JASON, THE PUNK

George McGurn

January 5, 2000

Jason looked like a real punk. He was only in the 6th grade but he acted like he was sixteen. He had the slouch. He had the walk. He had the sneer. He had the black shirts. He had the long, dirty hair. And he always seemed to be laughing at adults. Most of the kids in school were afraid of him. And all of the adults at school despised him.

When Jason walked down the hallway at school he got a lot of attention. The kids would back off and give him some space. And the adults would give him a puzzled look and then shake their head. Jason was a favorite topic of conversation in the teachers' room. The same comments would get passed around by the teachers. "If he were my kid…" "What's his problem?" "He is a disgrace." "He is so dirty." "I hate that look." And when Jason was really pushing it someone might whisper, "You feel like knocking that look right off his face."

I forget what the issue was but Jason was finally referred to me for counseling. In the first counseling session with Jason's mother she was very honest and told me she couldn't understand her son. She had no idea what to do with him. She said she had pretty much given up on him.

What bothered her the most was that his older sister was such a great kid. She was cooperative. She was responsible. She was a great helper around the house. She was a very successful student. She had so many great friends. And she seemed to be very happy.

Mom didn't offer much hope for Jason. She thought it would be great if I worked with him. And I felt like she was not going to be much help with Jason.

I knew of Jason and his reputation in the school. And fortunately when I worked with Jason I had a lot of experience working with kids like him from the middle school and the high school. I pretty much knew what not to do with kids like him. And I knew that once you closed the counseling room door and there was no audience to impress so many of these kids were very workable.

In the first counseling session with Jason I asked some routine questions about his relationships with his family members. And then I remember Jason talking non-stop about his parents and his sister. He was so angry. And he was so ready to talk about it. He told me how his parents treated his older sister so well. And then he told me how his parents treated him like dirt.

He said his parents were really very dumb. He said that they had a parenting plan for his sister that worked. And that they were so proud of her. And they were also so proud of themselves for raising such a good kid.

Then Jason said his parents tried to use the same parenting plan to bring him up. They had the same rules. They used the same words. And they treated him just like they treated his sister. But he said he wasn't his sister. And he said right from the start the plan didn't work for him. He told them how unhappy he was in the family. But they didn't listen to him. Hi s parents told him that he should be more appreciative of his family. And they told him he should act more like his sister.

During that first session I remember doing a lot of listening and making sure I jotted down the important issues he expressed. I remember asking him how he felt about these issues and what he would like to do about them. I asked him what I could tell his mother about our sessions and what he wanted to keep between him and me. I also asked him how I could help him.

He said it would be OK with him if I saw him a few times. But he didn't want to come down with his mother. And I could tell his mother anything I wanted. Because he had told her all these things a thousand times. And she never listened to him once.

I continued to see Jason each week. And pretty soon we had a really close working relationship. He was very angry. But he was also very open and very honest. He told me he hated his parents because of how they treated him. He didn't blame his sister. He said he didn't like school because of all the rules. He thought that the teachers were just like his parents. They liked his sister and they hated him. Jason used the word "hate" a lot.

After a few sessions Jason began telling me about himself. He said that his parents and the teachers all thought he was irresponsible. He said that he never took responsibility at home because he was in a fight with his parents. He never took responsibility in school because he felt that the teachers were on his parents' side.

But he wanted me to know that on Saturday he had a job. And his boss treated him really well. He wanted me to know that he was a very responsible worker in this job. He was never late and he never had to be told about finishing his work.

He also told me that the teachers thought he had no friends. But they didn't know about the older kids he hung around with after school. He said he had plenty of friends who cared about him. And that he cared a lot about these friends.

While Jason was with me I made a point of writing down the names of his friends and his positive qualities he told me about. When he would come down for the next session I would have the paper in front of us. Jason really liked to see his name connected to positive comments for a change.

Well, I would like to end this column with a happy ending. But after a couple of months with Jason the school year came to an end and Jason was off to the middle school.

I didn't hear anything about Jason after he left. But he reminded me again that most of this "punk" behavior is what is on the outside of a kid. And if you take the time to find out about what's in the inside of a kid with punk behavior you usually find that they are just like most of the other kids we know.