August 13, 2025

No Excuses

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Children talk it up when seeking a path out of responsibility, post-infraction. There flows a river of forgetting, not-knowing (the rule), blaming others, and all manner of excuses based on “the dog ate my homework”. Our social order necessitates life lessons to ameliorate this universal shortcoming. Sometimes scoldings and punishment seem like the reasonable intervention. And sometimes they are.

But if we fail to kindly take the child’s side as we deliver a strong life lesson, the negative affect is retained and the lesson is lost. Think of it this way: loss of a driving privilege may be the ideal consequence for breaking curfew with the family car. But if delivered with parental anger and attitude, there is no learning except “my parents are jerks (or a more colorful expletive)”. Besides, when delivering an agreed upon (think “behavioral contract”) punishment, there is no better time to take the kid’s side: “I am sorry you got home so late: no driving this weekend but you get a fresh start next week and i know you can do better”. After all, in a family shouldn’t we all be on each others side?

Of course, too often we are crazed in opposition to each other. We over-ameliorate irresponsibility, this very human flaw.

Parents blame children for these derelictions. Think of it: a child blames a sibling, then a parent blames the child for wrongly blaming a sibling. The immature schema of blame is never replaced by its mature alternative, responsibility. The starting point of this essay.

When blame dominates a family system, self-blame is inevitable. Unkind punishments from without become self-attacks from within: I am bad, no good, unworthy, even worthless. Ruminations tear at us and tear down ego-structure. We develop mistrust, shame, doubt, guilt, inferiority, and overwhelming confusion. In this instance, personal responsibility fades into the distance as self-blame gobbles up the territory of our everyday life. Children (and adults) become self-piteous, powerless excuse-makers.

Instead, lessons of responsibility are better taught as empowerments: the ability to respond to circumstance. Those lessons run deep and deserve a family dialog that illuminates the causes and effects of our mistakes, even (and especially) those with harm done. No blame. After all, there are always reasons for human behavior and if we are to grow it is imperative to understand them.

Responsibility: Reasons, but no excuses!

 

March 7, 2025

The Me-Against-You Family

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Across cultures and time, the family unit has delivered support, well-being, sustenance and security. More or less.


Much has been written about those positives and those negatives. Here, consider a particular negative quality and what might be done about it. Specifically and ironically let’s highlight that sometimes families less resemble the virtue of Sunday School and look more like like the antagonisms of Sunday Football.


That is to say, each family member becomes a team onto itself, competing against, even antagonizing the other: parent against parent, sibling fighting sib, children against parents and parents opposing their own kids. Strategies and alliances develop as one parent sides with one child against the other parent. Or the time honored tradition of a child splitting parental authority, going to Dad for some perks and Mom for others. Me-against-you is a model for the art of war, but not for the art of love.


What is going on? After all, should not the family be for the other members? Why do they so often (angrily) oppose one another? Let’s examine that question.


Imagine this: husband and wife, with a complete lack of humility, debate details of a shared responsibility (something monumental like who took out the garbage last). Each falsely believes that their own memory of the chore is a flawless video recoding of the event: It is definitely your turn! Research on memory suggests that while we are certain of our facts, all of us have a sometimes biased and often inaccurate recollection of events. Remembering that, partners could get a little less haughty, calm down a bit…and flip a coin. And by the way, it is never about the garbage!


We could pause any conflict and the earlier the better. Instead, we might give understanding a try. Not “dammit I don’t understand you” but with utmost sincerity, curiosity and kindness, “I really want to understand you”. Not just the words, but voice tone, countenance and breath. No huffing or puffing, just nice even breath. After all, there may be nothing more debilitating than to feel misunderstood by someone you love.


Parents teach their children everyday. There is modeling and instruction, sometimes softly and sometimes with a firm NO. Avoid creating a me- against-you moment. For example, not caring for the DVD collection could merit a required clean up and consequence: no videos today. But watch that delivery here too. Relax the frustration and edge, because children feel your feelings more than your words. Deliver these consequences with diplomacy and compassion: “no videos today, that will be hard…I hope you will do better tomorrow”. After all, when kids goof up, besides a lesson they need to know mom or dad is on their side.


Being a frustrated parent is hard but not an excuse to blow off steam at the expense of a child. That kind of catharsis is selfish- it might give a parent relief, but we have to do better. Instead, run around the block or chop wood or carry water. Invite the calm and then talk with your kid.


Parents could use the exercise.

 

June 19, 2024

Write. Right. Rite

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We scribble in our first efforts to express the basic need to lay pencil or crayon to surfaces of all kinds. We mark on paper and coloring books as well as on floors and walls and sometimes across the pages of hardcover classics (sorry, mom).


These child-arts foreshadow drawing and painting and symbol making and alphabet. We write.
And for some of us, writing may become more than a requirement of school or the workplace. For some of us, it channels an expressive need innate to our character. Some with exceptional talent create and publish poems and works of non-fiction and fiction. For others, less talented, but wholly committed, the journal beckons.


There is in the Buddhist Tradition a Path, with 8 overlapping divisions (no claims of expertise here). These are sometimes called “Right” as in “Right Understanding”. Not right in the sense of right-wrong so much as right in the sense of wise. To write is right in the latter sense; it is wise to make this effort (Another of the Eight, “Right Effort”). Sometimes words flow in the journaling process and sometimes they are painfully stuck, yet we stay with it.


These words, flowing or stuck, reflect and express our Thought (another of the Eight, “Right Thought”). And so it goes in this thought-to-word written process. Akin to effort, there is a discipline to it all beginning with the intention (“Right Intention”) to write, a vow to write. In a very real sense, writing could then become a ritual, a Rite. This is a practice that supports and is supported by concentration and mindfulness (two others of the Eight).


Write. Right. Rite.


Perhaps for the talented few mentioned earlier, it all could become “Right Livelihood” and a vocation. For the rest of us, a practice like journaling is its own magic. Digging deep, thought transformed by reframing negativities and underscoring our basic goodness brings a more honest and accurate quality to our never-ending storylines. We face and write down those oh so automatic negative thoughts… thoughts that feature our flaws, shames and traumas could be bravely confronted and released instead of repeated over and over again. And as we write, all the forgotten gifts, large or small, the hugs and winks and even the tiniest acts of kindness, given or received, could move to the foreground.

Thought slowly transformed has effects. It informs what we say and choose not to say (“Right Speech”). It informs what we do and choose not to do (“Right Action”). Unending, this practice is revelatory and timeless, unearthing joys and challenges in the ever-changing story of our past, present and future: The deep blessing of our one and only life.


Write. Right. Rite