postcards for parents

Greetings!

My son, T.R., entered sixth grade this year, and he's been very 
appropriately exploring who he is in relation to the many new 
freedoms and responsibilities that come with middle school. 

It's new territory for me, too, and it's not always easy to know 
what is his business and what is mine as the boundaries change 
and expand. 

After a pretty nasty fight over his choice of breakfast one morning, 
I realized that what he ate was no longer my business.  (actually, 
it really never was my business in the first place, but I sometimes 
forget that).  

My business is what kind of food I purchase and make available 
in our kitchen.  His business is to select from those options, 
or to choose 'none of the above' if he feels so inclined, and 
go to school and spend his allowance at the vending machine.   

So after school I apologized for the way the day had started, 
and told him that I realized I'd been interfering in his business, 
and that I'd do my best to stay out of it in the future.  
He looked at me with such tenderness, and said, "It's ok mom.  
I know it's hard for you to get out of my business, because 
after all you've been in it my whole life!" 

So it's a constant balancing act, but I thought I was doing 
pretty well with it.  And then I received a rather scathing 
email from his dad telling me that our son had not been 
completing his homework assignments in a timely fashion, 
and asking why he had not done any work on these long term 
projects while he was at my house.

He requested that I go through T's backpack each night and 
look at all his papers, checking for due dates and then 
making sure he stayed on schedule.

Although it seemed to be a logical intervention, something 
about it was disturbing to me.  I didn't want to do it.  
I hated the idea of taking over something that I thought 
was well within the realm of self-responsibility for a sixth grader.  

My instinct told me to let T learn from his own experience what 
happens when homework isn't completed on time.  But I didn't 
want to drop the ball, either.  I just wasn't sure where my 
responsibility as a parent fell in this situation.  

Or more accurately, I had been sure until I got that email, 
and then I looked around and realized that I really didn't 
know this territory, and what if I was lost?

Being the sort of person who loves to gather information and 
input whenever I'm in a quandary, I decided to contact his 
teachers, feeling fairly confident that they've seen things 
like this before.  If they said it would serve him for me to 
take over managing his homework, then I would do it, no matter 
how much the idea repulsed me.

Thankfully, they did not.  Instead they fully supported my 
instinct to let him learn by experiencing the consequences 
of his choices, even if it meant watching his grades slip 
while he fumbled to grasp the connection. 

One teacher even loaned me her personal copy of the Love and Logic 
tape called Winning the Homework Battle by Foster Cline and Jim Fay.  
And that's what restored my confidence in my instincts.

I'd read their book Parenting with Love and Logic many years ago, 
and loved their assertion that parents should stay out of the 
choice/consequence feedback loop as much as possible.  

The hallmark example of their philosophy in action is letting 
a child go out into the cold without a proper jacket.  There's 
a big difference between your child choosing a jacket next time 
based on her previous experience of shivering vs. wearing a coat 
because mom said she couldn't go out without it. 

One is an authentic, repeatable, and sustainable inner awareness 
of choice and consequence, and the other is compliance with an 
external authority who must then be present for the desired behavior 
to occur in the future.  I don't know about you, but I plan to be 
out of the loop someday, so I'd much prefer intrinsic awareness 
as a motivator for my kids, and the sooner the better!

The tape was such a timely reminder -- so clear about what was 
my problem and what was my son's, and confirmed what I have seen 
over and over to be true:  there are very few things that I can 
really and truly MAKE my child do.  

I can't MAKE him eat, I can't MAKE him be nice, and I can't MAKE 
him do his homework.  So what can I do?  

I can put nourishing food on the table, and share my enjoyment 
while eating it.  I can be nice to him, and to others in front 
of him, and hope he decides that it feels good and he'd like to 
be that way, too.  

And I can clear off the table after dinner, light a candle, 
sharpen the pencils, and sit down to balance my checkbook or 
write a letter during family study time, and invite him to 
take that opportunity to complete his homework.

The rest is up to him.

The tape was chock full of gems, some of which brought me to 
tears. Cline and Fay relate several personal stories from their 
experiences as parents, as well as their own childhoods.  
A particularly relevant story was shared by Cline, who had 
a learning disability as a child (back in the days before 
special ed) and regularly brought home report cards filled 
with D's and F's.  

His father would ask him every time if he was proud of his 
report card, and he would say 'no, sir.'  To which his father 
would reply 'Good!  I'm glad to hear that!' and then sign off 
on it.  There would be no further discussion. 

In about 9th grade he grew out of his disability, and went on 
to become an MD who is very highly regarded today for his 
extensive knowledge about parenting, among other things.  
He attributes his success to confidence in himself and his 
abilities, which was never shaken by his parents, who made 
a very conscious and deliberate choice to celebrate his 
strengths and overlook his areas of 'weakness'.

Cline and Fay refer to studies which conclude that grades 
simply do not correlate to success in adult life as measured 
by financial standards or intellectual contributions made 
to society. What does correlate is how well the individual 
knows and draws upon their areas of competence, and how 
capable they feel themselves to be.

Which brings me back to homework.  If I rummage through my 
son's backpack and then sit down and monitor the completion 
of his homework, what message am I sending to him?  Maybe 
that I don't think he's capable of taking care of this part 
of his life.  

And that is not a message that I want to deliver.  So instead, 
with the help of this tape, I'm hanging back.  I'm telling 
him that I'm aware that he's having a problem with homework, 
but that I know he can come up with a solution, and to let 
me know if there's any way I can be helpful.

One of my favorite stories on the tape took place when one 
of their sons decided to test out his freedom to do some, 
all, or none of his homework.  For 13 days in a row, he 
chose to do none of it.  At that point his father said, 
"So son, it looks like you've chosen not to do any of 
your homework.  Is that correct?"  And his son grinned 
and said "yep, that's right."

To which his father replied (using a tried and true 
Love and Logic phrase), "No problem!  Because I checked 
with the folks up at the school, and they assured me 
that they offer 5th grade every year.  So anything that 
you miss from not doing homework this year, you can 
just pick up next year!" and walked away.

And what do you know, very soon after that, his son of 
his own accord decided he'd do some homework.  And although 
he did just enough to get by, he did not need to repeat 5th grade.

There's so much on this tape, and the other materials available 
at loveandlogic.com, that rather than go on and on about it I'd 
just like to highly recommend all of their work.  They've done 
a terrific job, so there's no need for me to reinvent the wheel.

I realize that this is potentially a very controversial approach 
to parenting.  All I can tell you is that I've seen it work 
better than anything else in my own family. So maybe, if like 
me you feel frustrated and overwhelmed with the old model of 
parenting, and you are looking for another way, you might 
want to check it out.

As always, I welcome your comments and ideas.

take care,
karen