Wild boys
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MummyBloggers
Summer can be long for teenagers too young to get jobs. And it can be interminable for their parents, particularly if their parents work from home. So my decision to bring the middle child out hiking once a week was inspired not only by a desire to get him away from his various screens and out in the fresh air, but also by a purely selfish need to preserve my own sanity.
Now, perhaps you are one of those parents who strapped your infants to your back and skipped up the Sugar Loaf, turning them into fresh-faced youngsters who now spend more time up mountains than they do in bed. I'm not. My kids were quite prepared to charge up and down the stairs screaming at whichever one of their siblings had wronged them, but once the activity moved to some celebrated site of astounding natural beauty, they inexplicably lost the ability to walk. I did discover, however, that throwing in some element of climbing made the trek more interesting for them, and they would seem to forget that they were actually doing something healthy.
We're only three weeks in, but, so far, my plan for the summer has been going pretty well. It has also had an unforeseen but welcome side effect. If you have teenage boys, particularly teenage boys on the autistic spectrum, you know how hard it is to communicate with them. You know how you transform into a mutant blend of Mother Superior and Detective Sergeant as you try to engage in the most basic conversation, where answers to questions rarely extend beyond one syllable.
Something happens when we are out on our hikes, however. I don't know if it is the fresh air, the distraction of physical exertion, or the freedom of not facing each other, but once the two of us have been walking for a while, I can barely get a word in.
Granted, the topics are generally ones I have very little knowledge of anyway (recent themes have included the net worth of Interpol's lead singer, George R. R. Martin's other books, and what Inception is really about), but I treasure the time spent with one of the people I love most in the world, away from the keyboard, the washing and all the horrific news awaiting us in the real world.
I still don't understand Inception though...
Aoife O'Carroll is a separated mum living in Co Kerry with her two boys aged 17 and 14, and a girl aged 10.
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