Teaching kids accountability

[5ft Diva]

I need help acquiring a skill. I feel that teaching accountability for choices comes through delivering consequences but it's only half the picture. My problem is that I focus so much on the consequences that I completely miss the part where I have my children walk me through the string of choices that led them to a particular outcome therefore leaving them to wonder how they went from telling me the truth to being grounded all in one conversation. (Boy, for those of us who were raised this way, no wonder we fear vulnerability.) It just seems natural to me that this is a huge part of owning choices. If we don't own our choices then we'll always blame someone else for the problems in our lives. It seems this is especially true when we receive a consequence because the choices weren't accounted for and life then seems extremely unfair. I can see that the practice of walking my children through their choices is even different than having them tell me what happened in an incident (like fighting) from beginning to end - because even in telling a story, they don't have to own anything. Anyway, what kinds of things do you do or say to help your kids understand how they got from Point A to Point Z all by themselves so that they accept responsibility for their actions?

It seems to me after reading this post that lovingly teaching our kids to own their choices should be 95% of the conversation we have w/ them and lovingly delivering the consequence should be about 5%. What do ya think?

[teeny]

I completely agree! What's hard I think is that each child is different so you have to do what you talked about, in a different way with each child. My daughter of course does naughty things just like every other kid, but I communicate with her really well. I think we speak the same language. With my son though, it's not so easy. He's only 2 right now, but I know that he does not speak the same "language" as me and my daughter. In fact, when I do try to talk to him about things he's done and then discipline him, most of the time I think that what I've said or done, hasn't registered! Another VERY important part of disciplining that is easy to forget is what Christ says which is, (k, this is going to be a very bad rendition of what he really says, cause I can't remember where it is in the Bible or the exact words) but, in a nutshell he basically says that after you discipline you need to show even more love towards the person. Does anyone know what scripture I'm talking about and where it is? Anyway, those are just some thoughts.

[Dia Minha]

Diva, my brain is fried, so I don't know if I'm understading you right. If I am the only thing I can add is sometimes it helps to not only talk about what happened, but how they could have done it differently. I had one of these conversations with my 9 yr old recently. She told me something I just couldn't believe. Instead of calling her a lier I just told her the I was having a hard time believing her and told her why her story didn't match up. In the conversation she admitted that she had lied and so then we went through what she should have done differently. By the time the conversations was over I didn't feel the need for anymore consquences, because we talked about how hard it was for me to believe, because she had told a similiar lie earlier. Thus, the consequence was that she no longer had my trust. Does this help at all?

When it comes to fighting at our house, instead of hashing out all of the he did/said, she did/said stuff, we go directly to this question. "What did you do?" This way the child as no option, but to say I hit my brother, and his brother hs no option, but to say I pushed my brother. Does that make sense? Sometimes they will stray in their answer to what their brother or sister did and I just direct them back to the original question. If children can focus on what it is that he/she did and said that was wrong then they are less likely to blame the other person. And no matter who did what first if there is a fight both children receive an equal consequence. What I hope this teaches them is that they can have control over themselves and just walk away. Or they can loose control and receive the negative consequence for doing so.

[5ft Diva]

This makes sense, Dia. So basically, you have them think of ways to make better choices next time and then when they are fighting or something like that, you don't even listen to the story, you just have them tell you what they did to contribute to the immediate problem. That makes sense. The argument is their issue. If they choose to hurt each other in the process, then I become involved. Am I understanding this right? You have no idea how hard this is for me to wrap my head around.

[5ft Diva]

Oh, Teeny, you're talking about Doctrine & Covenants 121

"Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou has reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy."

[Dia Minha]

Yeah, you got it. I think it is one of those things you just have to try, before you can really see how it works. Kind of like spending more time with a child that is always underfoot and causing problems. I don't know how it works, it just does. I just wish I was better at it.

[teeny]

Yeah, that's the one. I think pretty much the same thing is also somewhere in the New Testament.