“To keep your marriage brimming,

With love in the loving cup,

Whenever you’re wrong admit it;

Whenever you’re right shut up.”

(Ogden Nash)

At one point, during a heated argument, Jenny paused mid-sentence, and proclaimed that I had won the argument. “Ok, you’re right. You win.”

And then she turned around and left the room. That is the definition of a hollow victory.

The dumbest arguments couples enter into have to do with fact. “It was a Tuesday, remember?!?” “No, it was a Thursday, ‘cause that was the week your mother came to visit, remember?!?” “No, that was the following week…” And blah, blah, blah.

Ever work really hard to prove yourself factually right, and end up feeling relationally wrong in the process? This is because the goal is not to have your partner validate you as a victor. The goal is grow closer out of mutual respect for each other’s unique positions.

In the process, you will find yourselves learning about times when your unique position is based on a fallacy, and vice-versa. That’s when Nash’s advice above is so helpful. If you want to win at something in your marriage, be the first to apologize when you’re wrong.

“Training moments occur when both parents and children do their jobs. The parent’s job is to make the rule. The child’s job is to break the rule. The parent then corrects and disciplines. The child breaks the rule again, and the parent manages the consequences and empathy that then turn the rule into reality and internal structure for the child.” (Henry Cloud)

Ever feel like your kids are testing you? Or worse—deliberately doing the very thing you just told them not to do?

You are not crazy. This is an accurate perception. They are testing you, and me, and every other parent on the planet, because this is their job. It is each of our kids’ jobs to test us, push our buttons, and expand the boundaries around them. Why? Because it’s the only way they know how to ask us to become better leaders.

Ever been put into a new leadership position at work, and soon found that even the people who wanted your leadership started testing it, or even seemingly sabotaging it? Same principle at work. We all want to be led, but we want to be led well. This means we want people can who own their position, can choose their principles wisely, and can withstand insubordination without freaking out.

You’ve experienced this already. Remember the time you finally followed through on your promised consequence, endured your young son’s initial outburst, and then found him actually cuddly and in a good mood an hour later?

That’s the sign of you passing the test.

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment” (Marcus Aurelius Antonius )

Often it’s the meanings that we attach to events or conversations that cause us the most pain. Think about this: Someone else’s child, visiting your house for dinner, gets engrossed in conversation and forgets to pick up their plate. You playfully remind them to do so. What happens when your children do the same thing? Suddenly it MEANS something. They don’t respect you. They are lazy. You haven’t done a proper job in getting them to take responsibility around the house.

If you can extract yourself from this kind of thinking, you can free yourself up to look for the good in your child rather than squint for the bad. You actually give yourself the choice as to whether or not to take something personally. Taking just a moment – in the heat of the moment – to breathe deeply and decide just how much you’re going to allow something to affect you gives you tremendous power over it.

“The woods were my Ritalin. Nature calmed me, focused me, and yet excited my senses.” (Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder)

I’ve always been amazed at how much we humans like to talk about the weather. Especially now, as we observe the change from Summer to Fall. Yes, we can all use it as easy chit-chat, but I think there’s more to this than just a conversation filler.

I think we talk about the weather because the outside world of nature is the quickest means to universal commonality. We’re all subject to it, no matter how much we protect and insulate ourselves. Being outside has this ability to make us feel so small, but so connected to everything and everyone else, at the same time.

This is why I, too, share Richard Louv’s concerns about families and children experiencing less and less of the great outdoors. It cuts across the grain of our humanity to love screens more than streams, to crave comfy chairs more than creation itself.

Go outside.

“Where did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first we have to make them feel worse? Think of the last time you felt humiliated or treated unfairly. Did you feel like cooperating or doing better?” (Jane Nelson)

Few things are easier than being critical. Judgments and disparagements roll off the tongue with ease and, with the miracle of digital connections, can be thumbed out even easier. Thank God, right? With texting or social media, we don’t even have to look at the person we’re shaming.

Of course, the real tragedy is that the people we criticize most are the ones we say we love the most. The ones closest to us. The ones whose lives we feel most responsible for.

But that’s why we judge them so often—we feel responsible for their behavior, as if any bad choice on their part is somehow a direct reflection on ourselves. So, we try to shame them into behaving better in the exact same way we try to shame ourselves into behaving better.

Time for a question, then: Can you recall the last time beating yourself up actually prompted you to carry a more positive, enthusiastic attitude?

Neither can I.

So why do we think it’ll work with our kids?

“Adolescents are not monsters. They are just people trying to learn how to make it among the adults in the world, who are probably not so sure themselves.” (Virginia Satir)

One of the unintended consequences of the Industrial Revolution was the creation of adolescents, if not adolescence itself. See, before all the dads went off to work at the factory, kids were around other adults as much, if not more, than their teenage counterparts. These teenaged young adults were not kids, they were apprentices in either their fathers’ fields, their neighbors’ shops, or their mothers’ houses.

Then dads went away, and teens gathered together with one adult teacher. This ended up creating the education system that we still employ today; it also created the new life phase: adolescence.

15-year-olds used to be thought of as young adults; here in adolescence we began to think of them as older kids. They used to learn by doing and practicing under supervision and guidance; now in adolescence they learn primarily by reading about and studying others who do the practicing. Maybe this is why our teens ask to be treated like adults, but act like they’re still little kids.

What if we stopped thinking of our teens as kids at all, and started apprenticing them for adulthood instead?

“When people think the world of you, be careful with them.” (Margaret Cho)

Caring for a child is a tremendous financial responsibility, to be sure. But it’s the emotional responsibility that is even more significant in the long run. Even though your children would probably not ever tell you this truth, it still exists: you are the most influential person in their life and the relationship you have with them will affect them forever.

Sure, at some point, kids realize that you aren’t perfect and that you are only human. That’s a very healthy thing for them to know. But they always want to think the world of you. Give them good reason to do so and take your responsibility to them as seriously as you can.

“Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.” (Robert J. Sawyer)

(I wrote this one about 5 years ago, at the beginning of my daughter’s attempts to set world high jump records just to clear the mess and get into bed. I still stand by this advice, but admit my wife and I had such conflict about it, we had to write a marriage book together to figure out how to disagree without being disagreeable.)

This is a tricky quote and a delicate concept. By no means should we ignore our children and/or the things they do that need to be addressed. But we could benefit, in my opinion, from learning to ignore some aspects of their behavior that simply aren’t worth our attention. Like their room, for instance.

Every seminar I give, every town I visit, this question arises. “What do I do about my child’s messy room?” And at every seminar and in every town, my answer is the same. You close the door and ignore it. It is their room, after all. About once a month, insist that it be cleaned of all bio hazardous material, but other than that – ignore the piles of clothes and the wads of paper. It just isn’t worth it.

You can teach them self-respect in a number of other ways. You can teach them cleanliness and order when they clean the common areas of the house. But you’ll save yourself a lot of stress if you can just shut the door and learn to ignore (at least some of) the mess that comes along with having kids.

“Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.” (Ambrose Bierce)

Ahh, the season of rampant reactivity is upon us. There is nothing quite like U.S. Presidential elections to elevate the volume and escalate the tensions.

I’ve been approached on numerous occasions to develop a program, or write a book, on ScreamFree Politics. I think of this suggestion the same way I think about ScreamFree Golf: there is simply no such thing. (And those who’ve played golf with me over the years can testify).

It would be interesting, however, to try and judge each candidate, and the media that cover them, by their emotional reactivity. How well do they handle criticism? How much do they value honest discourse? How honest can they be about their own self-interests, and not hide behind the pretense that they have none—they “only want to serve the American people.” Such calm, honest people would be practicing ScreamFree Politics.

Told ya there was no such thing.

“I care not so much what I am in the opinion of others, as what I am in my own; I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing.” (Michel Eyquem de Montaigne)

The most controversial thing I’ve ever said on TV, or anywhere for that matter, is how I don’t tell my kids I’m proud of them. I know this seems downright sacrilegious, especially for a so-called relationship expert. I mean, what else are we parents for, other than to bless our kids with such validation and approval?

I’ll tell you what we parents are for: helping our kids learn to be proud of themselves. As they grow up and go out, I do not want my kids preoccupied with whether Dad is proud of them. Yes, I’ve always told each of them I love them and think they’re great, no matter what, but that is very different than whether I’m proud of them.

Being proud of my kids means I am willing to boast about them, and about my connection to them. “That’s my baby boy!” is a cry I’ve heard numerous times in the stands when a son knocks in the game-winning run. Doesn’t come out too often when that same son looks at a called strike three, with two outs and a man on third. I’ve had both experiences as a father, and the temptation of pride after one outcome is rivaled only by the temptation of shame after the other.

In both moments, though, I am striving to be far more concerned with what my son thinks of himself, than what I think of him. That’s the only way he can truly celebrate the victories as his own, and take in the lessons, with his head held high, that only defeats can teach us.

I’ve met far too many adults who are still chasing after their parents’ elusive blessing, and it’s sad. What they don’t see is that even if they finally get that validation, it will never feel as good as they hoped it would. And it will never feel as uplifting as genuine self-respect. Never.

Next time your kid does something great, try this: “Wow, that’s impressive. You’ve gotta be really proud of yourself!”