Tuesday December 6, 2005

Tuesday December 6, 2005 Zack got to sleep a little later this morning, fixed his own breakfast and was coming upstairs for a shower when I first saw him. Although he had just woken up (and had gone to bed at 9:30) he looked at me and said he was so tired. When it was time to leave he told me that I needed to take him back to the dentist to get his retainer fixed since it was hurting his gums. I asked him to let me see it and then handed it back to him and watched him put it in his pocket. Scott was going to call Dr Zanger and try to get him into the office today so Zack was taking his retainer with him to rehab. On the way to Frazier East we listened to some country music (left over habit from our trip to Nashville) and talked about this weekend. He is looking forward to going to the Assumptions Junior prom with Tiffany and said he was going to tear the dance floor up. In therapy he had three cognition sessions with Megan at different times today. He had to take words from a list and put them into categories to work on his word finding and recognition. He searches through lists of foods and has to categorize them into fruits, vegetables, meats and deserts. He still suffers with aphasia (language disorder caused by his brain injury) which is a major factor to his successful return to school. He can’t very well write a term paper on Christopher Columbus is he can’t remember the word for “ship”. These cognition exercises help him to file those words back into his memory but it takes time. He has not reached the six month point which is a critical landmark in brain injury recovery. His other obstacle is the visual perception problems which are being addressed with vision therapy. In vision therapy he does tracking exercises in which he scans lines from left to write looking for consecutive letters of the alphabet. He is timed and wears an eye patch to cover one eye each time. I am very anxious to see if vision therapy will increase his reading skills, both in speed and comprehension. Scott picks Zack up to take him to the dentist at 3:30. When they arrive Zack can not find his retainer. He searches his pockets, his lunch box and they call Frazier to see if anyone has found it. No luck. They go home without a retainer. Tomorrow Zack will search the rooms at Frazier and hopefully it will turn up. I had picked my Mom up after work and brought her to our house. We all ate dinner and left for Logan’s Christmas program at Christian Academy. Logan was an angel (like most of the girls in the program) and they sang Christmas carols. Before his accident Zack would have complained about having to go to her program and probably come up with some huge homework project to keep him from going. Tonight he got ready and wanted to go early with me to get Logan there on time. He sat in the audience and waved at her and even sang along on the songs he knew. After the program we came home and Zack played pool with Kyle. He came to tell me goodnight at 9:00 and headed to bed. He didn’t seem to miss his friends tonight and was content to be with his family. He is still very cooperative and my Mom commented that he seems happier. How blessed we are that such a tragic experience has turned out this way. We truly have a merciful, wonderful God and we are learning to trust Him. I want to respond to a posted message from a concerned parent about their teenager. I count myself fortunate that I get to spend a lot of time with Zack’s friends and am drawn into their world. I hear about what some kids are doing and cringe that their memory of Zack’s accident can seem so vague. It is that underdeveloped frontal lobe. They can’t help it. They just don’t have the physiological development to make good decisions all the time. That’s why God gave them parents: to set boundaries, curfews, guidelines and rules. Teenagers have to realize that it is God’s design; He put parents in place as authority over them to help them make wise decisions until they are physiologically developed to make those decisions on their own. That would be at about 23 years old, when the frontal lobe, which is responsible for reasoning and logic, is fully developed (go to the archives of August 5th to learn more). So at about the time most kids have graduated from college and are starting a career or maybe a family of their own, God has designed them to be able to make reasonable decisions on their own. Isn’t it ironic that at about that time children no longer think their parents are idiots and actually seek their opinion. Maybe that is part of the frontal lobe development…that we finally realize that the wisdom of our parents is worth more than the heartache cause by some of the dumb decisions we make on our own. I want to remind teenagers that authority given by God to their parents is a loving gift, a blessing that they need to learn to embrace. I would like to advise parents as well. Understand that your teenager can not always make good decisions and it is your job to insure that they are not put in situations that require them to make decisions that they aren’t ready for. Chances are 50% of the time they will not make the right decision. You can help them by knowing who their friends are, where they are going “specifically” when they walk out the door, call and check up on them. It is not a matter of trust; it is parental love and understanding the dangerous opportunities our children face. Situations that many times they would rather not have to face. One more piece of advice for parents. Once your children have gone to bed for the night there is no reason for them to have their cell phone (house phone or computer for that matter). Communication with the outside world should cease once you expect them to be in bed…and stay there. I speak from hard learned experience. I would have never thought Zack would sneak out of the house in the middle of the night and it wouldn’t have been as easy (or tempting) if communication with his accomplices wasn’t available. Don’t think your alarm system will stop them either. I have talked to some of your kids that know exactly how to get around the alarm system (remember it’s designed to keep people out, not in). As moody, mouthy, self-centered and difficult as they can be, teenagers need their parents. They are in a difficult time in their life, desiring freedom yet not quite being capable of handling it. They have pressures at school, pressures at home and pressure from their friends. And to top it off their hormones are in full swing. They need their parents to be understanding, respectful and love them enough to limit the amount of opportunities they have to make foolish decisions. Pray that your children will be caught in their disobedience so bad behavior can be corrected before it becomes a habit. God designed us with free will, freedom to choose between right and wrong. He knew that left to our own devices we would generally chose to rebel. He gave us a way out. He set boundaries and guidelines for His children and he wrote them down in the Bible. And He tells us that if we love Him we will understand that these Words of wisdom set us free. We have the freedom to choose to do it His way and He will give us more than we could hope or imagine as our reward. I speak to that from experience too. Look at what he has done for Zack. We prayed that he would walk and God had him dancing. We prayed that he would talk and God had him singing. We prayed (apprehensively) that he would get to go to Dallas to recover and God brings him home where his family and friends can nurture him to a more complete recovery. He is farther along at five months than they expected him to be in a year. There is only one answer for that…a loving, powerful God hearing prayers and delighting in exceeding our expectations. Pray for all parents and teenagers that they will embrace the role God has designed for them. Pray for Zack's continued complete recovery for His glory.
Ephesians 5:15 "Be very careful then how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity for the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish but understand what the Lord's will is".