Louisa Simmonds

Warner Bros. publicity poster for the Sex Pistols’ album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. The poster text is composed of selected lyrics from the band’s song “God Save the Queen”. On the left: Johnny Rotten. Inset, left to right: Paul Cook, Sid Vicious, Rotten, Steve Jones. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There’s a fantastic strategy that Kurt has been taught to curb the impulsiveness of his ADHD which is called the ‘traffic light strategy’.

What it boils down to is being able to stop and think before you act.

It’s something I need to employ myself. It certainly might have prevented the awkwardness of last night.

Yes, folks, I’m nominating myself for another perfect parenting award. NOT!

But before I tell you about my latest attempt to screw up my kids life and you judge me, please allow me to point out in my defence, that when I make these decisions I make them with my son’s best interests at heart.

The reason I may be guilty of not thinking things through properly is because like any loving short-sighted mother, I believe that my children are super-talented.

But due to a lack of drive, (that has obviously come from his father), and in fairness is an issue that is shared by many seventeen year old boys I believe, Kurt sometimes needs a little extra help push from his mother.

He likes to call it ‘interference.’

But as I’ve explained to him many times, you don’t get to dance like Jagger when you lie on the sofa watching Foxtel all day.

English: LED traffic light in Forest Hill, New South Wales. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Of course I DO KNOW that I shouldn’t still be manipulating organizing my son’s life, but the boy has a few issues in that department and frankly he is doing well just coping with school at the moment, which is why I’ve been forced to raise my game in the ‘manager/helicopter parent’ department.

Since I’ve lived in Australia, I’ve heard a lot about these Eisteddfod competitions, which are for kids with an interest in the performing arts. And because I have so far been excluded from this excuse to show off my children’s talents, (and thus denied another parental right to live vicariously through them), although I do remember NC dabbling in some drama section that I missed when I went to get coffee at exactly the same time she trounced on stage as one of Cinderella’s ugly sisters, I decided that this year my time had come.

So a few months back, when the traffic light system had obviously slipped my mind, I decided to enrol Kurt into the vocal and songwriter comps.

If you imagine a combination of the Sex Pistols and Radiohead, you might get an inkling of the type of music Kurt is influenced by and when we looked briefly at the lyrics of the two songs he had finally practiced around 11pm the night before (!), we decided that some of the material might be a little inappropriate and made a few edits. The words ‘tits’ and ‘arse’ came straight out, but foolishly (in hindsight) we decided that ‘dickhead’ was acceptable.

What I hadn’t truly appreciated was that these Eisteddfods are a showcase for all the Mariah Careys and Beyonces in the State…for the Marilyn Mansons, not so much.

And the talent is impressive; but it is a very different type of talent to Kurt’s …rawness.

There were also very few male vocalists, and those that were there were all enrolled in the musical theatre section too (!) and crooned songs like Michael Buble’s ‘Home’ and Robbie Williams ‘Angels’, so I suspected from early in the proceedings when Kurt threw me his first death stare that his songs might seem quite innovative to the adjudicator.

The car journey home was as bad as when I shouted out ‘Bunny’ to him in front of his mates last year.

There are days when silence from your teenager is blissfully welcome, days when it is upsetting and others when you know that he will be cutting you out of all the family photos by the end of the evening and packing his rucksack and bong.

I still believe he was robbed in the vocals section, but then I may be biased.

#Family #Music #Humor #teenagers #Parenting #parentingaward