Princesses and happily ever after

April 8, 2013

A friend of mine has this pretty awesome teenage boy.  Yes he can be an idiot sometimes and I have, in fact, told her she is far too nice to this kid on more than one occasion when he has been acting like a turd.  However, overall, nice boy.  Works hard, does well in school, signed up for college in the fall, has a part-time job – nice kid.  He was in the parking lot of the local high school (he’s finishing up grade 12) and a kid jumped him when he got in his car.  You see, he’s not a small boy necessarily and this kid figured he would level the playing field a little and wait until the kid was trapped and basically defenseless and then he punched him in the face and head a few times before this kid could get away.  No one that actually works at the high school seems to have seen anything.  Police were involved, photos and statements taken, the whole nine yards.  I think charges were laid, the kid was suspended for a week, served two days and then wouldn’t you know, he shows up in school in my friend’s son’s shop class with him.  Surprise.  He’s on conditions to keep the peace, stay away etc and apparently, they don’t “count” when you’re at school because that interferes with the assailants rights to receive an education.

Surprised? – don’t be.  It happens all the time.  I could tell you story after story of kids who have been assaulted, beat up, raped, harassed, humiliated, stalked, threatened and tortured and have the choice between going to school and sitting in the same class with their abuser or, you know, dropping out of school or switching schools or whatever.  Why does the victim have to rearrange their life and give up their friends and be scared to go to school and compromise their education in order to protect the assailant’s right to get an education?  What about the victim’s rights to an education?  Preferably one that is without harm and risk of getting your head beat in.  Apparently if you’re a victim, you don’t have one.

This is something that makes me beyond angry on so many levels.  There are a million issues here.  One, the school is worried about making the accused person’s parents angry.  Really.  Why does our society reward aggressive and violent behaviour like this?  And don’t kid yourself because that is exactly what’s happening, over and over again.

How long do you think before someone says, “I wonder what ‘x’ did to deserve that?”.

We LOVE to blame the victim, look for fault, look for an excuse, look for the reason.

I get it.  We’re taught from day one that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.  The princess always gets the prince in every single children’s story and the bad guy always has bad things happen to him.  It’s drilled into us from the minute someone opens a Disney story.  We like to believe, in fact, many folks NEED to believe that these random acts of abuse and assault have to happen for a reason because the world is too scary and unpredictable otherwise.  Hey, I watch my CSI and Criminal Minds shows, I know there is always a motive but in the teen years, the motive is almost always centered around the assailant, not the victim.  The victim is just ‘there’.  Kids are far too ego-centric at that age to move beyond themselves and their own issues and needs and wants and will project crap onto other kids.  For some reason, our generation of adults seems to like to reward that behaviour by looking at the victim to accommodate the assailant because god knows we wouldn’t want to make anyone upset now.

Our teenagers are still children and they need us to help protect them when they get hurt.  Sure the world is not fair and that is a lesson kids learn quite a bit in high school but they shouldn’t have to learn that the adults around them suck at taking care of them and helping them to be safe from harm and abuse.  It’s our job and we have done a really crappy job of it when it comes to not holding kids accountable when they should be and being part of the group that looks at the victims as the reason for the abusive behaviour.

I hope the next generation gets it better than we have.

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The things I learned in school

March 14, 2013

Throughout the past year and a bit, our agency has “stepped outside of the box” and offered our programs in a local high school.  We had been trying to get in the door at the high school for two years prior but most schools lack the space to give us an office (even though we are essentially ‘working for them’ to some extent while we’re there – for free).  On the surface, this looks like it is completely outside of our mandate and it is something that we dreamed up ourselves in order to address some gaps in service and meet some needs that weren’t being met.  We now have office space in three of the larger high schools (in different towns) and one alternative school.

This week I’ve started the process of putting together the statistics so that I can start begging for money to keep the program going and let me tell you, those are scary, scary statistics.  The amount of kids we’ve seen in the first 5 months would make you want to cry (for the size of the towns we’re working in) – and we’re just getting started.  I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like when everyone knows about us and what we’re doing there.

1. Of all the kids that we have seen or are working with, every single one of them except for one has been or is the victim of sexual abuse or assault, dating violence or something domestic violence related.

2. The vast majority of kids have been bullied and harassed, many for their sexual orientation and / or as a result of a former unhealthy or negative dating relationship.

3. Almost none of the kids have received counseling or assistance for what they have experienced or gone through, largely due to the fact that in order to provide help to a child, you need parental support, consent and involvement and if parents don’t want other people knowing what is going on with the kids or in the home, they might not participate fully unless it’s to prove that their child is the problem.  Combine that with the need to get to the appointment when you’re a kid and that means that many, many children don’t get the help they need or want because their parents won’t follow through.  Child therapy and treatment facilities these days insist on parental involvement and if they don’t get that, the case get closed.

4. A surprising number of the kids we are seeing have parents with mental health disorders that are not receiving treatment (refuse) and / or are not compliant with their treatment plans therefore creating an unstable and potentially unsafe home  environment.

5. Every single one of them lacks connections to family, friends and community – especially community.  The same issues around parents not following through with child counseling applies.  Kids can’t connect with their communities if they don’t have a parent that’s willing to drive them, encourage them, make sure they have what they need, help them keep appointments and so on.

It’s amazing the difference we’ve seen in some of the kids in such a short span of time.  Don’t ever underestimate your role in a teenager’s life and the impact you can have.  These kids kind of come in and out as they see fit and as long as we’re there to support them when they need us (and not necessarily fix it for them) and keep trying to get them connected to their community the transformation is pretty astounding.  Negative and defeated attitudes are switched to kids who are positive and see some hope for their future.  Now that’s obviously not going to fix every problem that comes up, step-daughter is a prime example.  Even with unconditional support she still is an addict but for many kids, it can make the world of difference.

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Here comes the bride

March 4, 2013 4 Comments

Hypothetically speaking of course.  And no, it isn’t me.  Been there – done that and I’m not too inclined to ever try something like that again…

Buddy child got her second university acceptance the other day.  This was from the university that had the toughest admission criteria so I’m guessing that the other two will soon follow.  This led to a conversation about how many years she’ll be in school and the people that congratulated her and this led to a conversation about her mom and her mom’s boyfriend.  Mom was abusive and adopted family was abusive, just both in very different ways.  We don’t talk about this a whole lot but buddy seemed to be in a rare chatty mood (well, chatty for her) so we kind of looked at the abuse compared the two situations.

Coincidentally, I made a joke about how her wedding was going to be interesting and she immediately responded with how her mom’s boyfriend was not walking her down the aisle – nor is her mom.  In fact, if anyone walks her down the aisle, apparently it’s going to be me.

Buddy explained why.  In her view, her mom never raised her.  She was living with her for a few years but at no point did her mom actively take care of her or raise her.  After a time in foster care, she moved to her adopted family and she says they didn’t raise her either – they just “housed” her.  As far as she’s concerned, I raised her.

What she’s trying to say is that parenting is not a passive process.  You can’t just sit back and hope for the best.  You have to engage and ask questions and give feedback and listen and negotiate and drive countless miles to friend’s and boyfriend’s houses and let them sign up for extra-curricular activities and have friends stay over on the weekends and pick them up from sleepovers at other people’s houses among a million other seemingly inconsequential things.  Her mom wasn’t capable of doing  that for a variety of reasons.  She had children but was not equipped to actively raise them at that point in her life.

Her adopted family went through the motions and did do some good things but they weren’t invested in her anymore than they were invested in the neighbour’s kid.  They lacked an appropriate emotional connection and presented themselves as good, decent parents because how they looked on the surface was more important than how things really were.

Parenting is kind of like a contact sport.  You’ve got to get in there and get involved and be part of the game and be willing to get a little muddy if you have to.  You have to invest in the time and effort and actively participate in your teenager’s life.  They need it and benefit from it and notice.

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