Child Outbursts: Why Kids Blame, Make Excuses and Fight When You Challenge Their Behavior
Arguing with kids often seems like a losing battle—and it is. No matter what you say, your child has a smart comeback that pushes your buttons or leaves you speechless. And worst of all, when your child is angry, nothing is fair, and it’s never his fault. James Lehman explains how, in any argument, your child might set different “traps” for you to fall into. Once you know what these traps are, you’ll be able to avoid them—and hold your child accountable. Here, James translates what your child is really saying during an argument.
You’ll often see kids blame others and point the finger at someone else when you hold them accountable for their behavior. Very often they see themselves as the victim, no matter how aggressive or abusive their behavior is. Thinking of themselves this way gives them the ability, in their mind, not to take any responsibility—and if you don’t take responsibility, then you won’t have to change.
If your child blames others or comes back with excuse after excuse whenever you call him on his behavior, I believe you need to start challenging his thinking. And if he acts out or is destructive in order to get away with inappropriate behavior, know that this is a warning sign: you need to find ways to stop that pattern immediately.
Here’s an example of how a conversation with your child can quickly be derailed by accusations, blame and anger. Let’s say the teen below hasn’t done his homework and now he’s behind at school. He was in a bad mood when he came home, so he takes it out on his little sister by picking on her and calling her foul names. His mother is concerned and upset, and she attempts to talk to him about what’s going on. Soon, their conversation deteriorates into an ugly argument:
Parent: “Why are you falling behind in school and picking on your sister so much lately?”
Child: “It’s her fault that I call her names—she’s always bugging me and taking my stuff. I’m sick of her crap.”
When you try to hold kids accountable, they will often use excuses to deflect your attempts to make them take responsibility for their actions. And in fact, if the mother in this example asked her child to apologize to his sister, he would say, “I’m sorry, but.” And it would be, “I’m sorry, but you looked at me funny.” Or “I’m sorry, but you laughed.” So whatever he says, he means “I’m sorry, but it was your fault.” And again, what he’s really stating here is, “I’m not responsible for what I say. I’m sorry, but I’m actually the victim here.”
One of the big signs of whether or not your child is ready to change is whether or not he is ready to stop being the victim. If he can stop that victim thinking and start to take some responsibility for himself, I don’t care if he’s 8 or 18, he has a better chance of changing than a child who continues to blame the world—and everybody in it.
Parent: “Well, why aren’t you keeping up with your work?”
Child: “The teacher didn’t explain the assignment to me. How should I know what she wants me to do? She’s an idiot.”
Again, what we see here is victim thinking. In this kid’s mind, it’s not his responsibility to get clarification from the teacher. One of the problems with this kind of thinking is that kids believe what they think—in fact, we all do. So if your child thinks it’s somebody else’s fault or that something isn’t fair, he’ll be able to justify a lot of inappropriate behavior and shirk a lot of responsibility. These are what we call “thinking errors”—and they cause a lot of problems for kids and adults alike.
Understand that in their minds, they believe they’re right. Kids think, “My friends are allowed to stay out until 10 o’clock. Why can’t I?” Or “Why can’t I watch another hour of TV?” That’s victim thinking: they believe they’re a victim of your stupidity or failure to understand their world. And then the next jump in their thinking process is, “It’s not fair.” When somebody thinks something isn’t fair, they are then able to reason, “This isn’t fair, so the rules don’t apply to me.” Next, they’re able to justify not following that rule.
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