My Teen Learns a Lesson in Consequences! And Gets it!

Well, she finally did it.  She kept missing rehearsals and making excuses and prevaricating.  Every morning before she would leave for school, I would remind her, “Isn’t today rehearsal?  Don’t you have lines to memorize?”  I even have the rehearsal schedule pinned to our Family Activity Board for crying out loud.

I’m not stupid, though I think she thinks I am.  And she would respond, “Only the principals are rehearsing today,” or “They don’t need me today, I’ve only got a small part,” or “I don’t have to be off book till the end of the month.”  It was always something.  You can’t say my teenager isn’t bright.  Too bad she doesn’t know how to use her powers for good and not evil.  Well, the Theatre Director finally had enough of her and summarily booted her off the school play.  It was an ignominious end to what could have been a brilliant career.

She pretended at first like it didn’t bother her. But fortunately, it did.  The Theatre Director pulled her aside in front of the entire cast and crew and asked why she had seen fit to blow off all the rehearsals.  She apparently came up with a slew of excuses right there on the spot (I swear I see a future in politics for her) that blew all her other ones away: “The rehearsal schedule conflicts with my mother’s work schedule,” (it does not);  “My grandmother has Alzheimers and she lost my call sheet,” (another good one, my mother’s memory is a bit inconsistent these days but nowhere near Alzheimers – more like Mall-zheimers – she forgets where she’s parked her car at the mall); and the piece de resistance, “I’ve been so busy studying for my Regents exams I forgot.” Now if only that were true!!!!  That one was a lie and a dream all wrapped up in one.  Now that was an award winning performance.  BTW, I learned of all her excuses directly from the Theatre Director who was less than impressed with her on and off stage.  Very humiliating for the mother.

What the heck is it with teenagers???  Why do they have such trouble following through on commitments?  And then when they lie about it they think we’re all intellectually challenged!  It’s really very frustrating. It’s almost like they’re a weird hybrid of children and adults—equipped with the intelligence and size of an adult but the emotional maturity of a child.  Frankly, I think they should change the minimum driving age to 22.

I was so glad to hear that the Theatre Director called her on her nonsense in front of all the other students because there’s got to be an acknowledgement of this behavior.  It was clearly her responsibility to attend rehearsals and live up to her commitment to the other members of the play.  The director asked her to leave in front of everyone and told her that since she had wasted all their time they were now going to waste hers.  They dismissed her but did not allow her to leave the theatre. Instead, she was demoted to stage crew to assist with the technical aspects of the show.  Yay!!  A punishment! Give that educator a thumbs up.

The great lesson here is that, hopefully, (fingers crossed fellow parents) in the future, she will see that her actions yield consequences.  Simple, yet so bloody difficult for children and in particular, teens, to fully appreciate and accept.

To tell you the truth, I was very involved in drama club myself when I was her age and I was an active member of stage crew.  I thoroughly enjoyed working on all aspects of a show (as I still do being a professional comedian) so to me, this is hardly a punishment at all.  I’m just digging the whole demotion aspect of the situation.  I think that was very effective as she was devastated by it…which really confounds me as she missed all the rehearsals.  What did she expect?  There were some tears followed by a host of it’s-so-not-fair’s….don’t you just love those?  I also love the fact that even though she failed to follow through on her responsibilities, she’s been released from the performance but not fully kicked off the production. 

It’s almost like there’s still hope.

And in fact there is. She is redeeming herself through stage crew.  She’s developing great relationships with all the other cast members and is really enjoying the work.  She’s taking it very seriously too as I informed her she needs to regain the trust of the drama club and amend her reputation.  And she’s getting it!!!  OMG!  Pinch me.