This is a video of Brene Brown’s marvelous TED talk, The Power of Vulnerability.  This should be required viewing for the entire human race.

Struggling with how to deal with my teen and pre-teen boys asserting themselves and finding themselves in the veritable maze that we now seem to navigate daily (sometime days better than others), I have discovered that going back to basics is key.

Basic #1.  Your kids do not need a friend, or a buddy or a pal.  They need a parent.  And parents can seem unreasonable and embarrassing and like they don’t know what they are talking about.  But at the end of the day, “Because I am your mom” is enough.  No other explanation necessary.

Basic #2.  Everything is a privilege.  Soccer is not a right.  Baseball is not a right.  Being driven anywhere is not a right.  Computers, iPods, Xboxes, cell phones, iPads, playing with friends, riding in the front seat, being left home alone, being allowed to “go on ahead” on your own, being allowed to go to a party, ceremony, friends house, guitar lessons, it is all a privilege.  And it can all be taken away.

Basic #3. If you say it – swear it – threaten it – or even whisper it loud enough for them to hear, you MUST follow through and/or stand your ground.   Regardless.

Basic #4.  While critical thinking is a valuable skill, and the art of the negotiation is an admirable quality even in your children, bartering is for the birds.  Bartering is exchanging one thing for another – for example, “If you clean the bathroom, you can play Xbox online with your friends.”  This sets a dangerous precedent for years of misery.  Do not barter with your kids.  They need to clean the bathroom because they use it.

Basic #5.  Reward the good. Comment on the good.  Focus on the positive.  Everyone just wants to feel like they are loved and that they make a positive contribution.  So let them.

It’s 5-o-clock in the morning.  Regardless of what time I go to bed, or how I feel, I always wake up at this time.  I decided to stop fighting it.  I’m outside on the patio of my house in the valley feeling the cool morning air caressmy woozy head. I don’t know why everyone hates the valley.  It’s beautiful in the early morning.  And in the late evening.  Just ignore the daytime July through September.

Looking at my kids’ play structure makes me want to cry. Thinking of Team Melton, what we all call our family, makes me sad beyond words. Pretending that we are a happy little family that can spend time together as though nothing has changed since we split up makes me cringe, as it is a recipe for disaster.

And disaster it was. After being plied with too many triggers (food, junk everywhere, wine, no one listening – the list seems endless!) I cried because of how painful it is to pretend. How trapped I felt, how disingenuous. The pressure was more than I could bear, and things were said and done under that pressure that wouldn’t normally be said or done.

Today, now, I accept full responsibility for it all. For being an emotional wreck. For being human. For being imperfect.  For surviving a failed marriage.  I will no longer pretend. To myself. To my ex-husband. To my friends. To the world. And finally to my kids.

Happily ever after isn’t, always. Happy. But it can be manageable. After having pretty much exploded under the pressure of pretense and caused an unknown number of future therapy sessions for my kids, I realize that there is a better way to handle this situation. With grace. And honesty. And compassion for all involved.

The first thing that I am going to do is alter one environment at a time. My home environment first. I am removing all triggers – and finding a better way to deal with them – for at this point exposing myself to messy piles of junk, his stuff still in the house, baked goods, booze, and/or dog poop that hasn’t been picked up in a week, can only be likened to dropping a match on the wick of a firecracker. Once done, it’s best to step back and watch the spectacle.

Second, I will alter my relationship with Keith, my ex-husband. After apologizing to everyone (even myself), I sat on the front porch with him and told him that we need to stop acting like it is anything other than what it is…us, divorced. God that is an ugly word. Never did I ever think I, or my kids, would have to experience the knowledge, the feeling the, the, the what? Shame, disappointment, loneliness of divorce? Of them having two homes, two rooms, a split up life?

Moving forward, we will do our best to handle this situation and each other with kindness and respect. He agreed. We sat on the front porch for a bit. And then I got up. And felt sad. And all of a sudden exhausted from too little sleep. But I also felt lighter and peaceful knowing that some of the pressure had been removed. That we are on the same page. That he and kids and I will still be a team – a team that will find a way to operate and function and still win – even with two home fields.

Lying in bed with a weeping child, I could not help but weep as well. I held him and felt his pain, felt his confusion. Giving him permission to experience whatever he needed to, validating each emotion as it came up, and comforting him was all I could do.

At a certain point, there seemed to be no end in sight to the downward emotional spiral we both were now involved in. Realizing I was the adult that my child was counting on to help him through this, not just go along with him for the ride, I took a deep breath and asked him a very difficult question, a very adult question, “What is the gift?”

“Are you kidding me?” I tried not to look surprised by his answer. “No, “ I continued gently, “let’s find the gift in this situation.” He responded angrily, “There is no gift in this situation!” Well, at least we had shifted from despair to anger – at this point that was progress. So I began the conversation. “It’s a gift that we are able to be here together and talk, not everyone is able to do that, not everyone has someone they feel safe with to talk about stuff.”

My child paused, and I saw him shifting from anger to awareness of his world, as he listened to me trying desperately to find the gift for him. “I am grateful you feel deeply and are such a loyal and loving son. I am grateful that you are able to share your thoughts and feelings with me. I am grateful for the opportunity to be here for you when you needed me. I am grateful for this big comfy bed we are in. I am grateful for my cashmere blanket that you always try to steal,” and as I snuggled him a little closer, “I am grateful you showered.” That got him. The tears had stopped as he listened to my gift and gratitude list. He shifted into a state of calmness, and in the end laughter. “Your turn,” I said.

And for the next hour, we lay in the dark of the room, at first talking about what we were grateful for, and eventually, calmly, about where the tears and emotions came from, how to welcome them, embrace them and eventually, let them go. It may be awhile before they are fully gone, but we both drifted off to sleep knowing that as they come up, as anything comes up in the future, we have so much to be grateful for, and there is always a gift to be found, even in the most difficult of situations. And the journey of discovering it with another person, with a child, with your child, is a gift in and of itself.