No - it's not your imagination. I wrote a chapter with this very title before, some 3 years ago. And it seems like we have made no progress.
The 2009-2010 school year didn't start out well. John would have a couple good weeks, then blow up at something, then another good week, then another suspension, and so on. Sometimes he simply refused to go down to the office; he wouldn't even leave the classroom. In a follow-up meeting, he staunchly defended his position.
"Well if Nancy had asked me to go to the office, I would have gone. She asks nicely. But when Mario comes up like that and gives me attitude, he can shove it, I'm not doing anything for him."
The principal was stunned, and understandably so. It took him several minutes to formulate a response.
"Do you mean to tell me that you will decide who you are going to listen to and when? Do you mean to tell me that you simply aren't going to follow directions if you don't want to? What if all 2,000 of my students did that?"
This sort of logic is beyond John. He has no comprehension of authority. Everybody is equal in his eyes, including us. If we, as parents, haven't been nice to him lately, in his opinion, then he really doesn't have to do anything we say, and we can go to hell. His world-view is sick and twisted, but it is consistent and predictable. I can tell, from the previous few hours, how John is going to react. Unfortunately Wendy cannot, and that is one of the reasons they don't get along. She can't anticipate his reactions and prepare for them, and in some cases avert a disaster, the way I can.
Anyways, the principal is now involved, and he wants John out. He considers John to be a risk to himself and others, and he's not far off the mark. At times the school policeman has been called to the scene, with tazer in hand, before John would go where he was told. So the principal placed John on an indefinite suspension pending a hearing. After some research, the school social worker recommended a school that is similar to Max, though not as extreme. We went to see it, and no, John wouldn't last a day there. We called to cancel the bus, which was already scheduled for him, and the dispatcher asked us, "Does he really have a choice? Most of our students are court ordered to come here." 'Nuff said.
We brought in an advocate, Marega, from the ACMH, and she could read John like a book. This only served to make him angry, and push him further back into denial. "I'm not like that, it's all their fault. They're racist; they kicked me out of school because I'm black. Those teachers are horrible; I'm just fine!" And so on. But she handled him like a pro, like someone who has done this a hundred times before. She went to the hearing with us, and in the end we decided to give John one more chance. He did pretty well for a month or so, and then had another blow-up near the end of school. They immediately tried to kick him out again, but this time we had a written behavior plan that charted another course. He was removed from that particular class, but was allowed to continue in the other classes where he was successful. "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water." is the essence of our latest IEP. Marega helped us write this behavior plan, and she convinced everyone to sign it. So as I write this, he is still enrolled in the public high school. I have no idea what his schedule will be in the fall, or even if he will go. (He is extremely depressed about the whole situation right now.) If he does start school in the fall, he almost certainly won't make it through the year. He doesn't have enough control to suck it up each day, day after day, for a year; and he's pretty bored with the whole experience. He believes it has little to offer, and he's probably right. We're shooting for a certificate, not a diploma, and that is of limited value. And after three years of auto shop they don't have much more to teach him. So if he bails, honestly, I won't blame him. (And this coming from someone who places a high premium on education.) I can often predict his day to day behavior, but I have no idea where he will be a year from now.