It is hard to imagine believing something that I know isn’t true. It just isn’t possible. So if I believe something to be true, my brain will act on that belief with all the righteous conviction of that truth. And yet I know, having lived on this planet for a while, that I have believed things that turned out not to be true (and that is undeniably true!)

So what does this have to do with parenting? A LOT.

Let’s assume that you have experienced a number of challenging situations between you and your child or (even more fun) between siblings. These situations often require a level of discernment as to what happened; its cause or who caused it, the underlying meaning, and the validity of any actions or reactions to the event. That can be tricky. How does a parent decide such weighty issues as “who started it,” “who broke it,” or “who lied?” What might one rely on to make sense of the situation? You may have tried asking, “Who started this?” Generally there’s a vote cast for each member with fingers pointing in outward directions.

It’s often hard to get a straight (or at least convincing) answer to upsetting situations and so there tends to be a reliance on personal judgment. Who started it? – Who is usually the instigator? Who broke it? – Who’s careless? Who lied? – Who always lies? Easy.

And that is the trap. If a belief forms around a child or behavior, there is a tendency to shortcut the problem solving and move right to the perceived “truth.” “I know you did it. It’s always you.” There is no way out of that cycle once it gets created. The belief generates its own solution.

What if parents didn’t have to decide who did it, broke it, or even if a child was lying? What if it’s more about teaching a different way regardless of how it became a problem? The milk is all over the floor. “Who did it?” as reasonable as that sounds doesn’t move the situation forward. It stalls it at blame. What if the situation were just stated? “There’s milk all over the floor. It seems that someone had an accident and didn’t know what to do to fix it. When milk spills, get a rag and clean it up. We can all practice cleaning it up together so that we’ll all know what to do if it happens again.” What if we shift the focus to finding the solution? Try it and let me know.

I’ll share some thoughts about the lying issue in the next blog, so stay tuned.