I came to work this morning tuning out the pledge drive on NPR and worrying about my parenting skills. This is not really anything new. Many mornings – and afternoons and nights – I wonder what I’m doing wrong. When I fired up the computer and started my day at the office, I received an email from my husband. His musings on our current parenting situation took the form of a faux “Dear Abby” letter. “What do you do with an 11-year-old that has everything and lies all the time?” My musing took the form of a counseling session in my brain. Taking stock of where our boy is and how we handle things. “And how does that make you feel?” Actually, my husband’s approach seemed more apt. It sent me on a googling quest to find out exactly where we stand and what we should be doing.

It was harder to find information than I thought, at least anything definitive. There simply is nothing definitive about prepubescent boys.

What I did find out is that we certainly are not alone. A lot of people don’t know what to do with these boys. We have a boy that doesn’t want to do homework and lies on a regular basis. Yeah, well join the club! The answers to the posted questions fell into two groups: “It’s the age, don’t worry” and “Have you spanked him?”

Overall it made me feel better. It also made me feel a little self-righteous, if I can admit that. We are strict parents. We expect a lot out of our boy. I would read posts about other kids and the issues other parents had and think “that wouldn’t fly at our house!” Then I got this tip from one of the more touchy-feely sites:

“Try to find out from other parents what limits they are setting and remember that if you are too far away from what their friends’ parents are doing, you will have much more difficulty in getting your teenager to cooperate with you.”

That is true and all well and good, but quite frankly, I think my standards are higher than most. We don’t let our boy watch or read or play games that other parents will allow. We expect homework done before play. We expect the bad grades that are brought home to be redone on the weekend. We limit screen time. We do this regardless of what boy’s friends’ parents do.

That made me think about his friends. In comparison, I think he is pretty good kid.

He does hate to do homework, though and I am tired of all the arguing and debating. So, we are making him more responsible for it. He has to show us his assignments and we help him budget his time, but he does the work on his own. I am no longer checking it and telling him to correct it. I just make sure it is done. We have told him that we will check it or help him if he asks. He has yet to ask. We are still battling with getting straight answers on what homework he has, however. Like last night, he was asked if he had math homework. The answer was, “No, I mean yes, a little.” He did his math. Then when he got home from practice we were going through his things and I found his Social Studies book. I had asked about math, so he didn’t bother mention his other homework. I consider that a lie. I told him so. He is a master at maintaining deniability. He had to stay up late to finish the work. But, what should the consequence be for lying? Do you deal with each of these incidents of lying as individual events, or do you let them “stack”, with each occurrence adding to the whole, incurring greater and greater consequences? There are a lot of occurrences. It is something we have battled with always. He lies like it is nothing. Thankfully, he’s not very good at it. We always know. We tell him this – you will always be found out. We reason with him, like those websites tell people to do, that in the end it is better for him to just tell the truth upfront. Yet, there should be consequences. What should the natural consequence be? A failing grade when he doesn’t do his homework because he decided not to tell us he had it? Yes, that seems logical, but does it serve his best interest in the end? Do I let his grade fall in school which would trigger more serious consequences like pulling him out of the sport that he loves? Should I pull him out of his sport anyway so he can have more time for school work? But, he is 11, he needs the exercise. If he doesn’t get the exercise wouldn’t it be harder to get him to settle down to do his work? And just think, puberty is around the corner. Lord help me!

I just don’t know the answers. It is such a balancing act. He needs independence. He needs to learn responsibility. How can I make him want to learn? How do you set goals, consequences and discipline and maintain an open, good relationship? Every day his friends are more important than we, mere parents. I feel lucky when he tells me things that he has talked about with his friends. I still have those moments. We still have our little rituals together, something as simple as watching a show together on the weekend or sharing mutually loved music on the way to school. (Thanks Beatles Rock Band for making the Beatles cool to this generation!) How much do those moments weigh when balanced against all the other influences? I don’t know that either, but I do know that keeping those lines of communication open are crucial. Our window of influence with him is so small, when you really think of it. He will be heading off on his own to college before we know it. Will he remember that I screamed at him to pick up the towel off the bathroom floor or will he remember how I told him to make a to do list? Or maybe he will just listen to the Beatles every now and then and remember that all we need is love and he will remember that I do love him – and that I tried my best and did the best I could as a parent. Maybe that will be enough.