Zen and the Art of Escape.

When your 13 year old son comes home from school in the middle of the day, you want it to be for a good reason. When he stops you while you are busy trimming a hedge and you are having one of those pleasant mornings with your youngest child, you want whatever caused him to leave school to be merely due to an over reaction. When you respond to him and he falls into your arms and starts to sob, you want to find the person who caused this and demand to know why? why would you cause this harmless child to have to limp home and sob on his fathers shoulder.

You want to defend him, cure him, ease whatever pain it is which has caused him to tremble. You want to find who is responsible and make things right; you want to show him that you have control, like you did when he was a toddler and he skinned his knee. When you find that your son is the cause of his pain you, naturally, want to know who pushed him to do what he did. You want that other child punished, you want the school to do something to keep your kid out of trouble.

You want the other kids parent to call you up and yell at you, while you stay calm...just to show who the better person is. You want to tell him, that "my son was just defending himself" and if his kid had any self-control or respect for others he would not be bleeding. You don't want your son to be the responsible one. (the other parent never calls)

When your child comes home in the middle of the day, interrupts your day, starts sobbing in your arms- you give him a glass of water, you hold him, tell him you love him--you want to be upset---you want it to be simple. When he tells you it was his fault. You want him to see what he did, you want him to apologize, you want him to see how he can change.
, you want things to be normal... you want him to go back to school and have all the other kids like him. You want to blame someone; his mother, his not having many friends during elementary school, his lack of freedom,----you want it to be about him and not you.

You want your day back.