Highway 20 Ride

A day might come you'll realize
That if you see through my eyes
There was no other way to work it out
And a part of you might hate me
But son, please don’t mistake me
For a man that didn’t care at all
-Zac Brown Band

Today at work we had to call County Social Services. A family whose kids go to my school is going through a nasty divorce and at conferences, one of the boys said that his father had been beating him. We know the family though, and strongly suspect Mom put him up to it as a way to get back at Dad during the divorce proceedings. But we're mandatory reporters. We have to call social services and let them sort it out. Dad called us later, upset and wanting to know what was said. We don't go there. Social services gets to sort that out too.

In the school setting, I've watched enough families go through divorces to see the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good is where the parents realize it just wasn't meant to be for whatever reason, or it's time to move on. They make the decision to make the best of it and try to work together to cause the least disruption in their kids' lives. There may be a few bumps in the road while they're trying to get it figured out but for the most part, it's the best it can be given the circumstances.

The bad is where one parent is injured and isn't able to heal. And because of that, they child has to keep reliving it over and over. The other parent is then put in the position of trying to help a child who is stuck. Depending on the age of the child and the skills of the parent, the child be able to move past the injured parent - or maybe not. But if they can't, the school that sees all sorts of behaviors along the way....insecurities, absenteeism, acting out, poor grades, disorganization, anxiety.

When it gets ugly, we see things where one parent cannot move past their own pain and actively seeks to damage the other - with disregard for the impact it's having on the child. Or maybe with some sort of understanding of the damage it's doing, but feels the need to damage the other parent outweighs the well-being of their child. When the need to damage another adult overtakes the need to protect one's child, something is very wrong. A parent may try to stage the situation, implying that the other parent is at fault and they are only protecting their child from these actions. In almost every instance I've been witness to, the child knows what he is seeing does not fit with what he is being told and one of two things happen... If they are young, their minds are trying to come up with some rationale to explain the dichotomy and it causes them a great deal of angst. Or if they are old enough to see through it, it simply causes a great deal of anger.

I have actually had this family in my office and talked to them about all this. And that for the sake of their kids, they need to find some neutral ground because I've seen what happens when families don't. For a while, they were managing - at least where school was concerned. Dad especially. I see how he interacts with his boys, and it's clear he really does try to be a good dad but he's caught in an impossible situation. If it's getting so extreme that they can't maintain that neutral ground, it's not always a bad thing that social services gets involved. As upset as this dad is, social services might bring some normalcy to these boys' lives where he can't.

And my whole world
It begins and ends with you
On that Highway 20 ride

The video for this song is sweet. You watch Zac Brown driving down the road and you think he's going to see his son. But at the end of the video, it's an old man who opens the door. And you realize he's the boy in the song, all grown up, going to visit his dad. It's tender and loving. Despite all the difficulties kids go through, they know when their loved. And they know when adults genuinely care about them. And that's the best we can do. These two boys at school act out a lot. And it's no small wonder with everything they're going through. But they have a free pass to come to my office and talk to me whenever they want to. I want my office to be a safe place for them - because they don't have a safe place at home. Because I want them to know I care and will always take the time for them - because the adults at home have a hard time with that. And because I want them to excuse themselves when they feel close to the edge - rather than get sent down after they're in trouble. We need places for kids to feel safe and feel loved.