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By James and Janet Lehman MSWs, creators of
Audio Transcript
Keep Your Child&s Eyes on the Prize
You&re listening to an audio excerpt from James Lehman&s Total Transformation program, a parent&s program for managing challenging behaviors in children.
For more information on how to qualify for your FREE Total Transformation program, visit .
L: James, you mentioned accountability.
Creating a culture of accountability.
What does that mean?
Can you explain that and how, what it means to parents and kids.
J: First of all, when we start with accountability, one of the things that I talk to teachers and parents about is creating a culture of accountability.
And that culture of accountability occurs between two people.
So when we talk about what&s on TV, what they&re learning in the movies, what their video games is, that, that&s fine.
But the culture of accountability comes with, this is how I&m gonna talk to you and this is how you have to talk to me.
This is what I&m gonna expect of you and this is what you can expect of me.
That&s very clearly learned out.
That you&re accountable for the way you talk to me and treat me.
You&re accountable for your responsibilities and you can expect me to take responsibility to be accountable for my responsibilities.
I&m gonna pay the rent, I&m gonna have food on the table, I&m gonna make sure that we have a place to live.
You have to talk to me appropriately, you have to do your schoolwork and you have to learn how to solve life&s problems without hurting other people.
MG: I think it&s important to note James that a culture of accountability isn&t just a parent child thing.
We even as adults ne we are accountable every day to someone.
J: That&s right, well, I don&t think people are accountable to a culture.
I think that that develops between people.
Between individual people and groups.
So even personal relationships and work relationships.
I&m accountable to that job.
I&m accountable to my role in that business.
I&m accountable to that business. They&re gonna pay me, that&s what I expect of them, they expect me to do the role that they defined for me.
They also expect me to do it with some quality and some efficiency.
MG: So as a parent, what you&re setting your child up for by expecting him to be accountable to you is the whole mindset that you will always be accountable to someone.
This is a coping skill.
This is a problem solving skill you have to learn.
J: Absolutely.
Look, when you hold your child accountable, when you develop that culture of accountability, you as a parent have a responsibility to teach that child to acquire the skills he&s gonna need to be able to be accountable.
People who can&t be accountable for their homework disrespect other people.
People who can&t be accountable for their behavior turn it around and challenge you and act out.
So when you&re having a culture of accountability, there&s a two&way thing. I expect you to do the right thing and you can expect me to teach you how to do the right thing.
MG: So my job as a parent then is to set specific standards, to set specific goals, to set attainable landmarks that a child can say, if I do this, I become accountable. If I do this, I&m behaving responsibly.
J: Yeah, it&s not only setting goals.
It&s giving the skills to reach the goal.
So let&s say I&m a parent and my goal is that you&re gonna sink five throws from the free throw line in basketball out of ten.
Well I just can&t put you up there with a ball and tell you do it, that&s my goal.
I&ve gotta show you how to do it.
I&ve gotta show you how you place your feet, how you place your arms.
How you propel the ball.
I&ve gotta spend some time practicing with you.
I&ve gotta show you how to do these things and I&ve gotta practice them.
So it&s not setting the goals, it&s giving the kid the skills.
Acquiring the skills yourself for an understanding of what it takes.
Using the tools and using the skills.
For more information on how to qualify for your FREE Total Transformation program, visit .
James Lehman, MSW
Child Behavior Therapist
James Lehman had a very personal understanding of kids with behavior problems. He displayed severe oppositional, defiant behaviors as a child and teenager, and became a Behavioral Therapist specializing in helping troubled children, teens and their families for 30 years.
Janet Lehman, MSW
Child Behavior Therapist
Janet Lehman has over three decades of clinical experience working with out&of&control children and teens and their parents. Working in group homes and residential treatment centers, Janet helped children with serious behavioral disorders learn to get their behavior under control.
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Stop the Blame Game: How to Teach Your Child to Stop Making Excuses and Start Taking Responsibility
When parents realize that their children might have either a behavioral or learning problem, the first thing many do is blame themselves. Parents are usually very frightened and worried about their . This fear often manifests itself in negative ways. One of those ways is blame.
As problems continue, they start to externalize the blame to other people or institutions. They blame therapists and teachers who are ineffective in managing their child. As the child gets older, parents blame his friends or the neighborhood or the music he listens to. As the child grows into a young adult, they blame drugs and alcohol, or our culture.
The problem with ?victim thinking" is that it
lessens the expectation that the child will learn to take care of himself in
the adult world.
One of the real tragedies of dealing with behaviorally disordered children is when you see everybody blaming each other. The parent blames the teacher, the teacher blames the parent, the child blames both the teacher and the parents, and it goes on and on. I&ve seen many parents get stuck in battles that don&t help their children. Don&t get me wrong, parents often have to battle to get their kids the services they need in the school&s economic environment. But all too often, parents use those issues and others as excuses to justify their child&s lack of behavioral or academic development, and that becomes a habit that&s hard to break. Parents can literally become dependent on blame. After all, it&s easier to fight with the school than it is to fight with behaviorally disordered kids. Again, I&m not minimizing the resistance from schools that parents sometimes experience. But they have to remember to also keep the focus on the child.
The major problem with making excuses and giving explanations is that it doesn't help the child learn to manage him or herself or to perform. Blame prevents you from seeing your child in an objective light. Let&s face it, parents have every reason to be afraid for kids who have behavioral problems or learning difficulties. Life is very demanding, and those demands start very early. Blaming and excuse-making go hand-in-hand, and they prevent you from understanding that no matter what the handicapping condition, no matter what the problem, each child has to learn to perform in a socially acceptable manner. Your child has to learn how to solve problems. They have to learn to interact socially as well as learn how to change and grow. It&s true that there are cases where kids have a harder time learning than others. But that should be no excuse, because your child is going to have to be able to perform when he becomes an adult, no matter what.
Excuses, Excuses: What&s Your Kid&s Excuse?
Children shouldn&t be allowed to blame other people, places or things for not meeting expectations or completing tasks. In reality, when a child blames someone else, he&s saying &It&s not my responsibility because I&m a victim of that person, label, or thing.& For instance, in the classic, &My dog ate my homework,& what the child is really saying is
&I&m a victim of the dog, so I shouldn&t be held to the same standard as the other kids.& Make no doubt about it: kids who see themselves as victims and are allowed to perpetuate that rationale have a tough time achieving the very difficult milestones that early life development demands. When kids play the victim game with their parents or teachers, they should be told, &Blaming the dog doesn&t solve your problem. You need to have your homework done by the end of the day or you&ll get a zero.& Parents can also utilize that same analogy when dealing with social situations. &Blaming your sister for why you hit her doesn&t solve the problem of &no violence in our home,& and you know the consequences for hitting.& And have your child perform those consequences immediately. Consequences for inappropriate behaviors should be clearly understood by everyone before incidents occur. Remember, consequences are the results of poor choices, and not the punishment for bad behavior.
On the other hand, when parents make excuses for their children, it&s a way that they minimize the problems their children are having. Often, excuses are simply the explanations. The parent sends a note to school saying, &Tommy wasn&t feeling well. Please accept his lateness to school.& That&s fine. But parents of children with behavioral problems are forced to make explanations every day, and these explanations transform into excuses for the child&s behavior. They excuse the child&s refusal to do schoolwork at home. They make excuses for the child fighting and arguing with other kids, both in and out of the house. They make excuses for the child&s rudeness. Some are very understandable: There&s been a divorce. Or there are family problems at home and the parents are having problems, which manifest themselves in the behavior of the children. Sometimes it&s a learning disability or mental health diagnosis that parents use to try to explain their kid&s unwillingness or inability to perform.
Let me begin by saying I have empathy for those parents who are dealing with kids who have behavioral and social disorders and learning disabilities. I encourage their efforts to get the right services for their children. Nonetheless, my experience from working with older children is that the validity of these handicapping conditions for explanations of inappropriate behavior or a lack of functioning skills become less and less meaningful as time goes by. No matter what the diagnosis is in early or middle childhood, these children have to grow up and learn to perform like adults.
It&s my experience that parents put a lot of effort into seeking the right diagnosis, looking to the diagnosis to change the behavior. I&ve had parents tell me triumphantly that their child has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder or ADHD, as if that changes anything. It doesn&t. The bitter truth in this situation is that that child still needs to learn to perform. What happens in these cases is that parents identify their children as the victim, a victim of a learning disability, a victim of a mental health problem, which they use to make excuses for the child&s inappapropriate behavior and poor performance. The problem with &victim& thinking is that it lessens the expectation that the child will learn to take care of himself in the adult world. Know this: Adults with ADHD or bipolar disorder still have to get up every morning and go to work, get along with their colleagues, respect their supervisors, and perform and be productive. Kids with dyslexia, Asperger's syndrome, or other neurological impairments have to lead productive lives if they want to make it in society. There&s just no getting around that.
If you see your child as a victim, he will eventually see himself that way, too. This is perhaps the most treacherous part of blaming and excuse making, because it develops one of the worst possible perceptions in kids:
&Since I&m a victim, the rules don&t apply to me.& Herein lies the real danger. There are rules that accompany learning. There are rules that accompany individual change. Children who don&t follow those rules often don&t learn and don&t change. And you&ll hear much too much focus on the child as "victim" and not the child as participant in his own education and maturation.
Let me be clear: excuse-making is not a sign of bad parenting. It&s simply ineffective. It&s very difficult for parents to be firm when their kids are having a harder time than other kids. But firmness is what it takes. My son has dyslexia. In school, that was a real impediment to his learning. Nonetheless, he had to do the work. We got him the help he needed when we could, but he still needed to learn to write and read and perform in the adult world. His dyslexia was a problem that he had to learn to solve and our job was to help him to learn to do that. Parents cannot solve their child&s behavioral and learning problems for them. They have to empower the child to do that themselves, and that starts with this thought: Stop seeing your child as a victim and blaming external situations for his individual predicament.
If You&ve Been Playing the Blame Game, Here&s How to Stop
If you&ve been making excuses for your child&s behavior, you need to be straightforward in addressing the problem. The &Alternative Response& method in The Total Transformation Program is a helpful guideline to this kind of conversation. Sit down with your child and point out that whatever it is you&re doing now isn&t working any more. Gauge your remarks based upon the age and developmental level of your child. The younger the child, the more simplistic the conversation has to be. In any case, the conversation should be brief and to the point. I can&t stress enough the importance of not making a lot of justifications or giving in to emotionalism. Don&t say, &I&m sorry we let you down.& A simple, &This isn&t helping you,& is fine. Explanations longer than that invite arguments which we like to avoid when we can.
This is your chance to make a fresh start. You can say, &Our relationship with the school hasn&t really been working, and how we&ve been handling things hasn&t been working.
We don&t think it&s giving you what you really need. So from now on, when you don&t do your homework, this is how we&re going to handle it. If you&re abusive with our neighbors or friends or schoolmates, this is how we&ll handle it.& Spell out what will happen if they don&t follow the rules: &From now on, if you don&t do your homework, you won&t be allowed to watch TV until it&s done. If we see you abusing people, you won&t be allowed to play your video games for the rest of the day.& The best method is to have a short conversation, and then say, &I have something else I have to do now,& and go do it. Don&t make it a long, drawn-out affair.
Later on, follow through on the consequences you&ve laid out. You should expect a response that includes a wide range of acting out behavior, from verbal abuse to threats of non-performance, to sullen silence. Nonetheless, if you stick with this, in the long run, you&re doing your child a big favor. Accountability for basic responsibility creates change. Excuses stifle change.
It's not about "Fault"--It's about Responsibility
When kids focus on excuses, parents need to focus on responsibility. Of course, some excuses are valid, and the responsibility for knowing how to sort that out rests with the parent. But many, many excuses are just simply that: thoughts children use to excuse themselves from not meeting their responsibilities. When those are raised in a conversation where a child wants to shift the focus away from the responsibility and onto the excuse, parents have to shift it back from excuse and onto the matter at hand: the child&s responsibility.
So if you say, "Why didn&t you do your homework," the parent is really asking, "Why didn&t you meet your responsibility?& When your child says, &I forgot to bring my book home again,& he&s really saying, &It&s not my fault that I didn&t meet my responsibility.& You need to respond by saying, &We&re not talking about whose fault it is, we&re talking about whose responsibility it is.& In that way, you can shift the focus back onto the child&s responsibilities and you won&t get stuck in an argument about the nature of the excuse. If the child makes excuses about misbehavior, respond, &We&re not talking about why you misbehaved, we&re talking about why you didn&t meet your responsibility.&
If you argue or debate about the excuse, you&re simply encouraging your child to come up with bigger and better ones.
My advice to parents: Don&t argue, just focus on the responsibility.
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James Lehman, MSW was a renowned child behavioral therapist who worked with
and children for three decades. He created the
to help people parent more effectively. James' foremost goal was to help kids and to "empower parents."
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* Dear ?momof2girls?:
I?m glad you asked this question.
There are many other parents who share your feelings.
James Lehman did write an article to help you with some ideas on how to handle things if you find yourself feeling .
It is challenging work at times to help our kids learn and then to experience them practicing the skills they need to manage their behaviors.
Some kids need more practice and coaching then others.
In this article James will give you a plan to help during those times that could cause you to feel embarrassed:
Are You Embarrassed by Your Child's Behavior? 5 Ways to Cope.
The article is located at this web site address:
Keep in touch.
We?re here to help.
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* To ?MomOfSensationalSix?: Siblings often focus on the ?fairness? of how they are treated in comparison to their brothers and sisters. This can be quite frustrating for parents, because, in all honesty, it?s difficult to make sure everything is ?fair? when rewarding or consequencing your children. From what you have written, it sounds like you hold them to the same rules and expectations which is important. In reality, their complaining isn?t really about how you?re treating them. It?s more about them taking the victim stance and blaming someone else for their choices and feelings. James Lehman calls this ?the blame game.?
The rationale is that if I can blame someone else then it?s not my fault and I don?t have to take responsibility for my choices. It also works to put the other person (you) on the defensive so that instead focusing on their inappropriate choices and behaviors, you?re stuck trying to defend your decisions. It may not possible to make them realize things aren?t always going to be ?fair.? Instead, focus on holding them accountable for their behavior and choices, regardless of whether or not they think it?s fair. In her article , Janet Lehman discusses the victim mentality a lot of kids have and gives some great advice on how to address it. It?s also going to be helpful to problem solve with them ways they can make better choices. As James Lehman points in his article , problem solving is a key part in helping your children develop better ways of behaving. We hope this is useful for your situation. We thank you for writing in and sharing your story. Take care.
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