This week Roscoe and I went to school together to attend parent/teacher/child day. Putting a positive spin on it, this is where you have pre-booked slots to see each teacher with your child to discuss perspectives and opportunities.

Feedback on Roscoe, as always, is consistent. “Laid back”, “Popular”, “Funny”, Creative”, Outgoing”, “Could achieve so much more”, “More than capable”, “Does the minimum to stay average when he could be great”, ” Needs to read more”.  Actually he needs to read full stop – I write these blogs knowing he’s highly unlikely to ever read a word on the page.

One of the things that makes Codrington  school stand out is it’s focus on giving back, taking part in the wider community. Each student in Roscoe’s year is tasked with a year long project of how they are improving the community in Barbados or the wider Caribbean region. They have to write up each month how they are progressing, what they are doing and where they need support and at the end of the year they stand in front of the entire school and give a 10 minute presentation on the difference they have made.

Applying his usual laconic, big-picture, visionary style, Roscoe wants to send sports equipment to the hurricane ravaged island of Dominica. Due to the potential complexity and time required to achieve this project, the school dissuades him of continuing with this. He then decides he is going to help the homeless of Barbados by giving them “stuff”. When its pointed out that homelessness is not a particularly big issue here as both the church and familial ties are so strong, and that finding homeless people and working out what stuff they need is a more tricky proposition that he envisages, he accuses me of being negative and non-supportive.

So we sit with the community project tutor to discuss how he can be more practically focused so he achieves a tangible outcome and a sense of satisfaction. We are now a month behind what with all the chopping and changing and she applies some pressure to have us commit that his proposal presentation will be completed 2 days hence.

Stuck in a car with me on our 45 minute journey home, there is no escape as I attempt to discuss what his project could be. He is angry, defensive and cornered and I endure a full- force hormonal blast of teenage angst. Later, once he’s fed and had some time on his beloved electronics, we have another go at a conversation.

Ultimately we agree that he’s going to go to the local orphanage, find out what they need and he can then go and fund-raise to help them achieve some of their wish list. Over the course of the next two days we run through it but he refuses to write anything down. Because I feel my neck is as much on the line as his, I’m not prepared to let it go and right up to I drop him at the school bus at 7am on Wednesday morning I am trying to get him to describe the first steps of the project and what he’s going to say to Miss Nicola.

That evening as I drive him to football practice, I ask how his conversation has gone regarding his community project. “Fine” he mutters. I ask when he wants to go to the orphanage. He replies with a tone of defiant satisfaction, “I’m not going, I’m teaching diabetic children about the importance of exercise”.  I take a breath, remain calm and ask “where are you going to find these diabetic children”? His response? “It’s no problem I’m going to make a YouTube video” I keep my mouth shut.

Much as though we are raising him to be his own person, sometimes I wish he would just conform.

And do as I tell him…