It is not my life

A month+ has gone by, and while I must admit I was reading a good book that had nothing to do with parenting... it wasn't that good! Is this why "real people" bloggers end up not writing as frequently as they thought they would? And why would I assume that I am more "real" than the people that actually do consistently blog? Whatever...as my daughter has taught me to say.

The latest news here is that the my husband and I are in agreement that my son needs to change his habits and that the rubber has met the road as we have agreed to "just say no" to constant internet availability in our home. Do you have teenagers or young twenty-somethings? Do you understand the magnitude of this decision? We have one very unhappy young man! Could it be that this gives him some incentive to really look for work? Could it be that this motivates him to move on and move out? Could it be that this means that we have daily arguments, including phone calls while I'm at work, where I have to say... "so sad... that is just the way it is... get a job... I love you... I know you can do better..." and so on? Hopefully he will have more incentive to look for work... and I can assure you that we do have arguments daily! He is taking a full load at Community College, but the fact remains that he spends the rest of his time "on-line" one way or another. He is 20... I love him to death... he needs to figure himself out, and ultimately... it is not my problem... it is his problem... and even though I would like to take it on as my own (after all... I am his Mother), I cannot. It is his life... it is not my life. He is not a child...he grew up, and while I may have had other ideas about what that would look like for my 20 year old son, he is what he is and I need to remove myself from what he decides he will be for two reasons: The first is that it is his decision and the second is that it is not in my control anyway... wake up Mom and face the music... it is what it is.

Living life with no time to write about it!

It has been pointed out to me that I have not written for quite some time. Unfortunately this does not mean that the issues have gone away... I have just been so involved with the issues that I did not care to revisit them after living through them. This is counter-productive because writing is a wonderful way of processing reality... so here I am again!

What is really cool about not being too much of a helicopter parent is to see how the consequences of the actions of our children play out in their lives to teach them the lessons we have tried to drum into them... but to no avail. So, if you wait and don't try to pour information that simply will not be heard (no matter how excellent and helpful) into the ears of your functionally deaf kids, you will see what happens based on what they did. If the resulting difficulties weren't happening to our beloved flesh and blood it would be tempting to say: "I told you so." I think the Love and Logic gurus tell us to say: "Bummer." The point being that they get to figure it out based on their own experience. The minute I have pointed out the obvious in the hope that my child will get it is the same minute that they tell me that I'm wrong and all of a sudden the issue has become about me being negative or discouraging and whatever the issue was spirals into what it isn't and the possibility of learning is really compromised. Don't give them something to push against because they will push... period.

More tomorrow on what this dynamic looks like in my home. I'm off to read a good book that has nothing to do with parenting!

My daughter tells me that I need to employ tough love with her brother... tough love must exist!

My daughter called me at work and because the sun was shining... a rare event in Oregon... she asked me to go for a walk when I got home. I said yes, of course... she is an 18 year old who actually asked to spend time with her mother, after all. And she is delightful to be with! Well, she set me straight on a few things... and she didn't even read my previous post about tough love. Wow... from the mouths of babes. She had plenty to say about my son taking advantage of me and not taking responsibility for himself and the extent of his ungratefulness and his abuse of privileges and many other things. She told me that I needed to do tough love on him or he would just keep on with more of the same... and that if I really wanted him to face up to what he has done to himself that I can't make things easy for him here at home because then how would he ever learn? Wow.

I love my children so much. When I hear truth from one of them about the other that is painful I wish that they didn't think that about their sibling and that it simply was not true... but my daughter is right and the real question, which I want to avoid, is... what will I do about it?

Practically speaking, I set some limits with my son that ended up with him being very unhappy and me being matter of fact about it... I still need work in this area... and I'm sure my daughter will help keep me honest.

Is "Tough Love" a myth?

I have read so much about the theory of "Tough Love". I would like to hear some real stories about the implementation of tough love that doesn't end up eviscerating the family members that implement it... or maybe I need to hear survival stories of the family members that did implement tough love... how do you do it and let go?

Last night my husband and I sat down with my son and set out the basics of what he needs to do to be able to continue living here after having to leave his University. We are dealing with a boy who turned 20 in November and the rules that applied at 16 don't work anymore. What doesn't work for our family are late hours that keep us up... sleeping in all day and not working... and little respect for our expectations, which, frankly, aren't that stringent. So let's say he chooses not to comply, or lies about his hours, job search, class attendance at his new school, etc. At what point do we say.. hey... this isn't working... move out and good luck. His step- father could do this much more easily than I ever could. How do I do this? What do I do with the stress that has been created as I try to broker the deal that will make us all comfortable? And if I fail to do that, when do I pull the plug? How do I pull the plug? How do I let my kid go?

Catching up to life and life catching up... help!

Blogging is an interesting thing as compared to keeping a journal. When I have written in a journal the thoughts are for my own contemplation as I write, and for later as I go back and read them. Here I write with the possibility of it being read which changes the nature of what I write. Good... bad... or just different? I will figure it out as I go, which is how most of life is lived!

This has been an interesting week as we adjust and settle in to having my son back at home after being mostly gone for nearly a year and a half. It has caused problems between my husband and myself, and problems in general. I have second guessed myself constantly about our choice to not try to have my son stay at his University. It would have been the easiest thing to do in many ways, yet likely not the most beneficial for him in terms of him really taking responsibility for his own mistakes. The big question is how much he has to feel the consequences to get the point without drowning and perpetuating the failure, and what my role is in allowing the consequences to teach him to the point where he will get it but not to the point that I'm rescuing him. This is where I need support, because I have not done this before.

My husband and I are attempting to set up some boundaries with my son that we can both live with in terms of household issues... such as times for electronics to be off, times to wake up, job searching, and help around the house. The job issue is really difficult given the economy. There isn't much out there, but my son has to at least try and look. How do we measure this? Another unknown... there are a lot of unknowns.

And I think my kids are addicted to the computer?

Okay... confession time. Tonight I was texting, facebooking, playing scrabble, chatting on facebook, checking email and working on a translation job all at the same time. I had to make it a point to ask my husband if he wanted to do something together and then set a time to do it... I have 5 minutes to finish this post!

A good day today as we figure out the future and what it will look like for my son... and for me as I try to let go... more tomorrow, as I have a date!

Teaching 1st graders is a great break from parenting!

I think that my "hover mother brake" broke today. I have been trying to help my kids without being overly zealous about it and then my son said, "Quit hovering, Mother, I've got this." Well now. Part of my whole deal here is that I'm trying to back out so that he can take over and succeed or fail on his own so that then he can say... "Oh, I did that all on my own." Good or bad, that's what I'm looking for. Balance. Try again.

So I would rather reflect on teaching 1st graders today. I have a young boy who is having a hard time in school, and it turns out it is the direct result of the opposite problem I have with my own offspring. His parents simply don't parent much at all. There is the flip side of the Mom who cares too much. He is having difficulty learning to read and is just not buying into the whole learning/school system. Today, after my after school reading class, I played some basketball with him. Now, I am bad at basketball and was missing every shot, but having a great time running around with my students. Jose finally said (in Spanish)... Look, teacher, what you need to do is stand like this and hold the ball like this and then do your wrist like this... and he showed me. Wow! I was determined to follow his instructions and I made two shots in a row! Jose was smiling like I have never seen him smile before. Being a teacher I couldn't help but make it a teachable moment and told him, "See, Jose, you can teach me how to shoot baskets and I can teach you how to read... you are a great teacher!" He liked that a lot. So did I.