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Expert Q&A

	By Sonny Elliott Family Counselor/Author

I'm writing to you on behalf of a single mom with a 16-year-old son. The son, named Ryan, has excellent academic grades, however, displays an arrogance regarding adult authority. Recently, Ryan's Mom contacted me and said that her son was "expelled" from high school because he cannot get along with one particular teacher. A hearing was held at the school, at which time the Mother and son were both allowed to provide their own statements, along with the principal of the school.

The principal provided his written record of events, which definitely illustrated Ryan's arrogance and defiance of authority. Ryan, however, cannot see this. He sees any adult who doesn't act in a responsible manner as one that he does not have to respect and refuses to give in to adult coaching. His beliefs are strong and morally correct, however, his demeanor is angry and disrespectful when his values are challenged.

After the meeting with the school board, I talked with the Mother and she is at a loss as to what to do. Her son will continually challenge his mother's attempt to teach him respect for authority. He refuses to listen. He will respect adult authority, however not when adults demonstrate violations of professional conduct and respect to teenagers.

My recommendation was to seek counsel for her son. She feels as though she is losing control of his behavior and can't influence any corrective action as he refuses to "acknowledge" he's listening. We're at a loss. For reference, he does not have an adult male influence that he respects. He treats me respectfully, however, on sensitive subjects such as this he will not discuss it. I told her that once the school board renders its decision, they may require him to seek counsel to control his verbal abuse before readmitting him to school. In contrast, all of his other teachers think he is a positive role model and endorse his leadership capabilities. He just has a problem with this one teacher.

Also, this mother has approached the school board several times this year and I have been witness to some interaction of her efforts to get the school board to address this particular teacher's verbal abuse of his kids as well as the unprofessional conduct. However, the school board refuses to address their own problems and puts the responsibility on this mother and son to comply with school district rules while continuing to allow ineffective teachers to teach young kids values, which they themselves do not demonstrate.

Any advice? I'm working with this mother to support her efforts to get Ryan in school, address the problems of the school board not disciplining the ineffective teacher and getting Ryan to accept counseling for his own verbal abuse and anger when faced with adult situations."

Ryan seems to be a 16-year-old with very few, if any, life experiences as an adult, while acting out his beliefs in immature ways. Some of these items are: almost always being right, unwilling to listen to authority if he disagrees (often!), appears to have little respect for his mother and spends a lot of time being angry. While appreciating he is in a single parent home with his mother and isn't living with his father, this buys him nothing in the land of respecting his mother or other adults.

If Ryan is unable to respect his mother, that translates to not respecting himself, and an individual can only give away what he or she has, which in this case seems to be based in anger. It sounds like he routinely makes others wrong, which of course makes him right (not accurate) and gives him the perception of having control or power over that which threatens his survival patterns.

One way he holds power is by being the "victim" of his school board and a particular teacher. Another way to say this is he has given up his "power" to the board and teacher, in that he appears to be in a zone that says: "if my circumstances (school issues) would go away then I would be fine!" While the school board and teacher may be in error here (or not) Ryan's case will not be resolved even if he gets what he wants at school, because school isn't the issue. The issue is Ryan being right, not listening to others, not respecting adults and needing control to feel better about himself.

Ryan is very hard on himself, and if he doesn't shift he will have a hard and challenging life in the area of relationships, as he holds others to his stand of morality and to his belief system, which is flawed.

This young man needs support and I suspect it will be a challenge to find someone Ryan will trust in this way, because he seems to have a serious attachment to his views, whatever the costs. Of course, transformational work could be an excellent choice given this work is not about circumstances changing but about how life's circumstances can remain the same while the client sees the same circumstances and now sees them quite differently.

In conclusion, it seems he could benefit from a therapist who has an understanding of teenagers, or an adult transformational coach he would be willing to work with, or perhaps find a school that has discipline, honor, and respect already woven in. If Ryan wins this one, there will be a lot of unhappy people strew about in his life as he becomes older. He needs support and soon!"

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