Over the past few weeks some of my facebook friends have posted pictures of their teens heading off to homecoming. It made me kind of wishful for my own kids to have these experience. Last week turned out to be homecoming for Peter's new school. I was nostalgically excited. Yet, I did not push anything and just let him go about his days discovering the opportunities himself. His hallway attendant reminded him everyday that on Friday she'd be taking him to the pep rally. I figured that would be the extend of his homecoming experience. That would have been enough.
The whole week just about passed before he declared he did want to attend the homecoming football game. John picked him up from school on Friday afternoon (as I had to be home for a Verizon appointment). The attendant relayed that Peter had purchased a ticket to the dance, but verbalized that he thought it was a game ticket. So he had dove off into the deep end.
Would anyone at the dance even know him? What would he wear? What if he got lost (the attendant wasn't going)? Encountered a bully? Have you seen the Netflix show Atypical? It's kind of crass, and has some inappropriate and disappointingly unrealistic subplots... but we've watched both seasons for the autism component. The show is about a teenager named Sam, who is highly functional, gets good grades, has a job, and can go about his day independently. Peter is not Sam. However, there are elements of the show and family dynamic (not the cheating mom part, obviously) that I can relate to. There's was also a story online last week from another autism mom whose son was sexually harassed at his homecoming dance (which was caught on the school surveillance camera). I would say that I had these various scenarios in my mind of good or bad outcomes.
He decided that he did indeed wanted to go. With less than 24 hours notice drove all over town procuring the appropriate garments. He needed dress shoes and slacks. He's very skinny with a tall inseam. We had to go to several different stores to find something that would fit. Rush home, rush the new pants and old dress shirt though wash, dryer, and iron. Coax him to allow dad to brush his mane. (Since starting school he has refused to have his hair cut... thank you long haired teen boys everywhere). I made sure to take some pictures before it got too dark out... because I feared this might be the only dance he would ever attend...
We dropped him off at the gym and he waved with a grin and walked into the lions den. He had his sister's cell phone (the flip phone we purchased for whenever one of the kids would be out without us). His Angel Sense GPS device was tacked to the inside of his sport coat pocket. It wasn't functioning very well and I'm trying to arrange to send it back, but we're still using it for now. While it has a listen in feature, I did not activate it. The $40 a month service charge only included 60 minutes of listen in time. Perhaps I should have.
About two hours later we got a call from an unknown number, which turned out to be Peter having borrowed the cell phone of an adult. He was crying and saying something about "friends no longer being friends." John took off to go get him. When I activated the listen in feature of the Angel Sense device. I heard Peter crying and venting while John was driving him home..
Peter doesn't tell stories in chronological order. He shares the strongest emotions first. Some girl told him "I don't even know you, you don't belong here!" When he got home practically crawled into my lap. John drew up an Epsom salt bath. The flip phone was gone. Peter said he had broke it. He had a picture card from the dance. At some point he was photographed with four other kids, who seemed to be two couples. Peter said one of the kids is in his guitar class... and that kid "watched porn," which Peter repeatedly expressed disapproval of several times through the rest of the weekend. (a couple of times while we were eating lunch at Costco surrounded by his younger siblings and many other people.) So it sounds like he spent the first hour or so with this "porn addicted" friend, then separated from him and linked up with his "locker-helper" girl who had told him he was welcomed to hang out with her and her friends. This girl offered to help him with his locker one day. His assigned locker isn't working. So it was one of her friends who might not have been having a good time. Peter admits he said to this girl that she reminded him of his sister, Charlotte. Then she let loose her verbal assault. He said after that he went away and cried. At some point though he approached the girl and requested she apologize to him. I can't be sure of the exact wording, but "some boys" told Peter "whoh, whoh, she's got problems." At some point after the girl said her piece Peter admits he snapped the flip phone into two pieces. Then he approached the police officer at the dance for help calling his parents.
We need a GPS/ cell phone solution for Peter... but something that won't be likely to become his destress tool. He has the habit of taking his frustration out on electronics... and just about anything he lays his eyes on. More then a couple times I've seen him look at the digital thermostat for our new heat pump. Resting his head on the face of it or just staring at it squarely as in his line of site being at his eye level... he does that, he will fixate on an object for a while before he destroys it. If he breaks that thermostat I think I'd loose my mind. He resents that I spent so much money (trying to improve the air quality and winter heating system) instead of buying him whatever it is he thinks he must have. We wouldn't have given him his sisters cell phone, except we wanted to be sure he could call us if he wanted to leave early. But then he broke it instead of using it. It's like we're suppose to buy him only the most expensive item or it's not worth his respect. I'm beyond sick of it. However, there's no help out there for this sort of issue. He rules this house.
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