by Hal E. Runkel, LMFT, Founder and President, ScreamFree Living, Inc.

My wife loves tennis. She started back in the game last year, and it has been incredible for our whole family. She is more energized, in better shape, and can more easily keep her cool. This new way of taking care of herself is a perfect example of the ScreamFree principle, “Put on Your Own Oxygen Mask First.”

There are times, however, when I think she plays too often. There are several great leagues around Atlanta, and the better she gets the more offers she gets from these leagues. And in the summer, when she’s home all day with the kids, those offers to leave the house and compete aggressively in an athletic exercise with other adults...well, those offers are mighty hard to turn down. Even when I tell her that I’d like her to stay home instead. Last week, that is exactly what happened. And it provided an amazing chance for me, our marriage, and my relationship with my kids to grow. Painful growth, but growth all the same.

I had not enjoyed a particularly great day to begin with. And when I came home, it started to get even worse. I began feeling a little sick. Now Jenny had already scheduled her tennis practice that night, and I was prepared to spend the night with just me and the kids. But as I began to feel worse, I really did not want her to go. She had already played a makeup match from a rainout over the weekend, and she was scheduled to play a match on the upcoming weekend as well. Plus, rain was threatening and her partner had called her to question whether they should play at all. This all added up to me making a bold, clear, “I” statement: “I really do not want you to go tonight. It is obviously your choice, and I may resent you if you go, but I will not let that resentment affect our relationship. I’m not going anywhere, but again, I wish you would stay.”

Mind you, our relationship has grown astronomically over the last 15 years or so. And each of us, on our own, has developed a strong sense of autonomy, especially in dealing with each other. We have learned that the key to a strong (and ScreamFree) marriage is not trust, nor compatibility. The key to a great marriage is mutual self-respect—two people focusing on themselves enough to approach one another as mature adults choosing to be together.

Because of this strong sense of self, my wife’s response was: “Thanks for telling me how you feel. And knowing that you will be OK with us even if I go makes it even harder to say this, but, I really need to go tonight and I’m choosing to go.” Just then, her ride pulled up into the driveway, she kissed me and the kids good night, and she left.

In this section of our newsletter, we have Hal answer a direct question asked by one of our ScreamFree Parents. Today's question examines the dreaded homework battles facing too many parents as we all prepare for another school year.

My nine-year old child doesn’t seem to make doing his homework a priority. Sometimes he misses deadlines on assignments. I just want to sit there and watch that he completes his schoolwork. Is this the best strategy?

Not if you want his homework to ever become his priority. The homework battle seems to plague every house in the world. This is not because we as a society put so much stock in the education process; the problem has very little to do with school. Homework just happens to provide a very convenient territory on which to battle for control. Who’s life is this? That’s the real question here. We parents are reluctant to give over this area of life to our children because we fear they will never take it as seriously as they need to (or we need them to).

We then allow this fear to shape our vision of the future, wondering if they’ll ever get an education, if they’ll ever get a job, and so on. So, we think, we had better nip this lack of motivation thing right in the bud, right now, by forcing them to do homework and get good grades, even if it means hovering over them every night until they’re eighteen! What inevitably happens, however, is that we actually prevent them from ever adopting their education as their own. As long as we feel and act responsible for them and their education (which we equate with their whole future!), then they never feel responsible for themselves. But when we can calm our anxiety about their school, then we can be responsible to them in new ways.

This means only offering to help if they request it. This means inquiring about progress but in the same way we might ask a friend about how their job is going. This means pursuing our own life and our own continuing education.

I know parents face so much pressure (from society, from extended family, other families in the school, and from the school itself) to make sure their kids do well in school.

But take it from my wife, Jenny, a veteran teacher of high school juniors and seniors: The kids who do best in school are the ones who take ultimate responsibility for their own education. Sometimes this occurs despite their parents' overreaching efforts, but usually those kids have parents who are involved but not responsible, interested but not needy.

And remember to take care,
Hal

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