Transcript of Audio File:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: I am going to have to get me a little tea or something.

FATHER: It was an exciting story.

THERAPIST: It looked very good.

MOTHER: I don't think we're finished with it.

THERAPIST: You're going to get a chance, because I've got to hit the rest room. I don't think I need tea, I have my drink over here. Man, these days are getting shorter.

MOTHER: Yes, they are.

FATHER: Yes they are, and colder.

MOTHER: Hi, kitty, kitty. Hi, kitty cat.

THERAPIST: I shall return. You're nice to everyone, Ruth.

FATHER: Yeah, that's Ruth.

MOTHER: Hi, there. [00:01:00]

FATHER: So, everybody keeps — people keep their guns in a locker on campus, because they only have 15 minutes that they can take their guns, go to the gun shop and shoot. They only open it up 15 minutes before their practice.

MOTHER: Okay, right.

FATHER: So, some of the kids didn't want to do that, so they went off campus and did the locker, so they could get their guns whenever they wanted to shoot.

MOTHER: Oh, gosh.

FATHER: But he was lucky enough, that he was able to get his. A friend knew about a locker that somebody had just graduated. That vault was open, but it was $80 a month, so he got another guy to split it with him, so they're paying $40 a month, which is well worth the peace of mind of knowing that —

MOTHER: Well, with that $17,000 gun or twenty, or whatever it is.

FATHER: And it broke again.

CLIENT: Did it really?

FATHER: Mm—hmm.

CLIENT: What happened?

FATHER: I don't know, but he was going to shoot and it broke the day before, and they wouldn't let him shoot it, so he couldn't enter.

MOTHER: He didn't have a backup gun?

FATHER: I don't think he does. [00:02:01]

CLIENT: At least a Browning or something, you know?

FATHER: I mean he gave us just story after story after story.

MOTHER: I'm enthralled by a story via, you know. That's funny, wow.

FATHER: He got there at one and left at four. You left at quarter of four because you had called — had to get — they don't close at four.

CLIENT: I know, I just found that out, but I remember mom telling me that.

FATHER: I was going to — I called him up and I said (inaudible) had already gotten the car, to run out there before it closed.

MOTHER: He's saying I told him that but I don't know anything about the drop zone. I don't even know it existed, so I'm not quite sure why.

CLIENT: I remember you telling me that.

MOTHER: Okay.

FATHER: Wig out. So he was there from one until quarter of four.

MOTHER: Wow.

FATHER: Which I really do enjoy talking to him.

CLIENT: We need to have them over for dinner. [00:03:03]

FATHER: I just didn't have time. They sent a very nice text about mom, and they were thinking of us over Thanksgiving, and hopefully things are okay.

MOTHER: That's very nice.

FATHER: Yeah. I guess he had a stepfather. No, we had a stepfather.

THERAPIST: I think I owe you some time.

CLIENT: I think it's okay, he can stay in.

THERAPIST: Well that's very gracious of you. I appreciate that. I was not expecting that, so I can roll, regardless.

CLIENT: It was a really good week, it wasn't bad at all, I don't think.

THERAPIST: Well, you beat me to it, that was the next thing I was going to ask you, is your account of how things had been going for you and for your folks.

FATHER: I think we both, you especially, explained to him what we talked about last week, or two weeks ago, on the way home, you guys had a good talk. [00:04:05]

THERAPIST: Oh yeah, you two did? What did you guys come up with? I should have sent the recorder home with you.

MOTHER: I don't know that we had — I just was trying to explain to him, what we were talking about when he was asked to leave, because I didn't want him to think we were talking about him.

THERAPIST: Which we were, but he doesn't know. I think that was a good way to handle it, so you handled it.

MOTHER: Yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: Sometimes, we just have to have a more free flowing discussion and sometimes that's with the young person and sometimes it's with the folks. Maybe I like to hear what they're going to say before they're going to say it to you, or vice versa. Well, okay, so what's next on our agenda today?

MOTHER: He's doing — just to kind of catch up, you know he was suspended and did a very good job of doing his homework and stuff like that, and he's now out of the F range in all of your classes, right? [0:05:11.1]

CLIENT: I have one D.

THERAPIST: Maybe you should get suspended more often.

CLIENT: I really did like it when I was home by my — alone with myself.

MOTHER: He did really good.

FATHER: And she really did a great job of getting him on track. They turned in papers during the week and the teacher made the comment, "I don't think we've ever had anybody turn in anything during a suspension before."

THERAPIST: You know it's interesting, I can't remember how much of this we talked about, but what I was trying to figure out with you, how introverted and extroverted you are, and it's sort of interesting because you seem very extroverted. I defined that for you before I can't remember. All right, so extroverted people get like lots of energy from being with others and introverted people get a lot of energy being with themselves. We did talk about this, because we talked about you guys fishing.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: It's interesting, because you seem to be really reaching out to friends a lot, which makes sense at your age, but then as soon as you get a week to yourself, you become way more productive. [00:06:14]

CLIENT: I wasn't really caught up on what was going on. I still had some communication because I have my phone, and when I was done, I'd do the work all day, then I'd do the 80 minutes, and then I'd have my phone. I got some communication but I didn't know what was really going on in school and stuff but� I really don't know.

THERAPIST: Do you think you need less time with other people or your 80 minutes is the way to get the time blocked out for just you, or what? What did we learn about how you work best?

CLIENT: I don't have much — well, except phone and stuff. I don't have much communication or interaction with friends, but I've had — like my friend's birthday, we went to his birthday and we did paintball, and we had so much fun. [00:07:25]

THERAPIST: Did you go over in like caverns?

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. That was so fun and I just asked my dad if we could stop by Drop Zone Paintball after this. My friend, he actually has a paintball gun too, so.

THERAPIST: Do you have to have the guns or do they rent them to you?

CLIENT: You can rent them. It was $137 for seven of us, so it came with —

THERAPIST: With guns that you brought?

CLIENT: Guns that we rented.

FATHER: It's less expensive to rent a gun while you're there, than it is to bring your own.

MOTHER: They charge you.

THERAPIST: Well, that's interesting.

FATHER: That's what I thought.

THERAPIST: Because my kid has been wanting to do this and I hadn't learned enough about it, so that's pretty good to hear.

MOTHER: They played for hours.

CLIENT: I did nine times. I went nine rounds and I never — the first round, I ran out of ammo, and then the rest of the rounds, I probably shot ten times.

THERAPIST: Because you become more precise?

CLIENT: Yeah. It was so fun though. [0:08:26.5]

THERAPIST: This seems to have a lesson to teach us. So, if you — what did you learn, that made you more efficient in your ammunition usage?

CLIENT: There was a lot of teamwork, I think. There was a lot of teamwork.

THERAPIST: So you guys learned to work together after the — like you and your mom?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Oh my gosh.

CLIENT: Well, we didn't —

THERAPIST: I don't mean in paintball, I mean have you and your mom learned to work together this week a little better, and stop shooting each other.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Oh my gosh, teamwork is the secret.

MOTHER: If I could back up.

THERAPIST: Sure.

MOTHER: I think he is a healthy mix of both introvert and extrovert, because when he's saying he's not around his friends much, the circumstances prevent that. I think if his friends were available after school, he'd probably be with them, but he's not doing any of the sports after school and his friends are, so that's the separation. But when he's — you know, he is very social, he loves to be around his friends, and when he's not there, you're on your phone or texting them. So he is, it's not like he's in his bedroom doing nothing, having no social contact, those are the issues, but when he fishes, he fishes by himself.

FATHER: Right. [00:09:47]

MOTHER: So I think there is a healthy mix.

FATHER: He goes up to his room usually at night, every night, and stays away from us.

MOTHER: But he's on the phone, so he is connected.

THERAPIST: And are you on — I'm not so much prying, as trying to understand sort of you and then this question of introversion, extroversion. Are you texting to the same people?

CLIENT: It's usually a lot of people.

THERAPIST: Like a group text or just back and forth, different?

CLIENT: No, it's just back and forth with different people. Sometimes I play my X—Box. I don't play my X—Box much anymore. And then sometimes I clean, work on my room and stuff. I rearranged my room the other day and it looks pretty good. You know the — on my wall?

THERAPIST: What did you rearrange it to become?

CLIENT: There's this one big wall on the side of my room. I used to have a bunk bed and now it's just a big, blank wall, so I put pictures. Like, my dad got this one picture of me shooting a pheasant and it was right on impact, so you can just see the bird exploding in the corner and me aiming it, and it's a really cool picture. So I have that on one side and then a picture of the seven and half pound bass that I caught two years ago. In the middle there's a rabbit skin and on the top there's an antler. [00:11:12]

THERAPIST: Wildlife has a time in your bedroom doesn't it?

CLIENT: Yeah. (chuckles)

THERAPIST: So you just changed the pictures around?

CLIENT: Yeah, I moved it from one wall to the other and it looks really good.

THERAPIST: Wait, Ruth really likes you, because she has a thing for boys. I've come to this realization that cats can tell gender, and I did not know this until having her in here, and she has a clear preference for boys, which is very disappointing to all the girls I see.

MOTHER: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You are the first person, and there's one other person, on whose lap she sat this week and it was another guy.

MOTHER: Huh? That's funny.

THERAPIST: It is. I never would have known, like you don't really expose animals to that many people, to get a sample of that, but she sure likes you. I don't think that you should take a picture shooting her though, I don't think she would like that very much.

FATHER: We may take her home.

THERAPIST: Well, she'd probably like that. I think she has become very much attached to this. I tried to take her home the other day and she was so angry, she tried to bite us and stuff. She did not want to leave. [00:12:20]

MOTHER: Oh, wow, huh.

THERAPIST: She was not happy.

FATHER: Does she stay in this room the whole time?

THERAPIST: She goes out in the lobby and stuff but overnight, she stays here. So, that's pretty interesting. I have a question, then. I think I asked you this a while back but I can't remember. Some of these people are girls you're texting?

CLIENT: Yeah, most of them are like my guy friends, talking about our weekend. I was talking about my weekend with all the guys that I went shooting with, and I've kind of gotten my friend into it. He didn't go to the paintball but we started talking and I've kind of gotten him into it, and we've kind of arranged a time this week, where we can do paintball in the lot next to our house.

THERAPIST: So you have a whole cadre of people now, that you can do paintball with.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean, there was eight guys that went and it's really fun.

THERAPIST: So, how has your temper been this week? [00:13:20]

CLIENT: I haven't had much temper. It's mostly been with my sister and she gets on my nerves a lot, wouldn't you agree? She tries to get on my nerves and she does a really good job of it.

MOTHER: They both fuel the fire and neither of them will stop and back down first, so it's incessant needling of the other person. I'm begging one of them to step up and help the situation.

THERAPIST: How old is she?

MOTHER: Eight.

THERAPIST: Yeah. My daughter is 16. I always tell her she's really lucky that her ten year—old brother is not annoying at all, because I don't think she would tolerate annoying very much.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And you think your sister is on a pretty high scale of annoying?

CLIENT: Yeah, it's way up there. On a scale of one to ten, it's probably a fifteen.

THERAPIST: What do you mean tried to address this?

CLIENT: There's really no point in trying to address it anymore, because I don't even remember what she does. Okay, so this morning, no yesterday morning, she was really crabby. She was arguing about how it's harder, that my mom was doing the easier part in tying her shoes, and all she had to do is get them on, and she was arguing with that. That's kind of what she does with me. Like, I was eating Lucky Charms for breakfast the other day and she says, "You're not supposed to be eating those, those are mine, mom bought them for me." And I was just like, "I can eat these," and I was already halfway through it. She got really mad. She started crying at one point and then� [00:15:29]

FATHER: Why was she mad?

CLIENT: Because I was eating Lucky Charms and she thought that it was hers, but she just picked them out.

FATHER: Is it also because we wouldn't let her have some?

CLIENT: Well, yeah, but that's —

THERAPIST: Because you or he wouldn't? I didn't quite hear what you said.

MOTHER: We don't want them to eat Lucky Charms for breakfast before school, but it's not a good brain food. And so I do Jessica's breakfast, so I make her something different, and then he came down and got his own breakfast, which was Lucky Charms. So that caused part of the problem.

CLIENT: There was no argument in it. She just, she had never told me before, and I had just kind of forgotten about the rule.

THERAPIST: So you're not against the anti—Lucky Charms crap food rule?

CLIENT: Well, I like it.

THERAPIST: No, I know, but you recognize the unwiseness of this?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: What is the purpose of Lucky Charms in your home? Is it like a dessert or something or what is it?

CLIENT: I'll just — if we have like a good cereal, like all we have is this protein, K—special, mom's diet crap that we eat. [00:16:32]

MOTHER: This horrible healthy stuff.

CLIENT: Yeah, the actual healthy stuff. I mean I'm 13, do you really think I'm trying to eat healthy?

THERAPIST: Well, yeah, and you're not a very big guy, so unfortunately, it makes it hard to argue that you need to lose any weight.

CLIENT: I was 121 at the beginning of the year, now I'm — is that right, around 121?

MOTHER: I think so.

CLIENT: Now I'm 142, I've weighed myself.

THERAPIST: Really?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I need to mark that down.

CLIENT: I've been doing weights and that's really helped. I can really tell the difference.

THERAPIST: How tall are you?

CLIENT: I was about as tall as five—nine, so around five—nine and a half.

MOTHER: No. I'd say —

FATHER: I'm five—nine.

MOTHER: I'd say he's five—seven.

CLIENT: No, five—eight, despite the difference.

THERAPIST: You may end up being fairly tall. If he's already that height at 13, that's pretty good.

FATHER: Sunday wasn't good, though.

THERAPIST: What happened Sunday? [00:17:32]

FATHER: Sunday, he was great. We were with my parents the whole day and when, he's around them, fantastic.

THERAPIST: Oh, it was good, Sunday was, but then it went downhill.

FATHER: Then it went downhill when we got home.

MOTHER: He's really great when we're around other people, really, really, and there was no medication that day.

CLIENT: I can't remember what happened that day.

MOTHER: We were going swimming. You were going to go swimming and didn't think the patch would stick on, so we didn't do the patch on Sunday. But when he's around people he's wonderful.

THERAPIST: Speaking of which, I want to come right back to that, but you just reminded me of something. Are you guys doing a break over the Christmas holiday?

MOTHER: If that's what —

FATHER: You had mentioned it.

THERAPIST: Yeah, because he's just been on it a short time, but I would say that's probably an okay idea, but that makes me think I'm even more interested on what happened Sunday night, so just to see. So, no medicine Sunday. So then you got home and what happened? You tell me your version.

CLIENT: I really have no clue what happened.

THERAPIST: You don't remember what they're —

CLIENT: I just remember my sister getting mad at me. I can't even remember why she was getting mad. What happened? [00:18:41]

FATHER: I don't know, you were angry the rest of the evening.

CLIENT: I was?

FATHER: Yes.

THERAPIST: In like a quiet, frustrated way, or like banging the doors and wanting to —

FATHER: Not banging the doors but loud and angry.

MOTHER: Like mean and — and I can't even remember, actually.

THERAPIST: Gosh, three of you.

CLIENT: I don't think it was that serious was it?

MOTHER: Well�

FATHER: It wasn't fun.

MOTHER: It wasn't fun, but I can't remember anything specific.

THERAPIST: It was more of a feeling.

MOTHER: Well, he gets mean.

THERAPIST: Like short, like he says like give me that? What does it mean to be mean?

MOTHER: I told him on the way here, it's kind of a good thing that nothing is fresh in my mind.

CLIENT: I don't remember what happened at all.

FATHER: You were angry and I started working on chores, the list of chores.

MOTHER: Can you remember what he was doing? Because it was, you know we immediately got home and it immediately turned on. [00:19:48]

THERAPIST: See, I think that's what we've got to figure out, is what happened in the transition there. Like, did he need to have quiet time for a little while or something?

FATHER: I think we should have separated ourselves.

THERAPIST: I wonder, because that's a lot of time spent together. I know when I come home from anything like that, and I'll be interested in your — you can think for a minute, in how your day went before that, at the grandparents did you say? But I know whenever we do anything like that, when we get home, the very first thing Penny wants to do is be by herself, and we do kind of separate, because that's a little too much stimulus for her, but she's more introverted than you are. So, what was your day like at grandparents, what do you remember about it?

CLIENT: I remember it was pretty fun, I really liked it. We went swimming, we played water basketball a lot. Mom and I had a really good time. [00:20:50]

FATHER: We kind of celebrated our Thanksgiving with them.

CLIENT: Yeah, and dad and his parents went to work out. Grandma worked out a little bit in the weight room and then my grandpa, he slept.

THERAPIST: Where were you?

MOTHER: At the nursing home

THERAPIST: Okay, yeah, the nursing home.

CLIENT: And he fell asleep on the bench, right next to the pool, which is kind of funny, because he never woke up once and we were yelling and stuff. But mom and I were playing water basketball for a little bit and it was pretty fun.

FATHER: Then we went back into their place but I can't remember what we did there.

CLIENT: We sat and watched the Chiefs game. And then I remember — yeah.

MOTHER: There were aunts and uncles and cousins, and it was wonderful.

CLIENT: We all spent a lot of time together, I think, don't you?

MOTHER: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I just wonder if that's not it, because it doesn't — go ahead. [00:21:53]

CLIENT: At the end, I did have a really bad headache from swimming. Did I ever tell you about that? I came down and I got aspirin.

FATHER: Well you said, on the way home, we had a very quiet ride on the way home, you had a bad headache.

CLIENT: Oh, yeah.

FATHER: Then, but you and mom fell — or Jessica and mom fell asleep on the way home and you said something about that's the quietest ride home we've ever had.

THERAPIST: How did he say that?

FATHER: No, Maggie said that.

THERAPIST: Oh, Maggie said that they were asleep. I thought Maggie was asleep.

FATHER: Maggie was asleep and Jessica was asleep.

CLIENT: I was asleep. I fell asleep too.

FATHER: I was asleep but I was driving.

THERAPIST: Yeah, well, that road is so good, you know, you don't even need to be awake any more.

MOTHER: It is.

THERAPIST: So Kevin was awake and Kevin said that's the quietest trip, or Maggie?

FATHER: Maggie said that's the quietest.

THERAPIST: Maggie is the one, that she slept through it.

FATHER: I think you said, that's the quietest trip you've had on the drive home for a long time.

CLIENT: That was the only one, but I was asleep.

THERAPIST: What time did you go to bed then that evening, do you remember roughly?

CLIENT: I woke up coughing, because I didn't have my inhaler. I ran out because my asthma has been acting up. I wake up coughing a lot and my inhaler is completely out. So I went downstairs to get — I had a headache too, so I went downstairs to get some stuff and then I got ibuprofen and then I came back up and I fell asleep. I don't even remember when. I don't even remember that night, so. [00:23:30]

MOTHER: As far as separation, he usually is up in his room. He's very seldom down with the rest of us, so was he down with us for a little bit?

FATHER: Yeah.

THERAPIST: He must have been for a bit. My guess is that even when that's like a really positive social time, that's probably taxing you about as much as you can do, and there's some letdown from that eventually, just a little much.

MOTHER: That's interesting.

THERAPIST: That fact that you said, we probably should have separated ourselves, I think is probably a pretty good observation, that this may have been enough social time for him.

CLIENT: I remember that night on the couch, remember? When I was laying on the couch, Jessica was in the other chair and you were in the middle of the recliner, and you were sleeping. Do you remember that?

MOTHER: Oh, right, got it, okay.

CLIENT: I went over and I woke —

MOTHER: I opened the door.

CLIENT: Jessica and I were watching TV, my mom was asleep. I got up and I made my sister and I hot chocolate. I came over and I put marshmallows in hers, I put marshmallows in mine.

THERAPIST: That was very nice of you. [00:24:37]

CLIENT: Yeah. And I started drinking and then a marshmallow got stuck in my throat and I couldn't breathe at all and I started coughing. I tried to cough and then I started coughing really badly and marshmallow came out. And then my mom woke up and she —

THERAPIST: Which is probably under the circumstances, fortunate that it came out.

CLIENT: I couldn't breathe at all, I mean nothing was going in. That night, my grandma was choking pretty badly too. But, so I was coughing, I was coughing really loudly, and I usually cough like that but not that severely. My mom wakes up and she goes, "Can you be a little bit quieter?" And I was just like, "Mom, I was choking, I couldn't breathe at all," and she goes, "Well you still need to tone it down a little bit," or something like that.

THERAPIST: If you're going to die in the TV room, do it quietly. (laughs)

CLIENT: Yeah, that's pretty much what happened.

THERAPIST: That's not it.

CLIENT: And then, so there was another time where I couldn't find my inhaler and I could barely breathe. [00:25:44]

THERAPIST: This is all the same evening?

CLIENT: Yeah. There was another time I could barely breathe, I needed my inhaler. I was getting kind of short because I knew — I don't like feeling that way at all, but I couldn't find my inhaler. Dad went down and he looked, he was trying to help, and then there was very little air getting out at all, and my sister, she goes down and she started helping a little bit. She came back up and dad came up and he said that it wasn't down there and I was just like, I remember it's down there, and I was getting kind of short. He was handling it well, until the very end, and I said dad it's — I can't remember what I said but I was just like, there was a possibility that I could have died from an asthma attack, I could stop breathing and he goes, (sarcastic) "You could have died," like he kind of laughed at my comment, thinking that it isn't true, I mean that it wasn't possible, and that made me really angry. [00:26:54]

FATHER: We revisit this a little bit?

CLIENT: Well, what I said was a hundred percent true.

THERAPIST: Except, they get to have their reality too. I'm going to come back to yours in a second, I'm interested in —

FATHER: You did start coughing and you were coughing a bunch, and so you were looking for your inhaler, and so I went downstairs, looked around, came back up, and you said the comment that I wasn't down there long enough. I said I couldn't find it down there, "Well you didn't look very long." Do you remember that?

CLIENT: Yeah, but you looked for maybe two minutes.

FATHER: I went down and looked, thinking that it was probably up in your room, which I did find it underneath the clothes that were asked to be washed two weeks ago.

CLIENT: Well, you were in the dirty clothes and then�

FATHER: My reaction was more of, it wasn't to make him angry, it was an honest� You thought that was a low probability scenario. [00:27:57]

CLIENT: Yes.

MOTHER: Well, and also, and if I could back up. I did get — I must have been tired, the swimming must have worn me out or something.

CLIENT: We were all worn out.

MOTHER: I did get down and I was asleep in the chair. He has this asthma allergy cough and instead of trying to go (coughing), it's (coughing much louder) really loud. And it's not just the one time, because if there was a marshmallow stuck, there wouldn't have been any noise, you know that kind of stuff. So it was that loud, over the top, and all I said — and Jessica even vouched for me. All I said was, "Is there any way you could cough a little quieter?" And, "What? I'm choking on — I hate you!"

CLIENT: I didn't say I hate you.

MOTHER: You did, you did.

CLIENT: Why would I —

MOTHER: And that was the first that I had seen, or that was the first that night, of you being angry for what seemed like no reason.

CLIENT: I was choking. I wasn't coughing while I was choking. If you're coughing, you know in the movies, where you can tell that the air is coming out? They aren't choking, that's just�

MOTHER: If there's any noise or air or anything. [00:29:01]

CLIENT: But you were asleep when I was choking.

MOTHER: Okay, but my comment wasn't about your choking, it was about the loud, obnoxious cough.

CLIENT: After the marshmallow came out.

MOTHER: And just, is there any way you can tone down a cough, like (coughs) something like that. It's over the top cough. Go ahead.

CLIENT: You know when you're coughing, I know you've probably — but when you're choking, you have air, like pressure building up, and then when it comes out, it's really loud. You know what I'm talking about, like pressure would build up, you're wanting to push out more, and then I cough, the marshmallow comes flying out, and then that's when I start coughing. So, I mean how could I prevent from�?

MOTHER: Kevin, that particular time, there was a marshmallow, but every other time that you cough, for this asthma cough, it's this loud, over the top cough.

CLIENT: I can't help that.

MOTHER: And I'm just suggesting that maybe there's a way you can tone it down. I believe you're coughing for real, I believe there's a real intention, but I believe that there's kind of a coughing etiquette, where you can tone it down a little bit or muffle it or something, so it's not over the top loud. Like I said with Joe's sneezing, it's over the top, loud sneezing, she can control that, is all I was saying. [00:30:27]

CLIENT: But when I'm coughing like that, I'm not focusing on being quiet. I'm focusing on trying to breathe again. If you're — I'm not saying that I would die if I didn't cough like that.

THERAPIST: Volume is not your main concern.

CLIENT: Yeah, volume isn't my only intention. I'm not trying to be quiet. I'm trying to be able to breathe a little bit better.

FATHER: I think it was just bad timing throughout, with her being asleep. She's a restless sleeper, doesn't wake up well. He was noisy, coughing, very noisy, coughing.

THERAPIST: There's one other little tidbit in here that I think is worth noting, that you ran into with him a little bit, and that is that you have never gotten this question from me, because you probably may not wear a bra, but one of my questions for girls that have ADD, it's a great diagnostic, is do you know where your bras are? And they think that I am — I hope they don't think I'm a perv, but they at least think I'm a magical being because they're like, how do you know about that? Well, because they all hate wearing them so much and they'll zoom home and rip them down their sleeves and hurl it across the room, and it lands like on a doorknob or under the bed or something, so they're always strewn all over the place. They just don't like how it feels. In fact, I've got several — this is probably more information than teenage girls want me to know, but I've several, if any time everyone is gone from the house, they just take off all their clothes. They just don't like the feeling, it's uncomfortable, and scratchy tags and things like that, and all that stuff, they hate that. [00:32:15]

FATHER: I think you're hitting a homerun here.

THERAPIST: Do you know someone like this? (laughs)

FATHER: A little bit. They can't get it off fast enough.

THERAPIST: Yes, so you understand.

MOTHER: Immensely.

CLIENT: I don't even want to talk about this, is what I say.

FATHER: Well it's, "Mom, put on a bra!"

CLIENT: It's gross, at least a cloth or something.

MOTHER: I cover up.

CLIENT: Yeah, in a skin—tight shirt.

MOTHER: Oh, no I — okay, let's move on.

THERAPIST: That's funny. That's actually in my book, so I didn't just make this up for you.

MOTHER: Oh, no. It's like you have a camera in my —

CLIENT: She has a severe case of ADD.

THERAPIST: One wonders. So with you, and what you guys are going to have to watch out for him, and see if I'm right about this, is I think when he's uncomfortable, then it just is intolerable. So, he's like thinking about the —

FATHER: It is.

THERAPIST: Yeah. He's thinking about the inhaler and it isn't rational in that moment for him to say, well thanks for looking dad, that was such a nice thing. Even Jessica was looking for you, that was very nice. [00:33:26]

FATHER: And he was irritated that I didn't look long enough.

THERAPIST: Right. That's his discomfort overwhelming him.

FATHER: That makes sense, that makes a lot of sense.

THERAPIST: And in that particular example, it's such an acute example, like I'm sure we could come up with some that aren't quite that immediate, but that one is about as bad as it gets. You're sitting there coughing and stuff's coming out, and you can't get it out or you feel that dryness or whatever it is. And this is why, I'll warn you about two or three other things and you tell me what you think. ADD people have just like no pain tolerance at all, and I am sure this is true because I've talked to so many of them, pain is tricky. When somebody says to you, you know, is it a six, is it a seven, you know how do you — it's all subjective. You have never been anybody else, so you don't know if it was a five for that person. Well, the ADD people have like a ten, it's unbearable, and they will request more pain medicine, I think, than other people, in my experience, and it's not because they're drug seeking but because they can't stand the discomfort.

FATHER: And it's probably a lot mental. [00:34:32]

THERAPIST: Absolutely, because the ability — you're exactly right. The ability to suppress pain is really a focus process. It's the ability to focus yourself elsewhere. And they will focus on their bra and the scratchy tag and the noises, some of them are noise freaks. I'm like nailing you today. Aren't you glad we didn't kick you out?

MOTHER: Why don't you step out, I'm going to talk to him.

FATHER: I think we're both leaving, Kevin.

THERAPIST: Kevin was right, that you should stay in here.

MOTHER: Oh, man.

THERAPIST: Like the chewing as a comment.

CLIENT: Yes. Oh my God.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

MOTHER: You have a camera in our house don't you?

FATHER: A ticking clock.

THERAPIST: I've done this for 21 years.

CLIENT: Oh my God.

FATHER: A ticking clock.

MOTHER: There's something wrong with me obviously, I'm not just weird.

THERAPIST: No, it's — yeah. It's probably true because maybe one of the problems with you and Kevin, that you two have a hard time, because I'll tell you, since we're on the topic, I'll tell you what I call the thing we hate about the ADD people, and the thing we hate about the ADD people, as you are probably aware, is that they have infinite tolerance for their own chaos and none for anybody else's. And this is where these two get into trouble, because the example of you going downstairs and looking for the inhaler, you know, he's in his chaos and it's like —

FATHER: More extreme. [00:36:04]

THERAPIST: Yeah. He's having this and you having your problem, not looking or whatever, no tolerance for that, but he can cough as loud as he wants to and he can blow phlegm out on the couch or whatever awful thing is happening, and I think when these two get together, it's just sort of competing frustration and having to learn, which you guys have done a lot better at, learn to have empathy for the other person's chaos, which means even though you're a 13 year—old boy, you have to sort of begin to think oh, this is probably like really hard for mom, this thing that's happening right now. And you have to think this is kind of part of why he can't pull himself together right now or he's having trouble tolerating something that hurts or whatever. I think that is probably where you two butt heads quite a bit.

CLIENT: Like, in the coughing and the choking situation, it was literally a life or death situation. If I didn't get that out, I could have died, and she was worried about me coughing too loudly. So, if there's life or death on my mind, I'm not going to worry about volume, I'm just going to worry about getting the thing out. And like you said with the intolerance about pain, you know? It sounds like I'm bragging here, but like today in dodge ball, I was jumping up to dodge a ball, and we have really bad balls, and it curved up and it hit me right in the chest, and it kind of knocked me back a little bit while I was in midair and my legs were up in the air and my arms were up in the air, and I landed right on my butt, like I mean right on my tailbone. I stood up, I started laughing, and I started yelling, and I just ran back and I got right back into the game. I honestly think that I have a really good pain tolerance, you know? Like after I crashed the four—wheeler, I just stood back up and looked around, saw what happened, laid back down and then got up, and I got back on the four—wheeler and then I just took back off. [00:38:25]

THERAPIST: There's also a social influence factor there too, because if you're in a game and stuff, it's (A) easy to get distracted on the game and get back in it, and (B) people are watching, and so you sort of were able to pull yourself together and compensate. What are you like when you're sick? Are you like a giant whiner?

CLIENT: Not really. I just sit there. I don't get sick that much, I mean I get sick sometimes but not much. I have an intolerance about feeling like crap, and I just know that I could feel better and I know what it's like to feel better, and I don't like the feeling at all. I'm pretty sure nobody does.

THERAPIST: Do you feel impatient about it or�?

CLIENT: This is going to sound really weird, but when I was sick, I would sleep in the bathroom. Do you remember that dad? I slept in the bathroom, next to the toilet.

THERAPIST: So you could get to the toilet?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: (laughs) I feel you.

CLIENT: And so after I threw up, I'd feel a lot better. Then I'd feel worse and all I wanted to do is throw up, you know, so I'd go over and I'd try to make myself throw up but it wouldn't work. That was kind of my intolerance about — but I mean, that's not a very good example.

MOTHER: He's not a baby at all when he's sick. [00:39:40]

FATHER: He's not bad when he's sick. I know where you're going. I think things irritate him more when he's sick, because he's dealing with that. He's a little shorter.

THERAPIST: Growing up, I didn't — your pain tolerance has gotten much higher as you've grown up.

CLIENT: I can definitely tell.

THERAPIST: Do you think there would be a difference? Not that I really want to do this to you, but I think it would be interesting. If you had to lay in the ER and have just sort of pain continuing, like how that would be different than being able to get up and run back into the game. I think that would get really irritating for you.

FATHER: And of course, he doesn't have anything else to concentrate on.

THERAPIST: Exactly, there's not a distraction. You did say something a second ago, Kevin, you're right. It isn't that other people don't hate bras and scratchy tags and pain and being sick and throwing up. Everybody does. It's the amount of ability you have to suppress the upset about it, the rest of us. Like being bored, I don't think you tolerate boredom as well as everybody. [00:40:48]

CLIENT: Like if I, if I'm sick, I want to be doing something. I'd rather be doing — which sounds weird, not many 13 year—olds like doing this, but I'd rather be mowing, doing yard work, doing leaves, burning leaves.

THERAPIST: You're pretty restless. You're the 13 year—old boy version of hyperactive. Not like you are running around all the time, but there's the sense of restlessness, that you always like to be moving. That's how the 13 year—old boys differ. That thing, when he was painting the wheels, and out mowing and all that, that's exactly what that is, that's restlessness.

FATHER: But yet, he can go up in his room for hours, but I guess he's mentally doing stuff, he's doing the phone.

THERAPIST: I think he's doing stuff.

CLIENT: Because it's dark outside.

THERAPIST: I don't think Kevin —

FATHER: In the summer, —

THERAPIST: Kevin, have you ever been to a beach?

CLIENT: Mm—hmm.

THERAPIST: What did you do?

CLIENT: Swam.

THERAPIST: You never sat in the chair, that's right.

CLIENT: Yeah, I never just sat down. Like even, everybody else would be in the hotel, in the apartment thing, and I'd be out fishing. [00:41:54]

FATHER: Well, here's a great example. We're all sitting there watching a basketball game Saturday or Friday or Sunday.

CLIENT: Oh, yeah.

FATHER: He went out on the four—wheeler the whole time.

CLIENT: I was out.

FATHER: He was outside the whole time.

CLIENT: Yeah, I was probably outside for about five hours that day.

THERAPIST: And again, that's not too unusual in this age group, but I think it is — that's what's always calling your name. That's called, I always want to be where I'm not. I think you like to keep moving and doing stuff.

CLIENT: Like if I'm tired, I can just sit down and watch TV, but it's not very entertaining. I'll be really active and then I'll sit down. I used to play X—Box a lot and I don't know why I played it so much, but it was in the summer, I'd sit in my room and I'd play X—Box for two or three hours. And then just one day, I kind of just snapped and I haven't — I've probably played X—Box three times this month, probably total, and I've probably played it maybe an hour. [00:43:13]

THERAPIST: You're a little unusual in that regard, because ADD, TV and videogames go together like two horses and a carriage, and it's just interesting to me. I'm fine, if you don't want to do a bunch of videogames, because it isn't very productive, but that's one of those things that's all give and no take, and your special power is being more investigative than that, like trying different things. That's kind of a throwback to an earlier era, of what it is to be a teenage boy, so I think you should stick with that. You should buy a bunch of crap like at an auction and tear it up. Have you ever thought about doing that, like old motors and stuff.

FATHER: Well, he's been doing that with the mower; taking it apart.

THERAPIST: You need more stuff to tear up. You should go to an auction and buy a couple of things and just tear them up and then throw it away or whatever. That's what you need, to be investigating things and figuring out how they work. Don't electrocute yourself or anything. Believe me, I speak of this from experience. [00:44:19]

CLIENT: When I'm playing videogames, I know I'm capable of the things that I play. I don't play like sci—fi games, I'll play like Call of Duty, Black Ops and stuff. I used to play Mind Craft a lot, and I know that I can go out and I can build stuff just like they do in the game, and then I can — like paintball, the reason I enjoyed paintball so much is because it was a lot like Call of Duty, you know? You were shooting at other teammates, you were doing maneuvers.

FATHER: Stimulus.

CLIENT: Yeah. There is so much concentration involved and there's so much communication, just like in the videogame, but the reason I don't play as much is because I know I'm capable of all the things outside, instead of just in this little box. I know I can go out and shoot guns. I know I can't shoot them at people.

THERAPIST: Well, I'm glad to hear that. I can mark that one down on my form here.

CLIENT: But I know I can go out and I could do paintball, that's why I love paintball so much.

THERAPIST: Because you get to shoot your friends or because it's adventurous? [00:45:28]

CLIENT: It's adventurous, there's a lot of communication and a lot of teamwork, and you can shoot your friends.

THERAPIST: What more could one ask for?

CLIENT: I know.

THERAPIST: Yeah, that's pretty good.

CLIENT: And when you get shot, it's just like ow, that hurt, haha, let's do it again.

MOTHER: He came back with welts.

THERAPIST: Yeah, you get beat up a little bit.

CLIENT: Yeah, it was —

THERAPIST: Paintball actually plays into the climax of a novel that I am finishing.

CLIENT: Really?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

FATHER: How many books are you working on?

THERAPIST: Oh, more than I can keep track of.

FATHER: All at the same time?

THERAPIST: Well, the novels are both done and just need to be edited heavily and reworked a little bit, that's how novels are. But I had to actually write this ADD book because there's so much demand for it and my platform, my media platform.

FATHER: Your audience.

THERAPIST: Yeah, is just really wanting that, and so I had to go back and write that and put off novels. But that's how I had to learn about paintball, was exactly for that reason. I needed to have that happen. All right, Mr. Kevin, this is really good. What are our goals for the next couple of weeks? [00:46:42]

CLIENT: Keep an inhaler with me all the time.

THERAPIST: That's a good one. Self—management with your inhaler, I like that.

CLIENT: Not be so short, I think that's the biggest thing.

THERAPIST: Think a little bit about mom and how she's feeling disorganized. Think, I know how that feels. I think what they ought to do is see if they can� how do I want to frame this? Like, recognize your weak moments and not choose those to have a profound discussion. Now, I realize that isn't what you did, Maggie, you didn't jump out of bed and think, this is the time that I've been waiting for, to talk about coughing. So, that wasn't planned.

MOTHER: Yeah, there was no warning sign associated with that obviously, I was asleep.

THERAPIST: But I think if you guys can — and I'm going to expect more out of them than you, but if you can do what I'm about to say, there's a slice of cheesecake in it for you eventually, or some sort of dessert, because it's harder for you, at your age. One of the things we've done is really learn to read not only the medication flow of the day, which for him, it's a little better, but also just sort of the ebbs and flows. Like coming home after school, depending on the point in the semester, but when medicine is toward the end of its cycle, they're in much better moods, but when it's really where it belongs, they're just not in very good moods. They are like Kevin after the long day of swimming and talking and being with people and doing all that stuff. My kids are done with having to think and having to interact with people, and so if I want to talk about, on the way home from school, oh you know, how did choir go today, I'm going to get one or two responses; I don't want to talk about it or it was horrible, the girls didn't sing and they're so annoying and just, I hate them, I hate them all. Well, okay, so I'm just going to get what I bargained for. And so if we head down any of those paths, I'm usually like, good time for quiet time. My kids have learned to self—disclose that, so they'll be just like, I don't want to talk about it, I just want to read. And then that's the time to shut up, that's the time to really think, they're communicating with me. Even if it's a little harsh, they're really saying to me, we need to be down. The place it gets dicey, which I am sure is true with you and Jessica, is not infrequently, one of them is interested in talking, particularly Evan, my son, and he always wants to do one of our stories together, where we tell a story to each other, and that, Penny is so sick of that. Even if it's a new story we make up together, she just hates it. This morning she was like, she told us this is the week before their concert and the whole week, we can't tell stories to each other because it will distract her and upset her too much. I seriously was like, I just want you to walk to school, but I just shut up. I thought, she's trying to tell me a way to interact with her and it's probably better just to roll with it. So, see if you can sort of observe some of those, see if you can be — I don't want you to learn to communicate with them like Penny does with me, try to do better than that, but the more you can sort of read, when is his weak spot, how do I find a better time to interact. These are the same tools. This isn't sort of like catering to him. It's exactly the same tools we teach couples on how to interact with each other, how to pick a time to talk about a conflictual subject, how to do what we call soft start, which is to say listen, there's something I want to talk to you about, is this a good time? It has to do with the dishwasher, you know couples fight about the credit cards, and try to start it up in really a very intentional calm fashion. That would be good things for you to work on this next week. I think you guys get an A—plus. Way to go. [00:51:16]

FATHER: I need to understand what he's feeling more in my reactions.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

FATHER: I need to put myself in his shoes.

THERAPIST: You may be setting an awful high standard in terms of understanding. You may just have to be a good observer and accept that maybe the most realistic� I never understand what's up with Penny half the time. I just like learn to roll with it and push her when I need to and back off when I don't, and I don't get that right all the time. It's so peculiar sometimes, I don't know what we're talking about, but that's a good way to gain. Okay, do we have one on?

MOTHER: I think we have one more left, that's already scheduled.

FATHER: But we can schedule past that.

MOTHER: Can I ask you something?

THERAPIST: Two weeks at four—thirty? Good. [00:52:18]

MOTHER: Not to talk about it during this session, but one of my concerns is the cell phone, and we don't do a good job of monitoring what's going on and that kind of stuff. We had a really great understanding, after our last session or whatever, and I said we were going to put — we discussed about putting an app on his phone, so I would be able to access the texts and pictures.

FATHER: Turn it off at a certain time.

MOTHER: Turn it off. The app that I found that I loved and I want it, and he would know about it, that it was on his phone, is called Phone Sheriff. I don't know if you've heard about it.

THERAPIST: I don't know that one but I can imagine it works.

MOTHER: Well, the problem with it is that we have iPhones, and so I'd have to jailbreak the phone, and I'm not real comfortable doing that. So I was wondering if you knew — I know you had Mobicip or whatever, but I want more, not necessarily the Internet. I'm more concerned with what might be going on in the conversations, that he seems very private. [00:53:19]

THERAPIST: All right, this is worthy of an entire session of discussion, and I think everybody needs to be in on it, because I have plenty to say about it.

MOTHER: And I agree. I'm sorry, I interrupted you.

THERAPIST: Well, my — do you have my parent routine books, did we get you those?

MOTHER: No.

THERAPIST: I think we have one teen book and several parent books left, and you might have Carrie sell you a couple of those, because I talk some about that in there and ironically, those books are only two years old and I think some of that information is getting dated. You know how that is. So, let's talk about that explicitly next time, and try and not have any crises between now and then, so we can have a really intelligent conversation of your phone, because the more you don't have crises, the more intelligent our conversations become. Have you noticed how that works? Like, I haven't threatened you once this week, have you noticed that, isn't it great? So that really helps, because it elevates the discussion to be about things that are going to be really relevant to you. That's why I was asking you about girls, because that's going to be a big issue as you're moving through middle school, and nowhere will that become more relevant than in the use of your electronic devices. Love, sex and electronics all go together like this right now, like a tight little band. It makes breaking up harder, there's all sorts of methods of transmitting your various private parts around the Internet, there's just a ton of stuff. So let's put that on our agenda and talk through it. I know we talked some about it a week or two ago.

MOTHER: Yeah. [00:55:03]

THERAPIST: Let's just discuss.

MOTHER: You don't know of an app, by any chance, that I haven't located, that could go on a phone that would do that, have that access?

THERAPIST: Let's have the ethics discussion before we —

MOTHER: Okay, okay.

THERAPIST: Because there's a number of ways to do that and I don't think the ways I would do it have to jailbreak the phone. I agree, because that violates your line.

MOTHER: Right.

FATHER: I talked to somebody about that today and their phone crashed.

MOTHER: Oh, really? Well, that would solve a lot of our problems.

THERAPIST: Do you want to plug one in for right after the 1st of the year?

MOTHER: Sure.

THERAPIST: Because we've got the one in two weeks. When are you back in school, Kevin?

CLIENT: I have no clue.

MOTHER: That's on a whole different barometer.

THERAPIST: Well, my kids are out the 2nd and 3rd, so I have to be off, but I could do anything after four—thirty on the 2nd, or three—thirty on the 3rd.

FATHER: The 2nd is a�? [00:56:04]

THERAPIST: Thursday.

MOTHER: So, is Wednesday, are you back on the 1st?

THERAPIST: Wednesday is the 1st.

MOTHER: Do you want to just, the next week, is that okay, or do you want it sooner than that?

THERAPIST: Okay, so two weeks from today we have the four—thirty and then oh, I'm off a week. Well, wait a minute now, yeah. Then two weeks after that would be the 2nd or 3rd, because the 1st is New Year's Day.

MOTHER: But you are not here on the 2nd and 3rd?

THERAPIST: Yeah, I am, I can do the 2nd or 3rd, afternoon, evenings. I'm gone during the day, even though I think he's out of school, because my kids are out of school.

MOTHER: Should we just keep like a Wednesday at four—thirty?

FATHER: Let's do Thursday that week.

THERAPIST: No, no.

MOTHER: Wednesday is the 1st.

FATHER: Let's do Thursday that week and then we'll go back to Wednesdays two weeks after that.

THERAPIST: That will be fine. So do you want to do like four—thirty?

FATHER: Yes.

THERAPIST: Okay, gotcha. You're a decisive man, that's what we like. [00:57:09]

MOTHER: He has to be, because I'm not.

FATHER: I'm going to start being more assertive, is that all right with you?

MOTHER: I'm sorry, I borrowed some of your paper, I came unprepared.

FATHER: Assert yourself with wisdom and all will be good.

END TRANSCRIPT