Friday
Moderator
I slid across 3 lanes of traffic on my bike when I was 14 & pissed off at my parents. Not because I was trying to get their attention. Just because I was distracted whilst riding downhill, bouncing/sewing machine hammering my leg, and didn’t notice a wet patch of road. Not even hydroplaning. Just the wrong place to not be paying attention, and jouncing my leg, meant I tapped the breaks right on the slick spot...and WHOOPS! Bike laid itself out, I spread eagled, and rode the momentum zwwwip! until friction stopped me. Lil bit o’road rash aside, I was perfectly fine. My bike ended up a twisted mess under someone’s undercarriage, but they were so thrilled I wasn’t actually ON my bike when they drove over it, they didn’t sue me (Or my parents) for damages. I managed to pass the bike off as stolen, and I was usually covered in scrapes and bruises, so they never even knew. (Unlike your friends kid, I hid as many accidents & ER trips as possible, as my parents were fond of grounding for stupid behavior; if they didn’t physically witness what happened, and I could be home in time for dinner? They never knew.).But is that a mistake a 15 year old would make? In the days leading up to that accident though, I could see him becoming agitated.
Pretty much every high schooler I’ve ever met has a
- Time I nearly died on my bike story
- Time I nearly crashed -or did crash- the car story
- Time I jumped off something taller than I should have story
- Time I ran from the cops/security/gangs/construction crew after deliberately f*cking with them story
- Time I snuck out & biffed it (having to hide the evidence a day or more, when ordinarily that’s the kind of thing they’d ask their parents to see a doctor/drive them to the hospital immediately) story
- Time I blew something up /set something on fire/ story
- Etc.
Active ADHD kids (instead of the sit in one place not moving for hours lost in their daydreams) tend to have a several stories in most categories. Just because it’s an impulse control disorder, when even people with neurotypical impulse control, are getting swept up in the moment. Because that’s what teenagers do. Inexperience+enthusiasm= a lotta “whoopsies” moments. Often fatal, but the vast majority “just” injuries, close calls, & angry/worried parents.
Do you have a lot of experience with teenage boys in general, and kids who haven’t been abused doing the normal growing up thing? (ie neither the too timid to say boo to a goose, all the spirit beat out of them; nor the too-old-for-their-years, über-mature, super-savvy, totally uninterested in normal teenage rites of passage/generalized hooliganism... although they’re often up to far “worse” shit, it’s adult-worse rather than teenage breakneck)?Again, my intuition tells me that there is an unmistakable pattern even if it doesn't quite fit any paradigms.
If so? Listen to your gut.
If not? Everything you’re describing, especially as you go into more detail, reads as totally-normal-kid, to me. Even fairly tame/cautious as far as ADHD kids, go. My brothers and I were each in & out of the ER 3-5 times a year. As were most of our friends/teammates, some more, some less. Most of us had our “thing”. I was wicked good at rolling, so I almost never broke anything (my thing was stitches, I was always needing this or that stitched up); but one of my brothers always tried to stop his fall with arms/legs, and broke both repeatedly. (My mom finally put him in martial arts so he’d learn to take a fall). My own boy was very much the same as my brothers, friends, & I... until he started being abused, then he went the savvy-route & disengaged with his old friends who were busy flinging themselves at life, until he was about 2 years out of abuse... and shazaam. Hello football and those antics, and back to flinging himself at life, again. It’s a weird thing to be sooooo damn grateful for a kid showing off his bruises, split lips, dislocated fingers, when for 5 years the injuries were worse, and hidden, not badges of honor & tales of brainless blind luck shit didn’t end worse.
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