I am all for personal responsibility and definitely for children learning how their own behavior choices play out in natural consequences. After all, we do have to prepare our children to live in the real world with real people and real institutions. But, I wrote the yesterday about how our children’s behavior can be different depending on where they are and what they are dealing with and sometimes, there are other elements at play that the child just cannot control.
Yes, I believe that our children do need to learn how to cope and deal with all sorts of situations and all sorts of people, but depending on the age and the developmental abilities of the child, we might be expecting more than is appropriate. Sometimes, as parents, we need to step in and advocate and decide if another entity—a child, parent, teacher, administrator, coach, institution, etc. is really the cause of the problem or at the root of the child’s behavior issues and unless we tackle that elephant, we cannot really get down to the bottom of what is going on.
At the same token, it does not do any good to constantly be blaming outside forces or other individuals for problems and issues and not holding our children responsible for their own behaviors and personal choices. As parents, however, we need to strike a balance and figure out what is really going on for our children in order to help them both learn to cope, and learn how to discern when it is their problem or someone else’s (as well as how to address it when it IS someone else’s problem.) Sometimes it is not about making our children change their actions, but changing their environment, influences, or circumstance that make a big difference on our children’s behavior.
Also: Does Your Child Behave Better at Home or at School?
Let’s Get Down to the Bottom of This
Sometimes There is More of a Reward for Misbehavior Than for Good Behavior