THE HOMEWORK POWER STRUGGLE

If you care about theirhomework more than the kids do, there’s a problem. This is the kids’ issue, not yours. It’s not about whether you’re a good or a bad parent. It’s about the kid. Even really great parents have sometimes have kids who do poorly in school.

Trying to wrestle your kids into doing homework is exhausting. Unless you’ve got the kind of child who eagerly completes the assignments given, you’ve probably struggled with this. Striking a balance between being an indifferent parent and an over-involved helicopter parent is the challenge.

Homework is the kid’s business, not yours.

It is appropriate for parents to set up a firm home structure, which allows for time to complete homework and it is appropriate to limit access to electronics during this time. Parents can also stress that, while the assignments are the kids’ responsibility, there can be longterm, life consequences to not doing these. This is the parental role in stressing the importance of homework. You don’t need to blow off the importance of this in kids lives, but you don’t need to make getting it done your business, either.

Parents can be helpful in many ways and can certainly be involved, but children have to decide if they care about their grades. They get confused when their school work seems to be more about you than them. Power struggles—you know the threatening, yelling, grounding part—leads to this confusion.

Homework is their business.

You can be around to be supportive, if they need help. You can arrange tutors in areas where they’re weak. You can certainly find help if the child has a significant learning issue. You can’t, however, make your child care about doing well in school. If you punish them for unfinished assignments, you’re missing the point. School success can only be the result of children deciding to succeed.

You need to let them fail. You can talk--without a great deal of emotion--about the difficulty in trying to find a good job without an education. But you need to let them decide. This is a massively important life lesson.

It may sound horrible, but failure provides a life lesson that everyone needs to learn. Failure and the fear of failing can motivate a change in the way your children deal with their school work. They have to decide if school success is important to them. Your job is to point out the value of graduating high school and college and then get out of the way. Do this early in the child’s academic life, rather than waiting until high school, when the consequences are more life-altering.

Remember, kids need to make their own experiences. This is massively important in life overall and really pivotal in academic achievement. Applying parental pressure to the homework dilemma doesn’t solve the problem. The biggest lesson kids need to learn is to assume responsibility for their own school achievements.

GOODBYE HURTS, BUT CHEATING HURTS WORSE

Blocked relationships are like clogged plumbing—the emotional stuff has to go somewhere. If you’re in a relationship with issues that have been unresolved for a long time, you’re vulnerable to falling into something with someone else. The longer your primary relationship goes unresolved, the more likely this is to happen.

Leaving an unhappy relationship can seem too jarring and too absolute, though. You probably swing back and forth between hope and frustration. One week everything is better and you hope that the two of you have gotten over your conflicts; the next week you’ll be having the same conflicts and running through the same arguments. But leaving seems very final.

After all, you love this person, even if you’re not in love anymore. You have history with her or him. You may share children and a legal tie of marriage. You shared some good times. And even if you get really, really mad at him now and get very tired of the arguments (or the chilly non-arguments), you don’t wish bad things on him. You don’t want him to die.
If the love is gone, though, you need to go.

If your emotional plumbing is blocked, you are more vulnerable to finding affection elsewhere. Developing feelings for a different someone is likely and this only makes your situation worse. You may think you can keep this all going and limp along till the children are older or your parents die(and won’t be upset at your divorce). You might think that what your mate doesn’t know won’t hurt her, but secrets have a way of leaking out. If you’re not in your relationship, you’re not in the relationship.

Even if you squeak by with something on the side, you’ll eventually be found out and, then things get really ugly.

Infidelity makes everything even more difficult for your current mate. Breaking up is always hard to do; it’s even harder when the one who has been committed to you, falls in love with someone else. Being cheated on sucks.

Not everyone with a dysfunctional relationship cheats, but too often this is the case. Even if you don’t get involved with a new person, staying in an unhappy relationship isn’t good for anyone.
Get help or get gone. You might possibly do both, but one way or the other, don’t just live in limbo. Don’t think you can deal with it until your children get older (unhappy relationships still effect kids) or try to get your jollies through work or friendships.

Bad relationships need to get better or they need to be put to rest. If you can’t resolve the issues on your own, get help. You deserve a happy life and so does your mate.

Doing Your Half

You’ve probably heard that relationships sometimes require you to give 110%. It is true that you sometimes give more when your mate is struggling, but you need to also know that you don’t get to tell your significant other what to do. The most challenging part of love is that, while you are impacted by the loved one’s choices, you don’t get to direct these.

Yes, I know that doesn’t seem fair, but it is what it is.

If your partner makes choices that are detrimental to the relationship—cheats, adopts dangerous habits or ignores your existence—you always have the option to leave the relationship. You may owe this to yourself, in fact. But you still don’t get to tell him how to live or the choices he should and shouldn’t make. You may want to argue about this and you might insist that if you adjust your behavior because he doesn’t like it, he should have to do the same for you.

He doesn’t. But then, you don’t have to stay.

Actions in relationship will effect the relationship. This is a given. Love may be unconditional, but relationships are not. The choices both you and your partner make will either foster or destroy the relationship. There are consequences to ignoring or disregarding your partner’s opinions and feelings and vice versa. But you still don’t get to make him or her behave a certain way to make sure you feel safe and loved.

It just doesn’t work this way. Your partner must decide her own behavior based on the results she desires, as you must behave to encourage what you want in the relationship.

Not getting to tell him what to do doesn’t mean you don’t have any say-so in the relationship, though. You have a lot. You get to make your own choices and you decide if you’re remaining in the relationship, or getting out. You need to know that your power lies in what you do and how you act, not in yelling at him if he doesn’t return your calls(or whatever). Your power is in how you conduct your half of the relationship. Look carefully at the actions your taking. These are what empower you.

You might want to argue that you’re playing fair, but she isn’t. Well, then, you need to tell her the impact her choices are making on you. You get to say "When you do this____, I feel ____." You get to communicate your feelings. Be aware that you get to end the relationship, if you’re not getting as much from it as it is costing you emotionally. You get to leave, if you need to.

But loss feels sucky. You love your partner or you wouldn’t be here. You might even have kids together or share a mortgage. You’ve probably got history. You don’t want to leave, you just want things to be better. You want him to be better. Possibly you’ve found yourself longing for things to be like they "used to be."

That doesn’t make it so, though. All your yelling, withholding sex and threatening to leave isn’t as powerful as you doing your half. Leave if you need to leave. It’s like voting with your feet. But don’t forget to look at your own actions and don’t justify these by saying she did it first.
Don’t threaten, though. That has the same result as the boy crying wolf. Say what the impact the behavior has on you; listen hard to your partner’s feelings(even when these seem accusatory) and remember to do your half.

Then, if you need to leave, leave.