Skip to main content

Don't / Can't

I've just walked away from a potential UCA (unceasing character assassination).

The nub of the fall out was my asking her how she felt about next school year and actually going to her sixth form of choice which is a 30 minute bike ride away.  

It seems teachers have been muttering to her as well about lowering her expectations and changing her courses.

She is outraged and affronted by my suggestion that she might not go / do it and maybe needs a plan B.  I talked about the technical college which is round the corner from us.  

I am trying to communicate to her that people can plan for the future based on past experience.  It's great when there is a sudden surprise or someone suddenly does something you didn't think they were going to do (attending all her exams) but we can't rely on that.  She protested that I was saying she can't do these things and I said that wasn't what I was saying, I was saying she doesn't.  

She told me I had said she would pass all her GCSEs - I was taken aback, don't remember saying that specifically.  Wish I had jumped on the fact that if I did it was based on what she had done for mocks not some magic wand I have.  

I said it's not that you can't do something it's that you don't.

I had to emphasise this difference a couple of times as she turned what I said back to can't.

I gave the example of her room which is such a shit hole now that even she is choosing not to be in it.  She says she will sort it but she's said it since Friday and now it's Sunday.  She says I've got 12 hours, it's only 8am...I say well we can see whether you've actually done it by the time Dad and I get back from our day out.

Her answer is always that she was going to but now she won't because I've ruined her mood / caused her anxiety - she was having such a great morning, why would I say this at 8am?? blah blah blah

She started to round on me, she really doesn't understand my sudden mood changes...

(this, i think, is the rare time I venture to point out she might not be right about something rather than keeping my mouth shut or doing my best to praise and encourage her (like you will pass your GCSEs)).

Somewhere in what was (by normal standards) a brief exchange and she was saying we (me and teachers) were not allowing for the fact that she always did get whatever it was done, I was able to say that it was because we knew that eventually the world won't give just one more day, just one more day and she will run out of days.  I think she took a breath for a moment so I hope that one went in.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

there's always tomorrow

How do I break down the contradictions in Lily's idea of who she is versus what she does and how she shows herself to be? Yesterday she told us at dinner that she is having a competition with her best friend to see who can be the most tanned this Summer. Husband and I bit our tongues and merely nodded with interest. We wanted to say: "You do know that to get a tan you have to be up when the sun is up?" or "You do know that to get a tan you have to go outside?" But it was suddenly clear to me that in her head she was a completely different person - one who jumps around beaches with lithe brown limbs and lies back on picnic rugs with sand between her toes.  I remembered my own Baywatch-based alter-ego. My dream had always been to lose weight and magically change my coarse curly hair for one of those glossy bouncing pony-tails.  Those kinds of daydreams are precious at any time in our lives but especially for a teenager. So it was good that Husband and I didn't...

Flipping Days and Nights

I am almost certain that Lily did not go to bed last night. Despite all reminders and a day without any exams (and consequently not going to school) yesterday, she apparently forgot the deadline for the second art sketchbook which was today. She made it into her physics exam this morning but apparently nearly stopped and sought medical help because she said her vision was blurring.  She told me she might have an allergy, "that's what the medic said".  It's been pouring with rain for 48 hours.  I don't need to check the pollen count (but I do), it's low and she's never suffered particularly.  I don't think it's allergies I tell her. She shrugs and says she needs to have a lie down, she didn't get much sleep last night. She's decided she doesn't need the melatonin anymore and I think she's cramming all night, going to the exam first thing, home by midday and then sleeping till, well, I wake her up. She's eaten dinner with us the l...

Unceasing Character Assassination (UCA)

This is an unstoppable verbal torrent which contains some inciteful observations, some creative metaphors and lots of criticism, distain, incredulity and outrage. It is spoken with insistence and without a break.  There are almost no rhetorical questions that I can think of and most of it is therefore phrased as a definitive account of what 'you do' and what 'you think'. It comes after an argument/melt down and feels, at first, like something one should respect.  Both husband and I have experienced these and some instinct tell us there is merit in letting Lily get these things off her chest. There might be useful learning on both sides and an opportunity for us to acknowledge where we have made a mistake, or explain further why we said or did something that we did. The trouble is, it is very hard to get a word in edge ways and even less likely that what we say will be given any credence. Above all, there is no reduction in fervour.  If anything, she becomes more vindict...