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Personal Accountability
Are You Teaching Your Teen the Blame Game? By Tamekia Reece
Now that you know what the blame game is and why it's not something that's beneficial to you or your children, work on ways to change your bad habit so you can stop teaching it to your teen. In his book, Miller says, "The better answer is always in the better question." To train yourself to ask the better question, he says the first step is to listen to your own self-talk. "When something happens that you choose to be frustrated over, do you immediately slip into victim mode or point fingers?" he says.
When you spot dangerous questions, you can turn them around using the QBQ! method of practicing personal accountability. Take a bad question like "Why won't my tens listen to me?" and begin it with "what" or "how," and put "I" in it so you can ask a question like "What can I do to be a more effective parent?" instead. By switching the question, you accept responsibility for any part you may have had in the problem and focus on what you do about it rather than deflecting the blame on others.
Don't expect to be able to change overnight. If you've played the victim all your life or have faulted others for a very long time, it may be difficult to learn to accept personal accountability. In some instances, counseling may be required. The key is "to know when you're pointing fingers, to know when you're whining and to know when you're procrastinating," Miller says. If it takes counseling to be able to identify those things, do it. Your personal success and your teen's may depend on it.