The Letter

The Windup

The whole drive home from the mailbox I was fuming. Another letter from the school. Another note that implied that I wasn’t doing my job as a parent. I stormed into the house, angry. My son sat on the couch watching Youtube videos.

“Kitchen table, now,” I told him briskly.

“Okay, fine.” He responded. I’m not sure how, but by the tone of his voice, I could tell he had just rolled his eyes. I stopped dead in my tracks. Taking a deep breath, I tried to center myself.

“Pardon me?” I asked softly, working hard to keep my composure.

“Nothing,” P. mumbled, putting the remote control down gently on the couch. Slowly he shuffled towards the kitchen table. Deep down he knew he was tempting the wrath of the Gods. Once seated, I slammed the open letter down in front of him.

“Read this, and then explain, please.”

My son picked the letter up from the table, silently scanning it as I filled a glass with water. The communication was to inform me that my son’s grade in English sat at 48%. This was due to a mix of poor assignment marks, late assignment marks, and missing assignment marks. I was furious.

The Pitch

“It’s not my fault.” He told me, meekly.

I tried not to, but in the moment, I couldn’t help but do a double-take. “Pardon?” I questioned.

“The late and missing assignments aren’t my fault.” He was starring at the table, the impact of his words catching up with him. I sat down in the chair opposite him as quietly as I could. He knew the end was nigh.

“Let me get this straight…for weeks I’ve been asking if you have homework to do.”

P. nodded.

“And for weeks you’ve been telling me you don’t have any.” I continued.

He nodded again.

“So, you’ve been lying, but it’s not your fault that you lied?”

Silence fell over the room. The ice machine clunked to life. He jumped.

The Swing

“I got the assignments in today before school was out, …so my grade will change.” He told me.

Now it was my turn to nod. The anger was fading, but it still lingered, like a tiger waiting in the dark. I started to realize I was angry at myself as much as I was at P. I knew I should have been following up better, but I let my pride get in the way of saying so aloud. Gently I grabbed his hand.

“Son, look at me.”

He did.

“Not doing, or not handing in your assignments, is a piss poor thing to do,” I began. P. opened his mouth to protest defensively, but I stopped him mid-sentence. “however, handing them in late is just as bad. It’s irresponsible. More than that, it’s rude and disrespectful.”

P. pulled his hand away from mine. “It’s not that bad, Dad. The teacher said he understood, and he’d let it go. He said a lot of other kids don’t even bother to turn in assignments after they’ve been late.”

I shook my head. Cognitive dissonance, I thought. Part, if not most, of my son’s psyche, knew that he was wrong, but he couldn’t give up the point. He felt attacked that I had called him out, and his pride was hurt. Going on the defensive was, in his mind, the best recourse. As an alternative to owning up to what he had or had not done, he employed a technique called cognitive dissonance. Instead of accepting responsibility for his actions he presented an alternative that was worse than the situation he was in, using the “worst-case scenario” of what the other students were doing to make his blunder seem less severe.

The Miss

“That’s not how this works. It doesn’t matter if the teacher accepted your apology or not, son. It doesn’t matter how many other kids are doing the same thing. Those other kids are not my kids, and you can’t speak for them. There are a lot of things in this situation that matter…first and foremost, you lied to me. We can’t build trust if you lie. I want to trust you. I should be able to trust you. Just like you can always trust me.”

“But-” He began.

“-No,” I said, interrupting him. “Secondly, by not handing in your assignments on time you’re telling your teacher that his timeline and his authority in the class don’t mean shit. You don’t get to do that. That’s disrespectful, and I know you’re better than that type of attitude. Last, but not least, you’re showing everyone that you don’t have self-control or discipline, and that’s not correct either. You’re a smart, good, thoughtful kid, but you’re acting like a jackass, and that’s not right.”

All my kids have “tells.” Mannerisms and micro-expressions I can read that betray how they’re really feeling. For my son, I know that when his cheekbones go beat red he’s feeling upset with himself. He was finally getting what I was saying. I was still angry, but I decided to leave the conversation alone for the rest of the evening. As I got up to walk away I knew I was also being defensive, so I knelt down, gave him a hug, and told him I loved him.