Raising Austin

When Austin, like most toddlers, hit his "terrible twos," he seemed to define himself by defiantly declaring, "No. No. No!" But for Austin, this developmental phase never really passed, only deepened. In part-time day care, at parks and playgrounds, something would inevitably infuriate him, and he would often end up screaming, and eventually hitting, kicking and biting. Other kids -- and their parents -- began telling the Harples with scornful looks and even words that they were failures.

By age 3, Austin hated being in groups. He still loved to kiss and hug his parents, but loathed being touched by others. He couldn't stand socks that felt scratchy. He was irritated by the seams in his clothes and the tags on his shirts. He went on major prolonged kicks of eating only scalloped potatoes or chicken pot pie or SpaghettiOs. Loud noises made him clamp his hands over his ears and scream.

Austin began having what his parents called "total meltdowns," transforming into a snarling, spitting, raging force, occasionally for up to three or four hours of foot-stomping, door-slamming, toy-breaking fury.

Jeanne vividly recalls one such time when Austin was 4 and attending a birthday party at a Discovery Zone. Running amok, he punched a little girl in the stomach and began shoving aside other kids who blocked his path. Jeanne grabbed her son and dragged him outside. She remembers watching through a glass wall as kids played happily while she screamed at Austin. "I remember leaving there, just bawling," she says. "I remember one friend calling me and saying, 'Don't take it personally. It's not a reflection on you.' But I couldn't help it."

It would be a long time before the Harples finally learned what they were confronting and how to begin correcting it. For Jeanne and Chuck, who are both 41, the past six years have tested their faith in themselves, strained their marriage nearly to the breaking point, and forced them to dig deep -- psychologically, spiritually and financially -- to try to master a challenge that could be called Extreme Parenting.

It is an experience that is shared, in varying degrees, by millions of parents whose children exhibit behavior that can be puzzling, infuriating, embarrassing, and sometimes frightening. It creates a family life in which tenderness, understanding and love threaten to be crowded out by ignorance, anger, isolation, fear and guilt.

Experts debate whether childhood behavioral problems like ADHD and ODD have increased in recent years, or whether normally rambunctious kids, particularly boys, are being overdiagnosed and overmedicated. Most believe that behavioral problems are indeed on the rise, but their causes are also vigorously argued. Many researchers point toward genetic tendencies, brain-chemistry imbalances, neurological disconnections, viruses, allergies and even environmental toxins as possible contributors. Others blame the behaviors on two-career families, permissive parenting, dysfunctional marriages, violent media, poverty, the decline of community spirit and countless other social factors. The arguments are often based more on personal ideologies than medicine or science.

"This whole field of childhood psychopathology is still in its infancy. We are still figuring out what is developmental normalcy," says Ross Greene, a noted child psychologist at Harvard Medical School and author of The Explosive Child. Greene says far too much emphasis is put on labeling children rather than figuring out how parents and schools can help children conquer their disabilities.

These ailments are many and bewildering: ADHD, which tends to run in families, is often characterized by frequent and severe distractibility, impulsivity and impatience, and is estimated in psychiatric studies to affect anywhere from 2 percent to more than 10 percent of school-age children. Many other kids at varying ages also suffer from depression, bipolar disorder, OCD, ODD, and a spectrum of neurological and behavioral problems, often grouped loosely under the label of autistic-type behaviors, which can make children detached, antisocial and explosive.

Nobody has comprehensive statistics, and many of these conditions are difficult to diagnose or even specifically define. One of the nation's leading child psychiatrists, Stanley Greenspan of George Washington University Medical School, the former director of the National Institute of Mental Health's Clinical Infant Development Program, says that cumulatively these ailments affect far more children than most people realize. "It would not be far-fetched to think that somewhere around a quarter of the population could be involved," he says. "Conservatively, anywhere from 12 to 25 percent."

For parents of these children, grappling with extreme behavior can wreak havoc on family life. Yet the Harples say they have also discovered sources of strength, support and closeness. With the help of a team of medical and behavioral experts, they say, they are relearning how to be Austin's parents and renewing their sense of control and optimism. They are also learning to stop blaming themselves. They've done the best they know how, they say -- putting limits on television and video, reading to their children daily, taking them to church on Sundays and constantly stressing positive values.

"God gave us this child, and I think it is for us to learn something," Jeanne says late one night at the dining room table, after the kids finally have gone to sleep, and she and Chuck are sipping red wine. "I think it's a gift." They agreed to share their story because they believe their experience might help other families. "I'd like to let people know they are not alone," says Jeanne. "It was very lonely." Still, they realize some people inevitably will blame them for Austin's behavior. Of such critics, Chuck says, "God bless 'em for not having to deal with it."

Late at night, in the Harples' cozy dining room, Chuck takes off his jacket and tie after a 10-hour workday, and slumps back in his chair. He is a solidly built 6-foot-1, a big, amiable guy with a big, demanding job as the political director for the million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He lobbies Congress, helps supervise more than 30 staffers, works on election campaigns, and knows how to play Washington hardball. His colleagues nicknamed him "the Hammer."

Chuck thought he was fully capable and prepared to be a good father. But he had never encountered anything like Austin's rage. "Sometimes, I would just hold him down, restraining him, and it was horrifying," he says. "Holding your first-born son, and we are yelling at each other. I got afraid of him." Chuck began abandoning the hard work to Jeanne. When Austin turned 3 and Maddie was born, Jeanne decided to give up her job running her family's automotive business in Arlington and stay at home with the kids.

Jeanne, who comes from Arlington, and Chuck, who grew up in a struggling working-class family in Prince George's County, were both raised by parents who strongly believed in spanking, with fathers who used belt-whippings as the major form of punishment. Austin's grandparents insistently told Chuck and Jeanne they needed to spank him. And they did. They tried other strategies, like washing Austin's mouth out with soap for cursing, but none of them worked. "We would threaten, we would talk him to death, we gave him timeouts," Jeanne says. Eventually, she adds, "you lose your temper, you end up spanking him. We didn't believe in it, and it just didn't work. It didn't faze him, and he wouldn't remember."

"We thought we were bad parents," Jeanne says. For months, stretching into years, the Harples rarely ventured out socially. Teenage babysitters couldn't handle Austin; so the Harples joined a local baby-sitting co-op, but very few adults could deal with Austin either. The Harples became hermits, they say. "We went into a bunker mentality," says Chuck. They feared public meltdowns because it took a heavy emotional toll on Austin, and because they felt ashamed. Some friendships faded, and the couple felt increasingly alone. They even stopped going to church because of Austin's inevitable outbursts. The rare family outings were often done in two cars, because they frequently had to bring Austin home early.

The Harples, particularly Chuck, had great trouble believing that Austin simply could not control his outbursts. Chuck began to understand when a psychiatrist described Austin by saying: "If you held a gun to his head, and told him, 'One more word and I'm going to shoot,' he would still say another word."

"It makes me cry to think how bad I was to him" in earlier years, Chuck says. "I was abused as a child myself." His voice trails off and his eyes well up. In later interviews, Chuck says he was "physically beaten all the time" by his stepfather, a former drill sergeant. When Austin was born, Chuck bought him a tiny Harvard University hat and T-shirt, and promised himself that he'd give Austin a better childhood.

Instead, Chuck says, he began to run away from his family's troubles by working longer and longer hours in the office, taking solace in extended road trips that his job required, and drinking too much. "I started hanging out and drinking, and playing 'big man'" at work, Chuck says, "and I didn't have to talk about my son's problems."

Jeanne, meanwhile, was fighting to help Austin conquer his problems. She describes Chuck as "already broken off into his own world, his own job, the politics of Washington." Their marriage in crisis, they separated, and Chuck briefly moved to his mother's house. Exhausted, discouraged, Jeanne got herself a lawyer and was ready to face divorce. Instead, she decided they should try marriage counseling.

They worked hard on their marriage over four years of counseling. Chuck started individual therapy for his childhood issues and joined a church men's group, belatedly realizing, he says, how precious his wife and children were to him. Says Jeanne, "I really realized that Chuck was changing, and becoming the person I knew he could be." Jeanne began personal counseling, too, and both of them started reaching out for more help. They enrolled in weekly classes offered by the nonprofit Parent Encouragement Program that began to teach them that if irrational behavior could not be overcome by force, perhaps it could be diminished by trying, somehow, to ignore it.

But that strategy didn't work consistently, and the Harples still had no clue what was causing the bizarre conduct. So, as school age approached, Austin began to be evaluated by a succession of pediatricians, psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, nutritionists, sleep therapists, allergists, occupational therapists and special educators in the search for answers.

When Austin started kindergarten, the experts began to officially label his problems. The initial reports determined that Austin had above-average intelligence but the social skills of a 2 1/2-year-old. Part of his problem was attributed to a "sensory integration dysfunction." Essentially, Austin was overwhelmed by the onslaught of his own senses. A flood of sensory information overloaded his nervous system, resulting in a panic reflex sometimes described as "fight, flight or fright."

"Kindergarten was the first time they gave it a name," Jeanne says. "People would call him a 'bad kid' . . . and I guess I thought he was a bad kid, too." Austin ran wild in groups, she learned, because "he had no sense of his body, or of space . . . He was floundering on his own by himself and he was screaming for help, and we were trying to parent him. Austin was not trying to be vicious or vindictive intentionally. It was his way of saying, 'I just can't handle this situation.'"

Jeanne was referred to a 1998 book, The Out-of-Sync Child, by Carol Stock Kranowitz, the first major popular study of the sensory disorder. "Ohmigosh, it was incredible. This is Austin!" Jeanne recalls thinking. She started furiously highlighting passages and reading aloud to Chuck. "It was the book that brought light to how Austin is wired," she says, and showed the Harples "that there was a reason for it -- and not just our parenting."

When Austin was in first grade, the Harples were told he also had ADHD, a diagnosis that rang true with them because they each see signs of it in themselves, in their frenetic multi-tasking. Stimulants such as Ritalin are the most popular treatment, but Jeanne was strongly opposed to drugging her son. Instead, she experimented with his diet, put him in occupational therapy to work on his motor skills and, she says, "I started regulating. Trying to figure out what he could handle and what he could not." At first, she sent Austin to school for only one hour, then two. He was placed in smaller, quieter special ed classes, given more quiet time, more sleep, shorter outings, fewer parties, less playground time. "We felt we just had to shelter him."

Yet the meltdowns continued. One of Chuck's most awful memories is Austin's seventh birthday. He arrived at Austin's school, planning to take his son and a friend out to Chuck E. Cheese. Instead, Chuck saw two teachers "carrying him out, kicking and screaming," holding Austin's arms and legs, "like a human straitjacket . . . On his birthday! It was horrifying."

The Harples' resistance to drugs ended when his doctor told them, "Forget about yourself and think about him. Think about how bad he feels when this is going on," Chuck recalls. Finally, "when the Ritalin started, it was miraculous," he says. The stimulant and the mood-stabilizing drugs took the edge off his anger. The meltdowns were fewer and shorter, he says, "and we were high-fiving." But Austin was still intermittently violent, and the Harples realized that they were in for a long haul.

After taking him to school, "I used to come home and just pray he'd get through the day," Jeanne says. She realized she needed more help. The Harples, with the benefit of good coverage from Chuck's Teamsters insurance plan, began assembling what they now call "the Team." In addition to working with Austin's pediatrician, psychiatrist, special ed teachers and occupational therapists, they started sending him to a behavioral "play" therapist, and they hired an experienced behavioral consultant to advise them on how to parent a challenging child, eventually putting themselves thousands of dollars in debt.

The Harples also read everything they could find. One book that particularly resonated was Greene's The Explosive Child. Kids like Austin weren't intentionally being infuriating, Greene suggested; rather they could not learn naturally how to be flexible. So parents had to learn to teach them. The heart of his advice was for parents to avoid escalating a war they can never win. Essentially, "pick your fights," but do so in a systematic way: Save the most extreme discipline for preventing physical violence, and rely on compromise and ignoring for most other behaviors.

Chuck Harple is pale, red-eyed and exhausted after a 16-day trip to Iowa for the Democratic caucuses, where he helped run the union-led effort on behalf of Rep. Richard Gephardt. It was his longest separation from his children in memory, and Maddie flies into his arms when she spots him sticking his head into her gym class at Nottingham. "Daddy! Daddy!" she cries joyously as she hangs off his legs.

Minutes later, Chuck spots Austin in the school lobby. His son walks toward him, clutching a video-game magazine and making only glancing eye contact.

"Hey, buddy!" Chuck calls.

"Did Dick Gephardt win?" Austin asks, hopefully.

"No. He didn't." Austin stands awkwardly, staring at his GamePro magazine.

"Hey, how 'bout some love?" Chuck asks, extending an arm.

Austin gives him a strong hug. Chuck later tells me it hurt his feelings not to get a spontaneous hug, but says he's come to realize that Austin's preoccupations sometimes prevent that. He also was touched that Austin immediately asked about Gephardt. They'd had many discussions about politics, and it showed Chuck that his son cared about something that was important to his dad.

"How'd you do in school today, Ham?" Chuck nicknamed Austin "Hammer" several years ago, seeing in his son the same hardheadedness that others saw in Chuck.

"A hundred and ten." Austin says, the top bonus score possible.

"Wow! I gotta get you chicken!" Chuck says. This outing actually was Jeanne's idea for a reunion treat, because Austin's current food fetish is KFC Popcorn Chicken, about which he thinks, talks and even sings, at frequent intervals.

Minutes after a visit to the KFC drive-in window, the Harples are sitting around the dining room, Austin popping chicken, Chuck relaxing, and Jeanne going through family paperwork. She tells Austin that Nottingham is again offering a Monday after-school enrichment program that he likes called Wizards, as well as a Tuesday skateboarding club.

"Which one would you like to do?" she asks.

"I wanna do both," he says sharply.

She reminds him he has to keep up on his reading and his homework, too. It often takes Austin 60 to 90 minutes to complete 30-minute assignments. So he has to choose.

"No. I wanna do both," he says louder.

"It's too many days after school. You can't do both."

"I want to do both! Can't I do both?" Austin says, pounding the heel of his palm on his forehead several times. "Why can't I do both?"

Jeanne looks exasperated. The unspoken subtext is that the Harples are not happy about his interest in skateboarding because they fear that Austin will become obsessive about it and will start associating with older kids who will be a negative influence.

"If you only pick one, which one?" Jeanne asks.

"Both!"

"What about your homework?"

"I can do it," Austin says.

"If you can't get your homework done," Chuck warns, "we would have to take you out of it."

"Okay," says Austin.

After a quiet pause, Austin whispers to me. "I love negotiating," he says, beaming. "I always get my way."

"Don't bet on it," snaps Jeanne. The issue is actually not resolved by this first conversation, and the Harples will later be revisiting the topic, heatedly. After talking to members of the Team, their plan finally is to let him try it -- with close supervision.

The Harples long ago nicknamed Austin "the Negotiator" because his persistence seemed superhuman. Chuck later describes the Harple family decision-making process as a "controlled democracy" similar to the periodic chaos of the British Parliament. "Austin has to have a say in things," he says. "Austin is the prime minister. And he is standing there making declarations. And then the Parliament reacts, and Jeanne and I are the Parliament," with the final say.

Chuck and I walk outside after the skateboarding argument. "I hope he becomes a lawyer, or maybe a salesman," Chuck says, wistfully, "because he's so tenacious. He could be so successful."

On a Tuesday at noon, Chuck and Jeanne sit together on a couch, holding hands, as they talk about their recent efforts to discipline Austin with Sharon Weiss, a behavioral consultant who has worked with them for two years.

"Bingo! That's the magic word. You won't tolerate that," says Weiss, an enthusiastic, self-assured woman whose office is jammed with parenting books. She is responding to Jeanne's report that she is using a more rigorous method to try to prevent fights between Austin and Maddie. As soon as Jeanne hears them start quarreling, she immediately separates them instead of letting tension build. And, after a warning, any physical violence results in a two-day loss of GameCube and all television.

Such rules are put into a contract and signed by both kids and parents. Written contracts are crucial, Weiss says, because Austin needs a visual reminder that he has agreed to punishments, "so he can't shoot the messenger."

Weiss meets only with the Harples, not with Austin. Another key member of Team Harple who works directly with Austin is Kay Klein, his behavior therapist. Austin's therapy has three basic goals: helping him build tolerance for frustrations, showing him how to be more flexible, and teaching him how to spot "social cues" so he can interact better with people. In past sessions, for example, Klein and Austin went outside to play "run and stop." The repetitive exercise is intended to convey the feeling that you can stop your momentum. Just stop. Klein tries to transfer the physical concept to the cognitive: that Austin can learn that he has the power to bring an emotion to a halt. When he feels frustration building, perhaps he can trigger the thought of stopping himself.

In Weiss's office, Chuck tells about taking Austin to Boy Scouts, an activity aimed at building his skills and friendships. Last year, every scout got an award for building a race car, usually with parents' help. But this year, not everybody got awards. Austin was one of the empty-handed. Extremely upset, he told his father, " 'I'd like to go home.' And he hugged me the whole way out," Chuck says, "but he didn't throw a fit . . . He was crying on the way home, and came home and kicked his door."

"He waited!" Weiss exclaims. "He waited till he got home and unleashed it. You're right, Chuck. That is huge. He learned a different way" to show anger. Yet Weiss reminded them, "On a day when his biochemistry is not working well, it's out the window."

Weiss, who has published a parenting book and lectures extensively, says later that many parents are unwilling to look at their own behavior, and that she greatly admires the Harples. "They are truly such good, giving, constantly-wanting-to-be-better kind of people." They realized Austin wasn't getting the help he needed, she says, "and they were willing to look at themselves as one of those sources of not getting it."

Chuck and Jeanne have learned to apologize more to Austin if they lose their temper, and now they are seeing that behavior more in him. "He was cursing at me" recently, Jeanne says, "and later on he says, 'You know, Mommy, I'm really sorry about the things I said to you.'"

The Harples say they have learned, thanks to Weiss, to appreciate even the smallest signs of progress. "It's 10 times better than it was a few years ago," Jeanne says. "Now, he willingly goes to school and, with maturity, he is growing up. Austin is a great kid . . . I think it was a blessing to learn his problems now, instead of at age 15 or 16."

In the spacious Interlude classroom that is shared by fourth- and fifth-graders, the five older students are working quietly on geometric shapes at a back table. Austin is sitting up near the blackboard with the two other fourth-graders, working on multiplication with Michael Bonneville, the resource assistant whom everybody calls Mr. B. It's Austin's turn to take a problem. Austin grabs the chalk and writes "62 X 12" in big, loopy numerals, but he is unhappy with the shape of a 2 and he keeps retracing to get it to his liking.

Austin quickly writes his answer of 64. "Did it!" he proclaims, slapping his chalk down.

Mr. B asks how he came up with 64. Austin says 6 times 1 is 6, and 2 times 2 is 4.

Mr. B starts to correct him, but before he can finish, Austin angrily grabs the eraser and vigorously wipes away the entire problem.

"You don't have to erase it," Mr. B says cheerfully. "Don't give up. You can do it."

"Give me another one," Austin says.

"Same one," says Mr. B.

Austin instead starts drawing a circular shape with an oblong attachment.

"If you're going to get silly, forget it," says Mr. B.

"No. No. I'm ready . . ." Austin writes 62 X 12 again and this time quickly writes an answer of 124, slaps down the chalk again. "Did it!"

Mr. B tries to encourage him through the steps he left out.

Austin faces the board and seems to be trembling. "Damn!" he says, then quickly turns and asks Mr. B where to put the next number.

"Austin," Mr. B says, "you can do it. You need to slow down."

Austin turns back to the board, hesitates and then says "Damn!" louder. He picks up the eraser, and again obliterates the whole problem.

"That's your last warning," says Mr. B.

Austin faces the board, muttering and cursing half-aloud, his shoulders shaking visibly.

"Okay, Austin, go to your desk," Mr. B. says quietly, gesturing across the room to Austin's normal seat. "That's enough."

"No! No! I can do it!" Austin implores him.

"You need to go back to your desk," says Mr. B.

"I want to sit here" with the other students, he says.

"You have to go back."

Austin, seething, says, "That's not possible."

Mr. B, seeking not to escalate, instead directs the other two fourth-graders to follow him to another room. As they leave, Austin, muttering and stamping his feet, starts to follow. At this point, Austin's teacher, Kristi Murphy, who has been quietly working with the fifth-graders in back, intervenes. She stands between Austin and the door.

"Austin. Look at your level and think about what you have done," she says, pointing toward a large wall chart showing that Austin has recently regained his Level 5. Murphy waits a moment as Austin scowls. She says, "Austin, you can get yourself together, or talk to us."

"Why don't you shake your [expletive]!" Austin barks.

Murphy stares at him. Neither speaks for a few moments.

The five fifth-graders are riveted by the confrontation, but they remain silent.

Finally Austin sits, still muttering loudly. By now, the other fourth-graders return. The teachers leave, and Interlude enters its next activity, a session with behavior therapist Marcia Carter. She is launching the class on a new task, planning a "good behavior party" for the following Friday. Austin continues muttering and cursing, facing away from the class. Carter ignores him. But slowly, as the talk turns to students voting on whether the party will have pizza with Pepsi or Dr Pepper, Austin is quietly drawn back into the orbit of activity.

Later that day, Jeanne Harple speculates that my presence in class may have contributed to Austin's losing control. Although Austin had agreed it was okay for me to come observe him, she says, he didn't know there would be a second visitor, whom he did not recognize. "He gets very upset at anything unexpected," she says. "He has to know exactly how it's going to be."

The second observer, Janet Quantrille, the county's supervisor of special programs, says after the class that the staff correctly practiced "planned ignoring" of Austin's cursing. "It was not a meltdown," Quantrille says. "He made the right choices. He did not leave the room. He was able to regroup and move on and still have a successful day, possibly."

Austin's screams can be heard outside the Harples' house as I approach the front door for a Thursday night family dinner in February. Austin is standing halfway up the staircase, raging down at his mother. "Aaaaaargh! Nooooo!!" he shrieks at her, red-faced. "Why 7:30? WHY??"

Austin sees me enter just as he throws a sneaker that narrowly misses a flower vase. Then he flings a second sneaker that lands right at my feet. "You come down on a count of three, pick up those shoes and apologize to Mr. Perl," Jeanne shouts.

Austin instead starts back upstairs.

"AUSTIN RAY! You have to come down and get it."

Austin continues walking upstairs, but some gravitational pull turns him, and he stalks back down and grabs the sneakers. "Sorry!" he barks and stomps back upstairs to his room, screaming his parting shot: "WHY 7:30?"

Jeanne Harple tells me that I've just caught the tail end of a thunderstorm that originated because Austin and Maddie have been late for school for three consecutive days, partly because they've been staying up too late. Austin needs about 12 hours of sleep, she says. Jeanne had warned them that the consequence would be moving up their bedtime by about an hour for the next two nights.

Austin, after exploding, is confined to his room for a timeout. After about 20 minutes, while Jeanne is cooking an elaborate chicken dinner, I ask her if it's okay for me to go ask Austin whether he would let me tape-record a rap song that he recently wrote for his class. She smiles and says sure. We both expect he'll enjoy the chance.

"No!" Austin declares when I ask. Then he says, slyly, "I'll do it if you take me to KFC . . . Popcorn Chicken!"

I tell him I'll gladly take him another day, but it's 5:30 and we're all about to have chicken for dinner. Austin is not deterred. He wants me to take him to KFC right now. I tell him it would be rude to his mother. Wouldn't he feel bad, I ask, hurting someone's feelings?

"I feel bad," Austin says, "but it's over in a second . . . I'm starving for Popcorn Chicken!" Austin smiles mischievously, then starts singing his rap, and says, "I'll do the tape -- if you go ask my mom." When I tell him I'm reluctant, he says, "Ask her. Don't mention that you don't want to go . . . You have to say that Austin wants to go . . . and you have to say that you want it. Try to make it so she says yes -- or you don't hear the tape," he says, grinning. "And I'll be listening."

I am amazed and amused at his chutzpah. I go downstairs, with Austin creeping behind me to listen from the next room. I wink at Jeanne and ask if we can go to KFC. "Nice idea, but not tonight!" she says.

"Popcorn Chicken!" Austin shrieks, springing in from the dining room.

"We're having chicken," Jeanne says.

"I don't want your chicken . . . I'm not going to bed at 7:30!"

"You need to stop screaming in my face," Jeanne says evenly.

Austin storms out the front door. "AUSTIN RAY!" Jeanne calls after him. "You need to come in and have something to eat!" She realized during the earlier fireworks that his volatility had been caused in part by hunger. Now she microwaves him a hot dog before dinner.

Even without KFC, Austin's mood improves enough for him to perform for me. He puts a rap CD in his boombox and starts to rap, with jerky hand motions and funky head-bobbing. But Austin needs to have the song just perfect, so he records and erases, records and erases, records and erases, a total of six times, improvising, until finally:

Yo! Yo! I'm in the fourth grade. Got it all made. Gonna do a raid. Gonna have a party!

Gonna be sippin' on some Sprite. We're not gonna have a fight. We're gonna do this party right! And have a par-tay! . . . Pickin' up some chicks. Gonna play spin-the-bottle. And have Popcorn Chicken . . . Yo! Yo! Matrix . . . Gonna kill Barney!

Two days later, before our scheduled outing for Popcorn Chicken, there is a high-pitched voice on my home answering machine: "Hi, this is Austin. I mean, uh, hi, Mr. Perl, this is Austin. I just wanted to do this song for you." The squeaky voice goes even higher, and starts caroling to the tune of "Deck the Halls": "More more more more more more more more more-more-more-more-more, more-more-more-more. [Inhale] More more more more more more more more more more . . . POPCORN CHICKEN!" Then a long pause, some background whispers from mom, and "Oh yeah. Goodbye . . . Oh, please call me."

The outing is scheduled for Sunday after church. Austin behaves pretty well at Cherrydale Baptist Church, where the Harples have learned to sit in the distant corner of the balcony to minimize disruptions. "I hate this," Austin tells me. But later, when the pastor mentions Hell, Austin smiles. "I love church. They always say cuss words."

At one point, the pastor talks about "men who place too much of the burden for family on the woman," and Chuck and Jeanne exchange meaningful glances. Austin does not miss the point, leaning over the wooden pew and saying, "Hey, Daddy. That's you!"

Back home, Chuck plops on the couch and tells Austin he has to leave town in a few hours for a business trip. "Come sit down, buddy. I'm not gonna see you for a day and a half."

Austin gives him a big hug and says, "I love you."

"I love you," Chuck says, squeezing him hard.

Jeanne gives Austin a hug because he and I are about to go to KFC. She gives him a prolonged cuddle, and Austin says, "You're embarrassing me" and runs for the door, calling back, "I love you!"

Minutes later, we are wolfing down Popcorn Chicken with honey mustard sauce, macaroni and cheese, and Dr Pepper. As we contemplate whether we need a second order, Austin for the first time gives some nearly direct answers to my questions.

How should I describe you in this story? I ask.

"As a rapper! . . . A big, fat rapper!" He smiles.

What about your personal qualities? How would you describe yourself.

"Emotional."

Really? What do you mean?

"I'm tight."

What kind of tight?

"You know . . . like cool."

What else should I say about him?

Austin ponders and says, "He fits in -- sometimes. Other times, not."

As he eats and talks excitedly, he accidentally chomps down hard on his lip. He looks very upset and dabs it with a napkin, disturbed to see he's drawn blood. I assure him it's minor and get more napkins and ice. He says, with no prompting, "Thank you."

Austin is getting impatient, but I ask a few more questions, like why he has such a temper.

"Because I don't get my way."

Do you always have to get your way?

"We gotta go," he says.

"In a minute," I say. Why all the cursing?

"I don't know . . . Sometimes I can stop, sometimes I can't."

It's finally bedtime on another cold school night in February. It's after 8 p.m., and Austin is supposed to be winding down for sleep, but instead he's getting worked up because he can't find a GameCube disk. He's sitting on the floor of his cluttered bedroom, rummaging furiously through his piles of magazines and games.

Chuck comes in, intending to talk to Austin and read to him. But Austin is, for the moment, lost in his zone, not listening.

Chuck decides instead to get Julia to sleep first, so he leaves to give her a bottle and read to her in bed. In the next room, Jeanne is lying beside Maddie, reading her a story about kings and queens and princesses. Chuck is yawning as he reads a prayer to Julia, "God bless us and our family, too. Thank you, God, thank you for your help," as the baby is nodding off.

Later on, the Harples and I will go back downstairs and talk about Austin's future. Their main short-term goals used to be to see their son learn how to get along with other kids and make enough progress to function in a regular school program, they tell me. "We fantasized about him being mainstreamed every day," says Chuck. "We prepare for him to be mainstreamed" now, Jeanne says, but "whether it ever happens, we have to be realistic. I'm not going to try to put him there because that's 'the norm' or that's what other people expect. I have to do what's best for Austin, and if that's keeping him in a self-contained class because he's more in his comfort zone, then that's fine."

Austin's social isolation concerns them, though. "I would say that Jeanne, Maddie and I are his best friends, and that hurts," Chuck says, his voice catching.

Jeanne is hoping that as Austin grows up, eventually their system of incentives will become part of his consciousness. "When he's going to bed or we're driving in the car, we will talk about being respectful of other people. We try to drill it in his head that it's not acceptable behavior," Jeanne says. "Whether he really believes it or not, that's my concern. I want him to do it because it's the right thing to do. Not because he's getting something for it."

While the Harples know Austin's behavior is slowly improving, they fear his academic prospects will not improve unless they can get him into an expensive private school. They know he is far behind because he missed so much school in his early years. Austin gets private tutoring every other week, but needs more academics. "If it's constantly just about behavior," Jeanne worries, "then what kind of education will he get?"

Chuck graduated from St. Mary's College in Maryland, but Jeanne never went to college and she is particularly angry at what she already sees as the school system's diminished expectations for her son. She says she's already been told by teachers that they hope Austin can someday earn his GED. "He will absolutely go to college. Absolutely. It is not an option," she says. "He's going to go on and live a full life. This is just a blip on the radar screen for us."

Her greatest fear is that Austin's behavior will cripple his development and that he will never really grow up, get a job, marry and raise a family. If her hopes are not realized, she says, "Austin will probably be living with us forever."

Meanwhile, the Harples try to stay focused on the daily goals of helping him with both behavior and academics, with emphasis on writing and reading. Austin's current favorite is "Garfield." He loves the mind of the sharp-witted house cat whose sardonic humor skewers the humans. Chuck, after putting the baby to bed, comes back into his son's room to read a Garfield book, now that Austin has finally located his missing video game.

It is after 8:30 now, and everyone's exhausted. Chuck climbs into Austin's bottom bunk alongside his son. In the next room, Jeanne is quietly teaching Maddie how to read the hands of a clock. Chuck starts to softly read the Garfield book aloud. The telephone starts ringing, but the Harples let it go. Chuck starts using two voices to mimic the interaction of Garfield and his owner. After a time, the house falls completely quiet, except for the sound of Chuck reading and Austin laughing softly.

Peter Perl is a Magazine staff writer. He and Jeanne and Chuck Harple will be fielding questions and comments about this article Monday at 1 p.m. on http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2004/03/18/DI2005040306825.html.