. He was angry at us. And he was safe.
When we finally completed that leg of the journey and our son was safely ensconced in wilderness our own serious work began. Because it isn't just our son who needed to go on a journey of self discovery and healing, it was the whole family, together and alone. The whole family system. There are a lot of moving parts to a family and it would be a mistake to think a kid can fall off the rails like that without the help of his parents, his environment, the culture at his school. We have changed as parents and people. Our kids are still reeling from the new, more defined and sturdy boundaries. There are times I am fatigued by the notion of another conflict about boundaries, I just want to give in. They are so tenacious and I am so weary. Little by little I can see that our change is helping our children. Most importantly it is helping us feel better and like we are generally righting this family's ship.
Our son successfully made it through 11 weeks of wilderness therapy, he has said on more than one occasion that he is grateful to have had that experience and he wouldn't change it. He is now in a therapeutic boarding school where he has decidedly taken some steps back. But, here's the thing; you cannot undo a lifetime's worth of pain and struggle in 11 weeks, and it isn't always going to be forward motion. We are still putting our lives in the hands of experts. And we are working at making our own lifetime habits history, walking right into and through all the hard shit we were sidestepping before and embracing this struggle with our whole hearts and minds.
T. Wildernessmom
We were befuddled and limped along for another year, ultimately deciding to move to a community that put more emphasis on balance between nature and education, one that was more relaxed and relatable to us. We moved to Santa Cruz and decided to have our son repeat first grade so he could spend more of his focus on social skills and relax in the academic arena. First grade was a magical year the second time, his teacher was remarkably talented and her capacity for compassion was profound. Fast forward through eighth grade and I would say we had few interactions with compassion and were ourselves completely ignorant of what we could do to repair his original story that school = shame, conflict, pain, and struggle. There were definitely moments when we saw some light and hope. Football, for instance became an amazing outlet for our son, he gained so much through participating in our local Pop Warner league. Thinking about it right now fills me with gratitude for the coaches and parents we met along the way. And to the parents who judged us for permitting him to participate in such a dangerous sport, it wasn't our first choice. But, it was the first time in years that we saw his eyes sparkle again.
Towards the end of eighth grade began some alarming changes, access to and use of weed, too much freedom, friends with too much freedom. It was at this juncture that I began to wake up and examine the road we'd built and where it was leading and knew deep in my bones I didn't want to stay on that road. I had the definite belief I could change it. I just wasn't sure how yet. Suddenly we needed to learn how to build a new road in order to get where we wanted to go. We stayed connected with the parents of his friends and had hard conversations and multi-family meetings with the kids talking about being responsible and making better choices and the future. Parents texted one another to know where the boys were and what they were doing and in what condition they returned home. We took away phones, Xboxes, sleepovers and everything we could think of. Our son was not on this road alone, he was on it with friends and they were building up velocity at an alarming rate. And so began our 11 month parental dance of uncertainty.
When the parenting network was clearly failing we took to threatening boarding school, military school, moving him in with distant family to finish high school, but these were all too punitive and didn't seem to address the need for real care and healing. Nothing we did felt like a real solution. His behavior continued to devolve and our behavior only escalated and conflict ensued. Once we reached out for help things moved quickly, we didn't even have to use a transport team, he went without incident to Hawaii where we chose to send him. We were racked with doubts and guilt the entire time until the moment our son was safely at wilderness and I suddenly and completely felt relief that he was safe. He was angry at us. And he was safe.
When we finally completed that leg of the journey and our son was safely ensconced in wilderness our own serious work began. Because it isn't just our son who needed to go on a journey of self discovery and healing, it was the whole family, together and alone. The whole family system. There are a lot of moving parts to a family and it would be a mistake to think a kid can fall off the rails like that without the help of his parents, his environment, the culture at his school. We have changed as parents and people. Our kids are still reeling from the new, more defined and sturdy boundaries. There are times I am fatigued by the notion of another conflict about boundaries, I just want to give in. They are so tenacious and I am so weary. Little by little I can see that our change is helping our children. Most importantly it is helping us feel better and like we are generally righting this family's ship.
Our son successfully made it through 11 weeks of wilderness therapy, he has said on more than one occasion that he is grateful to have had that experience and he wouldn't change it. He is now in a therapeutic boarding school where he has decidedly taken some steps back. But, here's the thing; you cannot undo a lifetime's worth of pain and struggle in 11 weeks, and it isn't always going to be forward motion. We are still putting our lives in the hands of experts. And we are working at making our own lifetime habits history, walking right into and through all the hard shit we were sidestepping before and embracing this struggle with our whole hearts and minds.
T. Wildernessmom
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