I have the great joy and privilege to direct the middle school ministry at my church.

Middle schoolers are my favorite group of people—they make the best theologians, but they are also the worst-behaved.  The first day of our day camp that we host on campus, our tweens tore down all decorations in the building during Devotion Time. At a recent retreat, one group of boys kept poking each other in the butt and giggling. And middle school girls are so exclusive.

We know that it is age-appropriate for middle schoolers to test boundaries, so we try our hardest to create space for students to safely misbehave.

But there is always “that one kid” that gets under your skin. I do believe that’s what Paul was talking about when he mentioned the “thorn in his flesh.”

One tween we have has been causing problems since he was in 4^th grade, and he’s now entering 8^th grade. Every year I pray for maturity, but we have yet to find it. Fortunately, we had a small group leader who was up to the challenge and requested him to be in his group. I was thankful—they already had rapport and I was excited for that year of change…finally.

But every week, this student challenged me. He’d sit by the video camera that records our sessions and make dinosaur sounds so that the person watching would be distracted. He would ask random questions to throw me off, or start punching a neighbor to get them upset. One time he stole a donut from the high school room and lied about it, even though powdered sugar was all over his face. Another time when he had a headache, my coworker offered him Tylenol and he began screaming about how she was offering him drugs and he was going to sue the church.

You see what I’m dealing with here?

One day we hit our peak. I was sharing a moment of vulnerability with our students, when this boy started making fun of me. “Are you going to cry? Why do you always cry? You’re such a baby.” When I tried to laugh it off and move the conversation forward, he continued to say things in efforts to humiliate me. Students watched me closely as I attempted to show him grace.

While small groups finished his mom arrived to pick him up. I pulled her into my office to talk about his behavior. I was pretty pointed and explained what happened, from front to end. She cuts me off at some point and apologizes, explaining that she’s been giving him “med vacations” on the weekends from his ADHD medication.

Now, this frustrates me. As a former youth care worker who was directly involved in giving medication to teens in foster care, I know a lot more about medication than the average person. And I have a whole soapbox ready for parents who take their students off necessary medication for the weekends.

So I begin going into my soapbox: “You know, for many psychotropic medications, including the ones for ADHD, it takes a full day or two before the medication actually kicks back in. If you take him off the medications on the weekend, he’s not really ever completely on it during the week.”

This mom looks at me and says with tears in her eyes, “Heather, I know. But the doctor says that he has stopped growing. The other boys in his class are going through puberty, but he’s not. The medication is blocking him from developing properly. It’s either he takes his ADHD medication and doesn’t go through puberty, or he goes through puberty and suffers from ADHD.”

As if on cue, the boy comes strutting into the office. His mom begins asking him about what happened that morning. Instead of responding, he sinks into the couch. As she gets more serious, his smirk grows bigger and he sinks until he’s completely laying on the couch.

I’m furious and waiting for her to yell at him to get up and be respectful. Obviously at the end of her rope the mom asks him, “Now, do you think that your behavior this morning warrants an apology?” He nods. She waits. I wait. He doesn’t apologize. He just lays there.

And I realize: I have all these opinions about how this mom should be parenting her son. I’ve never met such a disrespectful kid. But as I watched this mom’s world unfold before my eyes, I began to understand that the tired look in her eyes reflected a reality that I did fully understand. I only had this kid for a few hours a month. This was her entire world.

I repented silently and said, “You don’t have to apologize to me. I do hope we can work together so this doesn’t happen again. And I can’t wait to see you next Sunday!”

A month later on Maundy Thursday, this same mother washed my feet as I wept. I’m learning that it is so easy to judge a parent for what I think they should or should not be doing. It’s no hidden wisdom that the easy thing and the right thing are often not the same thing.

And what is the right thing? When we struggle with a student, step into the world that their parents live in. Talk to them, to ask for the bigger story, and to commit to learn how to best reach their kid. That’s what I’ve been doing, and as I’ve been doing that, I’ve dropped a few grudges along the way.