By Hal E. Runkel, LMFT

Ever feel like you’ve blown it? You’ve faced a critical test (with your kids this morning, for instance), you had every desire to respond in the right way, do the right thing, and you do the very thing you swore you’d never do again. You blew up at your kids, or caved in, or just checked out, and now you feel like you’ve blown another opportunity to make some progress in those relationships. You just blew it.

Please forgive the sports metaphor, but Brad Lidge knows how you feel. Lidge is the “closer” for the Houston Astros, my favorite baseball team. As closer, he is called upon to finish the game. His team has the lead with one inning to go, and it’s his job to get the last three outs and claim victory. In dramatic wording, this feat is called “saving” the game.

So what happens if he doesn’t get the save? What’s that called? You guessed it: a “blown” save. What a job, huh? Out there on the world’s stage, out there for the world to see and judge, Lidge and other closers like him can “save” the game. Or they can “blow” it.

Well, two nights ago, Lidge got his chance. Thanks to a late-inning homerun, the Astros came to the ninth inning with a two-run lead over the St. Louis Cardinals. The Astros simply needed three outs to win the game, win the series, and move on to the World Series for the first time in their existence. He got the first two outs easily, and he quickly rang up two strikes on the last batter. The crowd began to lather up with 45 years of pent-up frustration and hope. The First Couple of Astros fans, George and Barbara Bush, stood up with eager anticipation just behind home plate. This was a chance to ease all the pain and make up for past mistakes, and set in motion a new pattern, and new standard of excellence.

A base hit, a walk, and a towering three-run homer later, however, and the Cardinals had a miraculous comeback to bring the series back to St. Louis. And Brad Lidge had nothing but the worst blown save of his career. Ask him and he’ll tell you: he absolutely blew it. In front of God and everybody, he blew it.

Maybe you can feel his pain. You probably know what it’s like to blow it. Like this morning. With your kids. And it hurts. It hurts knowing you could have done better. It hurts knowing how many people were depending on you to do it better. It hurts knowing you’ve blown a moment that you can never re- create, never get back.

Now your teenaged daughter doesn’t want to talk to you. Now your school-aged son is feeling more insecure than before. Now your toddler knows your breaking point, knows just how to push you there, and doesn’t realize that knowledge isn’t good for her. Now your spouse is moving a little closer to your kids, and a little farther away from you.

Worst of all, now you begin to resent them all. And begin to lose a little more confidence in yourself and your own self-control. You’ve blown it.

But Here’s The Good News

In this section of our newsletter, we have Hal answer a direct question asked by one of our ScreamFree Parents. Today's question concerns a familiar issue with a teenager.

Dear Hal,
My 14-year-old has begun to get out with his friends a lot and I don’t feel like we talk as much as we used to. And when we do talk we seem to argue or clash. How can I improve things?

Your son is beginning to launch away from you into adulthood. This can be a dizzying time for everyone involved. One minute a teen can be shyly dependent, and another minute later openly defiant. One minute a parent can be excited about his child’s development, and the next scared to death.

What’s important is for you to calmly realize what’s happening: your son is launching out on his own. The last thing he needs is a parent who anxiously needs him to stay young. Right now he sees you as an enemy of his launching process. What needs to happen is for you to become the architect of it. How can you encourage him toward more freedom and responsibility? While never caving on what boundaries you believe are necessary, how can you increase his freedom within those boundaries?

I remember a coaching client struggling with this very issue a few years ago. Her son had just obtained his driver's license, but she was scared to death for him to drive on any freeways. So she made him take sidestreets all over Atlanta. Of course, his mom's anxiety made him want to take the freeway all the more.

My counsel was to highlight her choices. She could continue to prohibit his freeway excursions until he someday broke that rule (the restricting his freedom model) or she could be the one to encourage his newfound freedom. I told her that if she really wanted to revolutionize her relationship with her son, she should send him on an errand--one that necessitated driving the freeway the whole time.

You can imagine the look on the kid's face when Mom did just that. And you can imagine his changing thoughts about her as he drove.

It is not our job to restrict our kids' freedom just to assuage our anxiety. It is our job to constructively increase our kids' freedom, and the natural responsibility that comes with it.

And believe it or not, the best way you can do that is to begin to focus more on yourself. He’s growing up; what are you starting to pursue with your increasing free time, now that he doesn’t require as much supervision? What plans are you beginning to make for your life as he begins to leave?

And remember to take care,
Hal

Want to read all of Hal's past "Ask Hal" replies? Check out the new Ask Hal Archives page here.

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