December 27, 1998
Community support needed to bring back 'Throwaway Kids'
By Carol Bogart
Staff Writer
Tanette Wildman and Lester Barney are examples of a growing problem some label ''throwaway kids.''
Tanette, 19, has health problems that have resulted in surgeries.
''I'm always nauseated and I have fatigue,'' she says.
Lester, 18, is working with Columbian High School special needs teacher Rudy Lawrence to try to get his general educational development certificate.
Lester says he dropped out of school because ''everybody kept telling me I'd never amount to anything. They gave up on me, so I gave up on myself.''
He describes being abused and terrorized as a child by a stepfather who went to prison for child abuse. Later, he says, he was sexually abused by an adult in a position of trust. In middle school, Lester was diagnosed with an attention-deficit disorder and started taking Ritalin.
''When he was on his medication, he loved learning,'' says his teacher, Lawrence. ''He would sit for hours and soak up science.''
After being frustrated over his inability to consistently meet the expectations of an environment in which he had to pay attention and sit still, and being bounced around from one living arrangement to another, Lester admits his hyperactivity and pent-up rage evolved into episodes of explosive anger.
Before long, Lester discovered street drugs, which became his uncritical ''friends.'' His life a haze, rejected at home, in trouble with the law, Lester wound up expelled. If not for Lawrence and out-of-school tutoring, for Lester, getting a high school education would be history.
Lawrence has convinced Lester he can get his GED. ''He wants to walk in graduation,'' she says.
For the past several months, level-headed Tanette has tried to keep Lester away from drugs. The two, posing as a married couple, have bounced from temporary housing at St. Francis to Lester's current room at the Pryzm. Tanette is temporarily back home.
Lester, who knows he's difficult to deal with, has yet to hold down a job. Lawrence says he ''can't concentrate for more than five minutes.'' She's helping him get back on medication and planned to take him something to eat over Christmas. He's so destitute, she says, that one night last week he had nothing to eat but cookies.
Asked if it bothers him that his mother won't take his calls, Lester looks at the floor, shrugs and says, ''I don't care.''
''Really?'' he's asked. He fights back tears.
''Despite everything that's happened to him,'' Lawrence says, ''he still wants them to love him.''
Tiffin Superintendant Denise Callahan says the school board began ''studying this very problem in early 1998. One of the key elements,'' Callahan says, ''is having a nurturing home. An absolute essential is to have a personal network of supportive parents, grandparents and peers. All of society needs to be crazy about these kids and willing to help them.''
''He's just 18 years old, he has his whole life ahead of him,'' Barbara Newland, a Department of Human Services social worker based in the McAuley clinic at Mercy Hospital, says of Lester. ''He has to find something to do where he can get along in society.
''And that's where every one of us have to come along and try to help: The doctor who can maybe give him medication so he doesn't lose his temper; the teacher he's had for 10 years who is helping him get his GED; the girlfriend he's hooked up with who's trying to keep him on the straight and narrow. Everybody,'' Newland says. ''We just can't give up on them, even though they're 18. They still need some support. Sometimes even more than they did when they were 5.''
Wyss says the biggest problem kids like Lester have is shredded self-esteem. They lack confidence, she says, to surmount life's hurdles.
''How are we going to teach kids to fit into society,'' Lawrence askes, ''if they can't fit into a school?''
Callahan agrees.
''Our first step is community awareness,'' the superintendent says. ''These kids need support. I think that's critical.''
Lester is vulnerable, Lawrence says, because he's ''a complete follower.''
'' 'If this will make you like me, I'll do it,' '' is Lester's approach to making friends, she says, and has contributed to his problems with drugs and alcohol.
Tanette says she likes Lester because he's sweet and funny and he makes her laugh. Lawrence describes him as ''a sweetheart.''
Lawrence says she and others who work with kids who ''don't fit in'' remind each other that ''many of the kids we work with could be one of those kids that die because of what they're into.''
She says teens she knows who complete drug or alcohol rehabilitation are constantly pressured by those who still use &emdash; kids caught up, she says, ''in Tiffin's drug scene.''
Convincing troubled teens to stay in school would be a big step forward, most agree. To that end, Columbian has instituted a ''social adjustment class'' &emdash; in- school suspension versus expulsion. The program has recently been expanded to include 6th through 8th graders. Additional measures are in progress.
Callahan says she knows how lucky kids like Lester Barney are to have tenacious supporters like Rudy Lawrence. ''She's a good one.'' Callahan also credits the Tiffin School Board for its willingness to tackle tough issues.