Righto, Cheerio.

One of the good things to come out of the whole “knife at school” incident was a discussion about the importance of reputation.

The principal had noted to Oldest One that she hadn’t suspended him for his actions because he was not known for being a “bad kid” and, in fact, the opposite was true. He’s known for being a good, nice, quiet kid around the school.

It helps, too, that the boys’ school is quite small (less than 200 kids) and the principal knows each and every one of them by name and sight. As do most of the other teachers there, I’d imagine.

Reputation is important.

We talked about how the little things can add up to a good reputation – being nice, holding open a door, helping someone out – and how the same holds true for a bad reputation.

The difference is that a bad reputation is infinitely more challenging to fix because negative actions lead people to make negative conclusions about you that are much, much harder to break. It takes a long time to rebuild trust.

As we mentioned to Oldest One, he now has a strike against him – the knife – and that means that if he’s caught doing something else negative, it will begin to look like a trend. The, “Hmm, he brought a knife to school AND now he’s doing X and Y” will be harder to excuse or ignore. The benefit of the doubt will no longer be in his favour.

This is something we struggle with at home, too. Oldest One does something negative – shoves his brother, for example – and then doesn’t understand why we don’t believe him 5 minutes later when his brother again complains about being shoved and he claims to be innocent.

Or when he lies to us about something – something obvious! – and then doesn’t understand why we insist on checking up on things later. He doesn’t like it when we don’t just take his word for it.

Here is what I know: Oldest One is a good kid at heart. He is struggling with growing up, being more responsible, dealing with the world – all the things you’d expect from an eleven year old. He makes mistakes. He learns from them, slowly but surely.

He is also still struggling with the adoption itself and being in a family with specific rules and expectations that, in many cases, are not the same as what was expected from him in his foster home or in his biological family’s home – - as much as he denies that.

Right now, he doesn’t like me much and he feels safe enough with me to express that. It’s unpleasant for me, obviously, to have the majority of our interactions be full of sulking and yelling or crying or shouting or.. yeah. Every rule is UNFAIR. Every consequence is UNWARRANTED. Everything we won’t buy him “just because” is HORRIBLE.

And yet I know my job here is to remain consistent. To remain steady and firm and with my feet well-planted.

It also means, however, that I’m focusing all of my strength in that area (so as not to cry, yell back, etc) and other, seemingly minor, things make me feel totally overwhelmed. In that regard I am most definitely off-balance. I’m not myself. I take everything a bit too personally at the moment and I’m feeling ridiculously self-protective.

There’s a huge urge to just hide, though, and I’m pretty confident that isolating myself won’t solve anything at all.

I feel worn down and weary and exhausted. It’s hard work not being liked!

I called my family doctor yesterday to see if I could get a referral to his in-house therapist (the same one I saw for anxiety) to talk to her a bit about how to restore my joie de vivre. I’ve been trying to spend a bit more time by myself each day, playing Wordjong on my DS or reading a book.

I’ve been trying to spend happy time with the other two kids as often as possible because, man oh man, they love me (most of the time).

I am taking a lot of deep breaths.

This is not because Oldest One is a terrible kid. It’s because I’m.. a bit sensitive. I always have been! And I have to work very hard to not let my issues interfere with his bonding and his own need to work through issues.

I’m so grateful for Coffee and his sane, calm mannerisms. That he loves me. That we agree on parenting stuff.

This too shall pass.