Managing Misbehavior Prepost

Note: All last names, home towns, and schools of students were not included in order to protect the privacy of the students.

Original Post Tuesday 7/12/11 at 4:30 PM: I feel pretty confident about this trip to the McWane Center with my nephews and their friends. I believe that even though, I may get overwhelmed that I will be ultimately in control. I hope that my nephew, Jared, has invited a lot of his friends and they all show up to this event because I think that the more teenagers I have to manage the more experience I will get from the outing. The plan so far is to meet up at Jared's mother's house around noon tomorrow (hopefully his friends will be on time) and we will all ride together to the McWane Center. I warned my nephews about the costs and have told them to be prepared to pay for their own ticket and to warn their friends that the McWane Center is not free! After all I am not a bank!

In a normal classroom type situation I would not hope for misbehavior. But considering that I feel like I really need to learn to manage misbehavior I hope they act worse than ever! My nephews do not really see me as an adult (I am only 9-10 years older than them). They see me as a peer, maybe not the coolest peer they have but at least I have a car.

Of the teenagers coming I can count on the following to show up: Jared (age 15), Jacob (age 14), Myranda (age 16), Dylan (age 13), and Jason (age 14). Myranda is Jared's girlfriend and is always around; Dylan and Jacob are inseparable, and Jason seems to always show up to events (such as Jake's birthday dinner last month). I hope that Jared and Jacob will invite more friends and that some of them will drive (I only have a 4 passenger sedan). I look forward to tomorrow!

Updated Tuesday night/ Wednesday 1:00 AM:

I am now starting to get nervous. I reminded Jared of our day out and he said "i dunno if i can do the macwane center tommorow" (and yes that is his misspelling and lack of punctuation). He then stated that he was broke and his friends all work during the day and that the only friends he had that can drive are broke or wrecked their cars. I could see the Mary Beth piggy bank being crashed in my head and all the money I had saved over the week disappearing. I told him I could pay for him and Jake and that the rest of his friends would have to come up for their own money! A bit later in the conversation Jared seemed anxious saying "It's all so complicated" to which I replied "Don't be so dramatic we'll figure it out tomorrow". I then warned him to go bed because I was calling him at 11 am!

My hopes were that Jared was being a dramatic teenager and that all would be well tomorrow at noon.

Edited 7/17/11