Blaming

[AK0603]

My difficult child blames ANYONE but himself. He gets in trouble at school, it's the teacher's fault, at home, my fault, bus it's the driver's fault.

I haven't found a great solution but to show him how other's feel. For instance I showed him a soup kitchen on day to show him homeless people and how they live, and have nothing. I don'tknow if it really helped, maybe for a day or two, but not long term.

Wish I had something more, but good luck.

 

[Marguerite]

Sometimes if you can't snap them out of blame with "this isn't about blame" you can let them have their say, but follow it through with calm logic.
"Explain to me - how is this the teacher's fault?"
The answer is something like, "If she hadn't nagged me I wouldn't have got angry."
"So you got angry - why? Was it useful to get angry? Were you hoping that getting angry would make her listen to you? Did it work?"

Work through the encounter. If it can be shown that the teacher contributed you may need to acknowledge this, but make sure you can point out that getting angry was not a useful thing to happen. Walk through it again - what else could he have done? Even if the teacher was wrong to nag, how else could he have responded, to defuse the situation? It takes two.

Often, working on WHY they got angry can help with, "What did getting angry achieve? What would you have liked to achieve? If you could go back and re-live it, how do you think you could have improved on the situation?"

Here you have carefully steered it away from guilt/innocence; blame/not blame, and back to cause and effect; action and consequence. By rehearsing and role-playing you can freely admit that it's not fair for a difficult child to have to be extra careful to not lose temper, but it's still a desirable goal. "Other kids hit back; why can't I?" was a common question in our house.
Our answer was, "Because you're the weird kid, that's why. An average kid can hit back and people will accept that he was provoked. You hit back and people will say it's because you're disturbed and dangerous. We know that's not true, but they don't. So don't do it - life's not fair, people believe the wrong thing, but trying to act like you're no different in this will not help you one little bit. And the important thing here - for YOU to win, in the long term. Not hitting back will achieve that."

The best thing is to always focus away from blame, don't buy into it, but shift the concept always, back towards consequences and alternative paths.

And recognise our difficult children will take longer to learn this, as well.

Marg

 

[TerryJ2]

Woo hoo! I had a tiny breakthrough today.

Picked up difficult child in husband's car, which has some kind of wt indicator and turns off the passenger airbag if a child sits there. So husband has been letting difficult child sit in the front seat for rides. (difficult child is about 5' tall and weighs 75 lbs.) But, easy child daughter wanted to practice driving, so I had to sit in front (our rule). difficult child had a minor tantrum in pkng lot, said it was all my fault because I promised, all her fault because she always gets to drive, etc.

Per the discussion here (really, I thought about you all!), as calmly as I could, I said, "This isn't about whose fault it is--it's about driving. It's about the fact I already promised your sister she could drive. Have a seat--in the BACK."

He slammed the door, HARD! (quite the passed master at that) and moped for a few min. in the backseat, but the fact of the matter is, he did what I said. And, he calmed down within just a few min.

Okay, he DID have a huge bag of Valentine's cards and candy to keep him occupied in the back seat, LOL!

Still, one small step for Mom, one giant step for difficult child.
Yaaay!

 

[Marguerite]

To take it to the next step (if he ever gets there - but THIS is progress!) when he does something he's been asked to do, thank him briefly and politely. It's part of showing respect to him and in doing so, modelling what you expect him to learn to use. Maybe when you got home, if he didn't whine all the way, "Thank you for moving to the back seat. I know you were disappointed but you did it anyway, which is a very mature way for you to have handled it. I'll try to have you in the front with me the next time I can."
Or maybe further down the track. You need to have the 'feel' for the situation.

But if you stop and think, we really don't thank our kids often enough, or praise them (appropriately and not stupidly). Always try to put it in "I" statements, such as "I was very impressed when you did x".

It's the little steps that slowly add up and begin to turn things round.

Marg

 

[TerryJ2]

Sigh. Today he's still in bed, complaining of nausea. Gee, it wouldn't be from all that Valentine's Day candy would it!???
I'm hoping to wrest him out of bed for a late arrival at school. I was nauseated yesterday so it's possible it's a bug. It's so hard with-The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
He was SO GOOD last night... he usually finishes his homework in the after school program, but the power went out. So he did it at home... spaced out subjects by about 20 min. ea (threw the football, ate dinner) but it was easy stuff and I didn't have to help him (plus I'm reading a really good book, The Birth of Venus, so I could sit at the table and we could be there, but kind of ignore one another, which is great). I got him into bed by 9:15.
But today... we'll see. Maybe he really is sick. It's so hard to say...