We welcome to round to three of the Parenting Round to Buy podcast for the
week of April seventeenth. I'm Terry Morrow and I'm here with Katherine Heleco Hello
and Nicole heretics By. There were moms of teens and young adults and adult
adults and when it comes to parenting, we've been there, done that,
bought the T shirt. But we're still waiting for that day when we'll reach
the finish line and have no further need to lay down in a dark room
with wet rag over our eyes worrying about something or other. Wednesday is complaining
day here on Parenting round About, and today we are complaining about kids having
their own timetable. Catherine, how's it going with your with your son Enys
timetable? My kid who doesn't drive, just turned thirty and he's still looking
at the book and thinking about taking a test. Are you having better luck?
Yes, yes we are. We have some good news on this front.
So, way back in the dark days of twenty twenty, in the
summer of twenty twenty, my son was fifteen and so he was at the
age when he could be starting drivers d and he it was twenty twenty So
I signed him up to do it online because I thought that that was my
only option. And he did some of it, and then he found out
he heard from a friend that the friend was doing it in person. Oh
and that was the end of him doing it online because he already was,
you know, really hating anything having to do with online learning because of COVID.
So so yeah, I mean I got his access extended. I made
him pay, you know, they like they charged me like fifty dollars.
I charged him fifty dollars to you know, expand access to the thing.
He still wouldn't do it, you know, so we let it go for
a while, you know, we kept on Basically it seemed like if he
if he went back to it at some point, he could do it.
So that went on for like a year, I want to say. And
then and also he just didn't have a lot of time in his schedule to
do it in person once they finally started offering it in earnest in person.
So then finally in I think the like January of twenty twenty two, maybe
I signed him up to do it in person after school he had to miss
one because of a school like an academic commitment. Then he had to miss
a second one because he was not feeling well. I took him out of
school and I took him to get a COVID test. This was like January
twenty twenty two. There was like a delta or one of those spikes was
happening, right, So I pulled it. I took him home from school
and I took him. I'm like, okay, we'll get him a rapid
test and you know, we'll find out it's not COVID and then he can
go back to school. Took the test. After the test, find out
it's not a rapid test, it's a three day oh no. So then
he couldn't go back to school, and so he had to miss his driver's
head and his teacher was like, well, don't come back because you can't
you can't pass. And man, I sent a sternly worded email to the
Department of Motor Vehicles and said like this is ridiculous, Like this is a
pandemic. I cannot send a sick child to school to class. But no,
they were like that that's the rule. Meanwhile, at the same time,
you could get your kid a driver's license without them taking a road test
because of COVID, but yet if he misses one day of the class,
then he's out anyway. Then at some point we finally were like decided,
well, when he turns eighteen, he can take the test without having taken
the class. And by this time he's already taken the half the class like
three times. Yeah, so we just let it drop. And then quite
soon after he turned eighteen, I didn't say anything. I was like,
I'm not saying a word. I'm not saying a word. I'm not saying
a word. And so finally he did. He came, he came to
me, if you days after and he said, okay, um, you
know, like tomorrow, can we go to the d V And I'm like,
are you ready? And he said, yep, I'm ready, And
we got him an appointment. He took the test, he passed the test,
Wow, and he like he wanted to drive home from the dast My
Husband's like, uh, we're not going on the highway, but we can
drive in this parking lot for a little while and then we can I'll do
the highway part and then I'll let you do some more in the in town
part. And ever since then, every day he wants to drive, he
wants to practice on it. So but I mean three years it took.
And yeah, the whole time my husband was like, oh my god,
when is he gonna drive? To drive? He needs to like get himself
his own rides because he's know inconveniencing us. Um. So yeah, anyway,
now he wants to drive all the time. He also wants me to
sign him out of class. He's like, text me, I'm doing well
in my math class. Can I can you sign me out so we can
practice driving? Like oh no, no, no I can't. Can you
sign me out? Conversations? Yeah, And also since he turned eighteen,
he brought home a form from school that was like, you can he can
sign him he can sign himself out, but I have to I would have
to agree to it. And I'm like, you don't I don't think so
no, wow, congratulation friends. So yeah, it's exactly maybe go to
class. Maybe go to class. So but yeah, I mean it was
so hard, like not pushing it. It was a lot harder for my
husband than it was for me. I was like, I'm not like because
I could tell that it was not going to work. Pushing him to do
it was absolutely not working and would never work, so we needed to just
drop it and when we did, it worked. So yeah, so that
that is my lessonings. Yeah, Like I feel there's things that would not
work for though, but it's also like, you know, you hear it
for things like potty training or you know, giving giving up the pacifier or
whatever else I mean, And I agree it's not for everything, and it's
not for every kid, but for certain kids there's just no way. Yeah,
like it's not gonna happen. Yeah, I got so much grief with
my son on potty training. You know, he was it was he was
late with it, and people were telling me I was infantilizing him by not
you know, forcing him in various ways to do this. And it's like,
when he's ready, he'll do it. And when he was ready,
it took one day. And so I know there's other things. You know.
I keep saying it's going to be that way with the driving that when
he's ready, he will get it done, and that the fact that he
hasn't gotten it done means he's not ready, and I certainly hope that's the
case. Every now and then he just gets it in his head, and
he keeps he keeps asking about it, and he keeps asking about and he
keeps asking about it, and it's like, you have to show me you
can take charge of this process before I will feel like you can do it.
This is not you know, why don't you your dad get the book
and come sit down with me and tell me to look at it. It's
like, no, no, no, no, you get the book,
you come to one of us and ask it to do with you. You
have to be in charge. And he's just not getting that transition and a
difference. It's like, why won't you help me? We're happy to help
you. You need to be in charge of the situation, right, And
that's not happening yet. So I keep saying he's just not ready, right.
It's like, oh, it's such a huge responsibility. Yeah, and
you know, and then sometimes he wants to do things and he said it,
keeps asking about that because he wants me to say no, and it's
hard to know which things are right and things are the other. Yea.
So I enjoy driving him. It's fine, We're fine, Everything is fine,
right, Yeah, I mean I quite honestly like when I and obviously
I'm still driving him because he doesn't have this. He has this, you
know, learning learner's permit, but he doesn't he can't drive himself anywhere at
this time. Yeah, and you then I know that he's going where he
needs to go at the time he needs to go with this, That's true.
That part is, you know, still helpful, even though it even
though there are days when I make many trips back to the high school.
Yeah, it's like you relinquish control in so many ways when they're able to
drive, right, you know. But I mean having my daughter able to
drive has been just a blessing because she does a lot of errands, and
she does a lot of things. It's more than just not having to take
her places. She picks up some of the family load, transporting her brother,
sometimes driving me places if I don't want to drive, picking up stuff
at the store. You know, she does a lot. Yeah, so
I don't know what other time kind of I mean, everything my kids have
done have been on their own timetable, right, and I that has been
my constant battle with people have a schedule to keep no. I mean,
like my son just had his confirmation right on the Easter Saturday, at the
age of thirty made it finally got him there. Yeah, congrats, exciting
and it was on the timetable that worked for you and him and yep,
everyone in the church, right, So yeah, it's just hard waiting it
out. Yeah, I mean, like, in so many ways, I'm
so glad that my son is almost done with high school. Like, yes,
indeed, but you know, at the same time, it's like,
you know, I feel like we both kind of missed out on some stuff
when we were just trying to get through the days. And you know,
and it was because there was a timetable. You know, you have to
take these classes at this time because you need them to graduate, and you
know, you have to do everything in this order and in this way.
And yeah, and it didn't necessarily work for him, but there weren't there
weren't really a lot of choices, right, So I mean, luckily restoring
his I would say, you know, the guidance counselor did did help in
some ways by like, Okay, well he took this class. He really
probably should have been taking it his senior year, but he took it his
junior year. Won't make it work, you know, things like that.
Um, but I don't know, I feel like I feel like we both
have regrets yes saying right, yeah, And some of that had to do
with having to be on other people's right right arguing arguing against the standard timetable,
yeah, is really difficult, and you get hit with why are you
holding them back? Why you know they'll never do anything and you don't challenge
them. You know, this is the way we do it, and they
can't keep up, then maybe they need to be on this you know,
completely alternative track where we don't care what they do, right, And so
just like sometimes just a little more time, right, just a little flexibility,
maybe there's something else that they could do early, Yeah, did you
ever think of that? Right? So it's just been an ongoing frustration,
and I'm trying to be calm now that it's mostly just me worrying about these
things. I'm trying to be calm about it, like I wish other people
had been calm about it, but but it is. It is sort of
hard sometimes, and certainly with my kid, it's it's his own timetable,
and it's his own like just I don't know how to it's not just time
to be, you know, like certain classes that he's I've been like,
let's take the let's take the easy one, like, you know, there's
no need to take a psychology when you could take regular psychology. And then
he freaks out. It's like, no, I'm taking a p and guess
what he's doing great in it? Like I don't know, yes, exactly.
I was like that too. I always had to do the hardest thing
and the most advanced and the you know, the most ahead of the timetable
stuff. I was motivated when I was a freshman in college. I took
a class that was for like juniors and seniors and I was a freshman just
starting. It was like the first first quarter, and they were like,
that's not really for you, dear, and I'm like, oh, I
can do it. I can do anything. Coming fresh out of high school
feeling pretty good about myself. And I don't think I failed, but I
think I got a mercy dum and pat on the head right. Welcome to
college, honey. We go back to those freshman classes and they let you
try. I know they let me try. I think out of amusement to
let's see how this goes. She thanks you so hot. Oh well,
you were on Terry's timetable. Yeah, it looked interesting. It looked more
interesting than the freshman glasses. Yeah, I mean that's like I've definitely seen
that with my kid too. And like I said, he insisted on taking
AP psychology again. He's doing well. He took they have to take Personal
Financial Literacy, and we tried for him to take it over the summer to
get it over with because it was one of those like he needs it to
graduate, let's just let's just get it over with. And he agreed to
do that. Yeah, and then he did not do it. So now
he has so he has to take it again, and he's taking the Heart
of her he's taking the you know, the one that incorporates economics in addition
to personal and of course he's doing fine. So well maybe maybe he knows
it's a time dame well better than you do, I guess. So look
for him that he's doing good. I mean he says he is, like,
oh, I think he's okay. Yeah, I mean I think it's
great that they're teaching that and that they're making that a requirement because it's certainly
a needed thing. Yes, But I know when my son was taking that
class, it was like this is not being taught in a way that is
accessible for all learns. So yeah, oh well, so anyway, that's
the saga of the driving. And also it turns out when you don't get
your permit until you're already eighteen, yeah, you don't have to wait six
months to take the test. You could take it into seven days. Wow.
Ye, which is not going to happen in our case. But I
did think that was interesting because yeah, when he took the test, I
thought, oh, gosh, six months from now, he's already going to
be in college, Like, yeah, is he going to have to wait
and like come back and right? But he can take it as soon as
he is ready. We're still going to get him some professional instruction. And
you're going, oh, that's great, you can do it so quick,
and they're like, oh my god, you could do that, so wad
No, I'm not prepared. I'm still I told him he has to have
some some professional classes for I told him it was for insurance reasons. It's
mostly because I do not want to be in the passenger seat the first time
he goes on the highway. No, thank you. You need somebody who
has the car with the brakes on. The passenger side. Yeah. Yeah,
I found a place for my son to take his driver's you know,
class drive, actual driving classes. It's a place that works with kids with
autism and so perfect for him. But I need that for the written test
also, and that I have not been able to locate because the written test
is a problem. And he tried it once and he failed, and he
keeps wanting to do it and wanting to do it, but he doesn't.
You know, he'll sit down and look at the book for a little while.
You know, he keeps asking us to look at the book with him.
But what he wants is to is us to you know, flip up
on the top of his head and stuff all the facts in so he doesn't
have to deal with it and so blame him. Wouldn't that be fun if
that was possible. Yeah, I would like that too. I'd do some
rewiring while I was in there. But as it is, you know,
there's just really nothing to it but to study. Yeah, I'm sorry,
man, you got to study. For a long time. I was putting
them off by saying, hey, you know what, when you turn thirty,
that would be a good time. How about if we say when you
turn thirty. We'll do it, and now he just turned out forty.
Sound good, you know, Or you could just continue to get rights from
everybody else and that would be a okay. You have not reached my timetable
yet for driving. That's right, we have reached the timetable for yes.
The end of today's Round three, Tune in tomorrow when we'll obsess about mother
daughter conversations, and then on Friday to see what we've come up with for
a Roundabout round up picks for this week. Find all our episodes at parenting
roundabout dot com and talk back in the comments there, on our Facebook page
or on Twitter, where you will find us a Roundabout chat