Part 3 Never Blame

There are three things a parent should avoid when communicating with their precious minds full of mush (teenagers).

1. Never seek agreement
2. Never justify your actions or words
3. Never blame

Blaming can often been seen as a hierarchal struggle for survival in a family, from the oldest sibling down to the youngest child. In our family the dog is in play and some years ago, blaming escalated to such a level that Cheri and I discovered a resident ghost named Ralph causing all sorts of mischief in our home.

That was two houses ago and Ralph has been kind enough to stay a member of our family as he continues to leave doors open, lights on, water running, he never flushes the toilet, he is a bad aim when going #1, and he never replaces the toilet paper.

Do you have a Ralph in your home?

The same is true in a business environment. It’s often termed throwing someone under the bus, “The Fall Guy.’” Politicians are fond of throwing an expendable employee, staff member, or volunteer under the bus to avoid embarrassment or responsibility.

Blaming is the system of finding an excuse, (e.g. lack of funds) for a dysfunctional program. It’s using a common cause that stands for something good as a leveraging tool to gain funding for an ulterior motive. Blaming is like living in a world of symptoms as a way of avoiding the root cause.

Blaming is an art form to many who practice responsibility deflection. It is so subtle that to the person it is often not seen as blaming but as a logical explanation of events that ended with results far under expectations.

The refs lost the game for us on that final call, completely overlooking the poor play of the team in the last quarter that allowed the opposition to take the lead.

Let’s say your teenager asks and receives permission to venture to a party of school friends. She caught you in a busy moment and you consented to her attendance. Around midnight, about when you expect her to come driving in, you receive a phone call from the police that she’s been arrested for underage drinking.

Infuriated, you drive to the police station, chew out the cops and then read the riot act to your daughter on the way home. So far you’ve blamed everybody involved but yourself.

Did you ask your daughter where she was going? Who she was going with? What the party was about? Who else would be there? Would there be alcohol or drugs there? Do you have an understanding with your daughter on these topics? Do you trust your daughter? Does she trust you? Would she tell you the truth on any of these subjects?

It only takes one mistake, oversight, or lie and you forfeit the right to blame. You don’t have it to begin with. It doesn’t make the situation better and it excuses your part in the mess.

If your teenager won’t come clean with her answers, you are dealing with a symptom. The root cause is you. You are not trusted. You’ve spent too long in the blame game.

Developing trust in parenting is the solution. Join us for our Trust in Parenting classes taught at the Hope Center Boys & Girls Club.  They are a free service to the community.

To sign up for the class, call us at (253) 851-0350

Part 2: Never Justify your Actions or Words

There are three things a parent should avoid when communicating with their precious minds full of mush (teenagers).

1. Never seek agreement
2. 2. Never justify your actions or words
3. Never blame the teenager for something you don’t approve

One definition for justify is to fill a space evenly or form a straight edge. To align with a true line.

Have you ever been late to a meeting? Remember the thoughts going through your mind as you exceeded the speed the limit in an attempt to make up for poor planning? Every slow vehicle is registered as a cause for tardiness.

The car pile up on the north bound side of the freeway that has traffic backed up for a mile is another causal factor as you travel southbound to your meeting. Upon arriving at your meeting, the committee is already working through the agenda. You enter the meeting and give a full report justifying your rudeness.

Slow traffic, rough night, crying children, and yes the bad accident on the freeway was cited as you attempt to align yourself with the straight edge. You are justifying your behavior in an attempt to have others perceive your actions in line.

For what’s its worth, you’re better off just walking in as unobtrusive as possible without interrupting and sit down.

How did justifying being late make things better? On those occasions I’ve been late and tried this strategy, I felt even more out of alignment. On the other hand, when others have interrupted a meeting in process with their excuses it disrupts everyone and takes a lot of effort and time to get back on track.

When a parent justifies bad behavior, the parent is attempting to place responsibility for weakness on someone or something else. The child will usually accept the feeble attempt at apologizing but a degree of trust and respect will be lost. If repeated too often, complete trust and respect will disappear.

How much success will you as a parent have if your children don’t trust and respect you? Remember, under the worst of circumstances people love their mom or dad and the same is true for parents of wayward. BUT there is no requirement for trust and respect.

As a parent or spouse, how fond are you of receiving a plate full of justification every time the garbage isn’t take out or the bed isn’t made? How will justifying help your high school student get into the university of her choice by mastering excuses for poor performance?

Just like seeking agreement, justifying is ineffective communication. It doesn’t make things better and if avoided completely it will greatly improve any relationship upon practice.

For one complete day, avoid justifying any behavior or action. Just suck it up, admit your mistake and move on, committing yourself to improvement. Developing trust in parenting is the solution.

Join us for our free Trust in Parenting classes taught at the Hope Center Boys & Girls Club. To sign up for the class, call use at (253) 851-0350

Mr. Gregory and Ken were conversing about the kids nowadays and Ken told a story about his childhood. One afternoon, while Ken’s mom was shopping in the grocery store, Ken and his sister were bored and decided to create a little fun.

Their idea of fun, however, was not conducive with societal norms, especially to a certain grandmother who happened to be in the parking lot. The grandma summarily chastised the young kids and when their mother arrived on the scene, she thanked the grandma and kids received a second tongue lashing for their creative activities.

What makes this story so interesting is that some parents today no longer wish to hold their children accountable for actions and worse than that, they are offended, appalled, and outraged that anyone would hold their children accountable for actions not appropriate or becoming of a teenager.

In fact, even when caught on film, many parents will defend their children’s action to the bitter end. There are perhaps some who are nodding their heads in agreement with the protectionist and enabling actions of such parents. But to the vast majority of parents this behavior is harmful.

Parents who want to be friends with their children and try to protect them from consequences enable increasingly worse behavior and everyone else has to pay for it.

How did we get from Ken’s parking lot experience to a society of isolated individuals? When did we lose the community mentoring and the trust and respect of our neighbors?

Prior to WWII, each child experienced hours and hours each day of adult mentoring. Today we use the word ‘coach’. When a child arose in the morning the entire day was spent with a parent working in the field, around the house, or tending to the animals. Dinner was a time of discussion. Each child was held accountable for progress and growth.

Even the one room schoolhouse with an average of 10 – 15 students was a coaching haven. The older children would teach the younger children and the teacher would teach the older children. The Greatest Generation grew up in an environment of accountability.

The entire community shared in the rearing of each child. There was mutual trust and respect for our neighbors and for public officials. Sadly, that is all but diminished to the point of folklore.

Try to correct or discipline a youth today and if the youth doesn’t get angry, the parents will. Funny isn’t it, these same parents then question why their child is out of control and searching for meaning with drugs, sex, and alcohol. One has to look no further than the mirror to find the solution. (There are exceptions.)

Coaching is a concept that brings accountability back into the picture. Consider going to the gym to lose weight and to get in shape. How long do you last going alone? Hire a personal trainer to hold you accountable and the results are drastically different.

Financial coaching is a concept that is long overdue. The current methods of wealth accumulation and happiness building are broken. The traditional methods haven’t changed in over 40 years and they don’t work anymore.

Consider your children’s growth without any direction or accountability. How far will they go if you are not there? Coaching is not designed to help the broken. It’s designed to move you from good to great or from better to best. It’s a self-help approach to those who want to give more than lip service to their wants and desires.

If you were asked what means more to you than anything in the world? What would you say? What would almost anybody say?

I just returned from spending almost a week with the Boy Scouts on a High Adventure in the San Juan Islands. Camping, hiking, cliff jumping, kayaking, swimming and adventure in record-breaking heat.

It was a marvelous time and what made the experience so great was that my son, Scott, spent the time with me as my tent buddy. Each night around the campfire (non-blazing because of a burn ban) we spent time with 15 scouts discussing morals, family, honesty, integrity, and many of the essentials skills and attributes that make up a successful person.

The Boy Scouts of America is a system designed to train and teach young boys to become young men that contribute positively to society.

Last weekend I rode the Courage Classic. It’s a bike ride to raise money for abused children through Mary Bridge Hospital. We rode our bikes over Snoqualmie pass, Blewitt pass, and Stevens pass in three successive days.

The fundraising is for children whose parents have broken systems or who have been abused by someone whose parents have a broken system. So much unnecessary pain and misery because of a broken family.

The family is the basic unit of society. In both my Scout adventure and my bike ride, the core ingredient to why I found so much joy and happiness was the family unit. If the family is broken, society suffers. Divorces, separated parents, abused children, missing children, and lost children take a heavy toll on our society.

The one common element I’ve noticed missing in society’s approach to curbing the casualty rate is education. There is no societal system designed to teach effective communication and parenting skills.

The home used to be the source prior to WWII, but since the advent of TV, the industrial revolution, and the invention of the microchip, the family unit has become individualized.

We no longer have a cadre of mentors and coaches to work with our children. Grandpa and grandma don’t live in the home. Aunts and uncles, older cousins and siblings no longer participate in the day-to-day teaching of our youngsters.

The very source of effective communication and parenting was lost when the family broke up and went to work in the factories. Mom and dad don’t have the time, the capacity, or the training to teach their children all that they must know. We have an abundance of information, but nowadays, children get most of their skills and perceived knowledge from other children.

Our houses are bigger and designed to allow each person to live alone with his/her electronics and very little interpersonal interaction.

Recently, on a trip to Vancouver BC, I jumped aboard the Sea Bus and sat next to a young lady coming home from work. I’m not very familiar with Vancouver and turned to ask her some questions. Her eyes were staring into space, her head was nodding up and down, and her ability to hear my question was muted by her ear-buds and I-pod.

It dawned on me that our sophistication is suppressing our ability to learn effective communication tools. Is it any wonder our children don’t listen to us? We’ve taught them to tune out so they use each other to master the skills of life and learn about intimacy, love, and growing up.

If you want things differently in your circle of influence, then learning how they did it prior to WWII might be a good place to start. The common denominator was a mentor or a coach. Mom and dad worked with each child for hours everyday and at night, over dinner, they talked some more.

They lived in a world of “Present-Tense Parenting.” Our society is too fast, too expensive, and too technology driven to bring everyone back into the home. The next best thing is to study and learn the skills necessary to effectively communicate with our family members.

It’s never too late. See the previous blog for a suggested start to your communications library.

Give yourself the highest probability of success by investing in your future.