I decided some time ago that I wouldn’t chronicle in my blog the minute details of when Maddie does and does not go to school. Too much of the same thing day after day. She went to school, yay! She wouldn’t budge, boo.

Today, however, the travails of school attendance leaped onto the forefront of my parenting life as my husband Jake and I met with the educational consultant to discuss the possibilities for Maddie. Or really to discuss how to determine what the possibilities are. At this point, we don’t have a clue.

There are many challenges in choosing a path. As with every fork in the road, where the paths lead is uncertain. What if we…? Who knows? Who knows whether each decision we make is the right one or the wrong one? Nobody. So we do the best we can we the information we have (and whatever information we are still to get), and hope for the best.

When the topic of boarding school comes up, people are generally sympathetic. Often they see how this challenge takes a toll on me. Well, they are right: the effort I expend parenting Maddie as a teenager and the general feeling of futility put an awful lot of stress on me.

But if we do in fact send her away, it will be for one reason and one reason only: it’s the best thing for Maddie. It will not be to save me any stress. In fact, the thought of not being there for Maddie when she comes home from school with a problem, or when she wakes up sick, is heartbreaking. But what we want for her is to live up to at least some modicum of her potential. She is a clever, creative, lovable, warm, interesting person. She is passionate about the things that interest her. She is resourceful and enthusiastic. She’s also hilarious. For her, a meaningful life should include friendships and some way of contributing to society, whether paid or not. She is fully capable of accomplishing things, whether she’s gardening or teaching or working with animals or writing or making things with duct tape. Plus, people love her. She’s so fun to be around. She should feel the rewards of friendships and feel appreciated for her gifts.

At the moment, those things seem so far away. At least once a week she decides she’s not going to school. We don’t know why, exactly, but we’re pretty sure the problem lies not in the school Maddie attends, and not in Maddie’s performance when she’s there. A day at school is typically pretty successful across the board. She’s productive, happy, and well-liked.

The problem is getting her there consistently. And getting her to do her homework when she’d rather not. It’s a daily struggle. The point, though, isn’t necessarily her academic success. For right now, it’s learning to do it anyway. Learning to get up when she’s tired, to do the things that are boring or laborious or challenging anyway. I don’t care if she gets straight A’s or straight C’s as much as I care about her finding something inside of herself to motivate her. I realize she’s only 15 and anyone that age has a lot of growing up to do, but her future is so uncertain, I’m afraid to just wait around for her to figure this out on her own.

Today the question arose: What if she can never find motivation? What if that never happens?

My response: I can’t go there. I have to have hope. I have to believe in Maddie. I have to believe that she will be able to be a contributing member of society, to have friends, to get out in the world and share her tremendous gifts. At the moment it seems that, if given the choice, Maddie would spend her days in her cave of a room playing Minecraft. Uh, no. She’s too awesome for that.

And because she’s so awesome, it remains my job to try and try and try to help her live her best life. We just want her to be happy, and to be happy, I think she needs to feel valuable, important, appreciated and loved. And so I continue to fight for her, to ponder the possibilities, to investigate possible avenues to bring that to fruition, to make the most of the resources we have, and to find new resources, whatever they may be, to push her as much as I can without pushing her too far, to encourage her without berating her, to love her and cherish her and figure out how much, exactly, to expect and demand from her.

The result of the meeting today was this: I am going to get additional evaluations of Maddie so that we can be better informed about her strengths and challenges (not academic–it’s called a personality screening), for ourselves and for any potential educators. The consultant will go to the high school and observe Maddie to help round out the picture. Then we will consider the options. It may be leaving her at her current school with additional help; it may be moving her to another local school that’s more compelling to her; it may be sending her to a mildly therapeutic boarding school. That’s the order of my preference, with the first being WAY out in front. We don’t even know if there’s a boarding school that would be a good fit. We don’t know if there are resources here that can help us. It’s all very much up in the air.

So there we have it. We are nowhere closer, really, to knowing what the plan is than we were yesterday. But we have, at least, begun the process of making a plan. And we know that plan could change, or we could take a path and it might fail and we might have to redirect. Such is the nature of parenting. Such is the nature of life.

At best, we make informed choices and hope for the best. And then we remain open to making a different choice. When a change of course is necessary, it’s just information. So we take that information and try again.

And hope for the best.