e-mail
Today my wonderful husband not only got off work early, but stopped off at the store and picked up the Apple laptop that I have been pinning over for the last few years, along with the photography software that I have been wanting as well. My adopted stepson overheard the phone call where my husband was excitedly spilling the beans of what he was bringing home for me, and instantly jealousy began to take over my teenager.
Yet instead of the typical childish jealousy response of “I never get anything,” he was beating himself up over his own choices this past school year which led him to being stuck in summer school for a good part of the summer, preventing him from his first summer job experience. He was looking forward to earning money to buy all of the gadgets that he desires in this fast paced technological age, and the fact that he alone is suffering without his gadgets along with being cooped up in school five hours a day, five days a week, doing English work is really eating at him.
He understands that his own actions brought him to his predicament, and he doesn’t like it. Not having anyone else to blame for his woes is not something that he is used to, and he is still learning how to cope with it. He has been running hot and cold since he has been in summer school, fine one moment, and then simply a bear the next when something reminds him of the things that he is missing out on this summer. While we are not to thrilled with the constant moodiness, we are quite tickled with the fact that he understands that he screwed up, he is upset about the fact that he screwed up, he regrets what has happened, and the fact that he is missing out on fun things as a direct result of his own actions. The king of not accepting personal responsibility, has finally stepped up, taken a huge step towards growing up, and accepted responsibility for his own actions for the first real time in his life.
In a few more weeks one of the old laptops will be wiped clean, and he will be able to use it as his own. What is just an old piece of technology for the adults in the house, will be a playground of updating, tearing apart, upgrading, and showing off to his friends for my adopted stepson, not to mention a nice reward for bucking up and facing his natural consequences like a man, albeit a grouchy one.
