A few years back I was a department chair in an independent day school in Maryland, and my son was a junior at the school, busy meeting the social and academic challenges of his education with the tentativeness and reluctance of an evolving adolescent. In the spring a young, new administrator, Ms. K, hatched the idea that the whole student body should do a ropes course adventure for a day. The idea was not a popular one with students but was implemented as a team building mechanism nonetheless. My son, Justin and I had completed an outward bound course four years earlier, and he did not hold fond memories of the ropes course and was confident that facing these challenges with the whole school would be dreadful.
As the date of the event approached, his anxiety about participating grew incrementally. We discussed it, and I recommended that he speak with his advisor about his feelings and reactions. He did speak to his advisor, and she was compassionate and clear with him that under similar circumstances in the past at the school, students who were unable to participate for any reason stayed on campus and completed a community service project. She and he figured out what service he might perform and devised a plan. He came home happy to work with the school to resolve this and relieved to be heard.
The next night when I returned from a meeting, Justin was agitated and revealed to me that his advisor had returned to him to share that the administrator, Ms. K, had made it clear that he would not be permitted to stay on campus and perform a community service but rather would be required to participate. He was angry and shared further that his advisor indicated that she was sorry that her counsel was of no merit under the circumstances.
We sat and talked – mostly he talked and I listened, trying to identify how I might help him feel empowered to manage the moment. We probed lots of possible ways to go and champion others, but not to participate etc., none of which seemed plausible. At last, as it got to be quite late at night, I said to him, “if this is so important to you and you are clear that you do not, cannot and will not voluntarily participate, then you need to know that the school cannot force you to get on the bus’’ he replied “what are you saying?” I said “they cannot make you get on the bus - just say no”. We sat in silence as he took that information in and visibly calmed down.
The next morning, he went to school early and waited at the headmaster’s office to share with him that he was a conscientious objector to the field trip and would refuse to go and rather than create a scene at the bus site he wanted to let the head know directly. The head and he talked for a time, and he was sent home and asked to write a perspective piece on his reasons for not participating. The ramifications of the refusal to participate came with other consequences as well, most notably having to engage in a long series of conversations with Ms. K, whose reaction to the event took on a personal air and she pursued the issue as a matter of discipline rather than of a moment of learning and empowerment.
What he did not know and could not know is that kids all over school were having their parents call them out of school “sick” so that they would not have to participate. Word spread quickly that Justin had presented himself to the head and had accepted, as it were, the consequence for his choice. This moment marked a moment of real student respect for Justin from students who admired him for facing the issue and taking the consequences, and those who thought it was brave, and even those who suggested he just should have called out sick.
Later that spring, Justin decided to run for school president with a campaign based on student voice and empowerment. He was elected president and shared his leadership platform openly with his vice president and secretary, modeling a collaborative leadership process.
To this day, we recall this moment in his young life and speak about it from time to time. It was an important episode in our relationship as parent and child, and I like to believe it was a risky, but worthwhile example of following the child. But even now as I listen to him I wonder if I would have been a better mom if I had invested my energies in helping him figure out how to get on the bus. I am heartened by the fact, however, that throughout his early adult life, Justin has, metaphorically speaking, identified plenty of other buses he has wanted to get on and has developed the skills to respectfully, but firmly, refuse getting on the bus when his conscience dictates. In other words, he has consistently been able to choose his own path.
