Ok, stand up who’s child plays the blame game? You know the one. It goes like this ‘It’s your fault I knocked my head’ or perhaps ‘You made me fall over’ or maybe ‘It’s all your fault I…(insert your action of choice here)’.

Is not it harmless for your kids to play this game? Afterall, you can take it. Well, it seems to me that blaming your mom for falling over when you were not looking where you were going isn’t that far removed from blaming the government that you can’t get a job after failing high school. When does the blaming end and taking responsibility for your own life start?

One of our jobs as parents is to teach our kids to be independent and able adults. Allowing them to blame other people for the consequences of their actions is not setting them on that path.

So what can you do? I tell my kids that if I could make them do things then I’d make them laugh or stand on their head or have turtle toes for breakfast (I do not even know if turtles have toes!) or make them run around in circles because I think it’s funny or…you get the idea. Usually the logic of what I am saying seeps through to them and they stop. Often times they begin laughing because it suddenly seems so ridiculous – what I tell them I’d make them do if I could but also the idea that someone else can make you do things you might not want to do. Sometimes if they really want to have a whinge and moan they will keep going but it isn’t as intense and they usually stop soon after.

Of course, it hasn’t stopped them doing it altogether. Seems that blaming other people is hard wired into all of us but they are definitely playing that game less. Here’s hoping that one day they do not need to play it at all!

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 8:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.