When Your Kid Messes Up

Ever have one of those days when your kid messes up in a big way that it boggles your mind, leaving you to only ask, “Who are you and what have you done with my kid?”

I think I hear a resounding, “Heck, Yeah!”

A phone call from the school with my tween crying on the other end of the line; rambling off the day’s events that lead up to one very bad decision.

A decision that she “should have known better.” Yet, here she was, in the counselors office, being made to call home and confess her wrong-doing.

This school deals with most infraction by using the Love and Logic strategy first. I won’t go into details about the incident, because that would be public shaming my child, and trust me, she had enough guilt laid on her this weekend without me writing about it here…along with a little “hard” labor of housework! Fortunately, the school choose L&L first, otherwise there might have been a suspension in her very near future.

Why Love and Logic?

Love and Logic is “…an approach to raising kids that provides loving support from parents while at the same time expecting kids to be respectful and responsible.”

This may not be a surprise to parents out there…kids live in the moment. They make mistakes. They don’t think rationally.

Kids don’t think about consequences. They don’t think how their actions, even if they thought it was funny or a joke, affect others.

As the old saying goes, “If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?” The answer is, YES. Because they leap before they think.

Scientifically speaking their frontal lobes have yet to develop fully, which won’t happen until they are in their early 20s. Why is that important? The frontal lobe is believed to be where critical decisions between right and wrong is processed. Cause and effect is just not in their brain…yet.

This would explain why a kid would think it’s a good idea to jump of the roof of the house, onto a trampoline, and (hopefully) land in a swimming pool…

L&L parents and educators do not lead with anger, threats, or intimidation; because kids are a work-in-progress. Kids need guidance as they grow and develop.

[Tweet “No matter the values we instill in our kids, they well never make the right decision all the time.”]

They will mess up. We all mess up.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t consequences for their actions. It just means that there is understanding, talking about their wrong and making better choices, and how they could have handled the situation differently. We could all use a little love and logic in our life.

SOURCES | Love and Logic, Brain Connection