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- 06 Nov
It’s Not My Fault
Whenever something goes wrong, does your child look around to see who is to blame? Perhaps they say, “It’s not my fault,” and point the finger at someone else. They may say, “Yes, I did that but it was because ________.”
In Corbilina and the Lost Keys, a small child drops his mother’s car keys into an air conditioning vent but does not tell her. He is afraid of what she may do to him if he accepts responsibility for his actions.
If adults want to help a child learn to accept responsibility for mistakes, they can acknowledge the problem and then move forward to find a solution. It only increases the drama when adults foster the “blame game” with its emotional outbursts.
By focusing on learning from a mistake adults, can help a child feel empowered to successfully meet life’s challenges. The language for owning a mistake may look like, “I am sorry for what I did. I wish I had ______ and in the future I will _____.”
There may still be a negative outcome but the child has learned a lesson about how to behave in a more positive way. Henry Ford advised, “Don’t find fault, find a remedy.” Savy adult business leaders follow this advice rather than always looking at employees as the cause for less than stellar company performance. Learning to take responsibility for a mistake is never easy but the blame game is a no-win solution.
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dotty
