Arg. Arg. Arg. Arg. Arg.

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Did your parents every tell you "This hurts me more than it hurts you." Did you believe 'em at the time?

Acts faster than voting!

Of course not.

If you are now a parent, do you NOW believe what your parents told you?

Of course, if you are worthy of being called a parent. Plenty of people out there have children and are not parents, but that's another story.

It doesn't have to a paddling to hurt either. I got my share of those. My kids have gotten less than I did. Which doesn't mean I don't have to step in and be the heavy from time to time.

But since I am raising my kids to think critically, I often do something I've only rarely seen other parents do.

I ask my kids what they think I should do. This is a modified Socratic method of learning. If that link is not sufficiently obfuscatory (much like my writings), I could do worse. Instead, here's a bit simpler explanation.

Exactly.

In short - the Socratic method means the teacher asks questions. Students must come to their own conclusions based on what they know.

Ooo ah. This has, in my kids at least, a far greater effect than you might imagine. By involving them in the decision, they have to own up to whatever they did wrong. Some times my inquiry gets an "I don't know" but I put a kibosh on that too. I give them options and if they don't chose an option, I pick the worst in terms of consequences to them.

This in no way deadens my pain. It still hurts.

More'n one parent has privately expressed to me "I'd rather take a beating than have to discipline my kids."

Yup. Been there. Done that. Spent the whole night unable to sleep.

Sigh.

Cell phone ... get it?

Last night was another one of these times.

I recently got Susan a cell phone. Part of the agreement is: Homework first. Then, phone goes off at 9 p.m.

You know where this going. But I still gotta say it. Some things just have to be said.

She asked if she could keep the phone in her room. With some reservations, I said yes.

Last night around 10:30 I heard voices in her room. With a sinking heart and trepidation, I went to her room, opened the door. Yup. She was talking to a boy, a boy whose already been warned that come 9 p.m. she's not allowed on the phone. A boy who was warned if he broke the rule, he would some day be able to again use a phone after long and painful physical therapy. (Yes, the boy actually is afraid of me, which shows he has a modicum of sense.)

I took the phone, barked "GOODNIGHT!" into it and turned it off.

"Um, what time is is?" Susan asked.

"10:30," I replied.

She may not have know the exact time, but she certainly knew it was after 9 p.m.

Word.

After taking possession of the phone, I scanned the phone records. She violated the 9 p.m. rule more than once. I was and still am not happy. And it still hurts.

I clearly remember her delight in getting the phone. "It makes me feel important." she said. I also gotta admit, I like the idea of being able to find her (GPS tracking) and call her when I need to.

But, she broke the rule. The phone now sits idle and will remain idle for two weeks. Then we'll try it again. If she breaks the rule again I'm not certain what condition the phone will be in when she gets it back. It make work, or it may not. If it doesn't work, no repair center on earth will be able to make it work. A load of birdshot from 12 gauge will ensure that.

I have no doubts that right now she's more than a bit mad at me. But as Melanie said, "those are the lessons we learn fastest."

Mel also passed on this parenting wisdom "It takes time to get them used to the rules and responsibility of the phone. Within a year we no longer checked on it [her son's phone] regularly and he was doing fine."

And, it still hurts.

It also makes me think of all the pain I put my own parents through. Looking back through a lens 40-something years in the making, I can say my folks did a pretty good job of being parents. Certainly they could have done a hell of a lot worse.

As parents, it's our job to set the rules. As children, it's our job to test those rules. As a working family unit, it's our jobs to grow together and expand our horizons.

I wonder if, 30-something years from now, my two children will look back and think the same things about me. As I am archiving these blogs, and making hard copies, they should have access to my thoughts years from now (and the newspaper columns I write which are not printed here.) I can only say, right now, the pain we're both going through is a necessary part of life and the pain my kids are giving me is so much less than the joy they bring that I shouldn't even bother to mention the pain.

But, as a journalist, I'm bound to present things as I see 'em, even when it hurts.

But I am also reminded, everything that grows encounters opposition and must overcome that opposition. That does mean pain. No pain, no gain.