Although Hawk successfully got on the bus on time today, he didn’t walk through the front door like he normally does at the end of the school day. By normal, I mean in comparison to previous years. Because this year, at the age of 15, he’s trending towards either texting me to say, “Hey Mom, is it okay if I go to my friend’s house after school today?” to evolving into no text at all.
Probably in part my own fault because I lean strongly towards being a helicopter mom. Yes, my BFF during this era of “teendom” is, you guessed it, Life360.
Some free-range parents may consider the GPS tracking app to be stalking or “an infringement of privacy.” However, when you are informed enough to know that your ADHD child is already thirty percent behind his peers from a maturity standpoint, it’s your go-to for attempting to keep your child safe and, well, alive.
Anywho, when Hawk didn’t appear, I clicked on the app to get a snapshot of where he was. In this instance, he was at a different location than usual. So, I texted him and asked him where he was. His response? “I’m at a friend’s house.”
“Which friend?” I asked.
“Why does it matter?” he responded.
“Because you know the rule, Hawk. No catching rides with friends I don’t know. And no hanging out at ‘friend’s’ houses if we don’t know the parents or if we don’t know if there is an adult present.”
He said, “Okay, I’m at Mario’s.”
My heart sunk and probably skipped several beats. “Not Mario’s house!” I thought to myself.
Although I never met Mario, I knew OF Mario.
One of Hawk’s best friend’s moms, whom I had recently befriended, warned me of a group of kids that she and her husband were trying to keep their son, Ivan, away from.
The reason? These kids were bad influences. Mario and his girlfriend were drug dealers. Or, in 2022 terminology, “plugs.”
If you don’t know what a “plug” is, you probably don’t have tween or teen kids and you surely don’t know about all the devious dealings going on within social media apps like Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok.
“Plugs” are drug dealers. More sophisticated than in previous generations because Big Tech continues to dig their heels in by refusing to administer controls that protect children from being victimized online.
So, upon hearing that Hawk was hanging out at Mario’s house, I implored him to come home. But he ghosted me. Radio silence.
I immediately texted Hawk’s friend’s Ivan’s mom, Meghan and asked her if Mario was one of the kids that she had warned me about.
She said, “Yes.” and “Do you know if Ivan and Hawk are together?”
I responded, “I’m not sure.”
She said, “Well, I’m going to drive over to Mario’s house now to see if Ivan is there because he is FORBIDDEN from hanging out with him.”
A few minutes later she texted me, “Is Jake’s (Hawk and Ivan’s other close friend) car an old green Volkswagen Jetta?”
I said, “Yes!” Her response, “Okay. Well it’s here outside of Mario’s house. I’m going to text Ivan and ask him to look for something in Jake’s car to see if he comes out.”
A moment later she texted me, “Ivan just came out of Mario’s house. Hawk is with him. BUSTED!!!!”
Upon reading her text, I called Hawk. He didn’t pick up so I texted him, “If you don’t pick up the phone right now, I’m driving to Mario’s house to pick you up.”
My message worked. He actually called me back. When I answered he said, “Mom! What is the problem? Why are you being so weird? I’m just hanging out at my friend’s house!”
My response, “The reason I’m acting so ‘weird’ is because you know the rules. Yet you continue to ignore them. I’ve never met Mario. But I’ve heard about him and I know that his mom isn’t there. You KNOW the rules about hanging out at friend’s houses without an adult. It’s not allowed.”
Hawk responded, “Why do you always have to be such a bitch, Mom?”
Yes, you read that correctly. Yes, it is extremely disrespectful. I do not condone swearing. And I certainly don’t condone swearing to adults and authority figures.
But know this: if you’re not familiar with neurodivergent brains or brains that are wired differently like ADHD teens, then you don’t know that they cannot control their impulse to not curse when upset or challenged. This is especially true if your child is unmedicated or the medication isn’t quite right.
They are (usually) not trying to be extremely disrespectful. They simply cannot control the impulse connecting their thoughts to their mouth.
How does one know if a teen is truly a disrespectful delinquent or just not in control of their prefrontal cortex like most neurotypical peers? The latter will usually come back to you within an hour or perhaps more or less to apologize and explain.
Thankfully, even though it was hard to realize it in the moment, Hawk apologized to me when he arrived home about 30 minutes later. His friend Jake drove him home as soon as Ivan’s mom busted them at Mario’s house.
The reason I didn’t completely freak out and drive over to Mario’s to pick up Hawk? Ivan’s mom assured me that they were sober. She confronted them outside of Mario’s house and texted me to assure me that it was okay.
When he walked through the door, to be quite honest, I don’t even really recall specifically whether we continued to argue. The reason: the last nine months have been so full of chaos and unpredictability when related to Hawk that it’s hard for me to recollect many details from most days.
Minutes blend into hours which meld into days. So many memories from the last few months are intermingled and mixed up.
This is the norm in most people’s lives. But when you live with and parent a child with ADHD, the memories tend to end up like pasta letters in alphabet soup. Sometimes deliciously delightful. Sometimes scalding and searing. Definitely a hot mess. Never boring.
To find out what happens on the next day, check back tomorrow for the latest.
