The Land of Excusesby Kori Rodley Irons | More from this Blogger 19 Jul 2007 05:53 PM I have been at this parenting thing for long enough that you can pretty well imagine I've heard just about every excuse in the book. I keep thinking that eventually my kids will just give up. They too will realize that I've heard it all and seen it all and not even bother to offer up their ongoing feeble excuses-but, so far, that has not been the case. I have heard excuses for why messes didn't get cleaned up or homework finished, as well as excuses for why so-and-so can't help, make it home by curfew, etc. While I pride myself in being a fairly level-headed and reasonable person-there does come a time when I've heard all the excuses I can handle. But, what can be done about it? My pat answer when one of my kids dishes out the excuses is to say: "Hmmm. But what are you going to do about this now?" This way, I don't get into an argument or power struggle about whether they are telling the truth (in most cases, they are telling the truth from their point of view), and I don't get trapped into making a judgment call about whether it is a plausible or reasonable excuse or not. I'm just putting the focus back onto the present moment and ask them to deal with the consequences regardless. I try not to say things like "Stop making excuses" because one mom's excuse is another child's very good explanation. While I think I pretty well know an excuse when I hear one-calling a child to the carpet over an excuse doesn't help them to take responsibility for their choice or action (which is what we want them to learn to do). Plus, there is no sense focusing on mistakes or trying to point out something that a child has done wrong if the goal is try to get them to learn how to be resilient and learn cope with the realities of life. I just refuse to "hear" the excuses and keep putting the focus back onto the task at hand. See Also: No More Good Excuses The Top 15 Unusual Excuses for Not Showing Up to Work Direct Sales--Funny Excuses for Cancelling a Party Learn more about Kori Rodley Irons  Bio has been removed by administrator Relevantparenting tags User Comments No comments on this article yet. Be the first to comment! Community Tags communication, excuses, techniques Discuss this article
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