aceptng responsibility

Post Reply New Topic

How do you teach a child to accept responsibility for their own actions. My son, 7 HF Aspergers, will never admit to any wrong doing. It will ALWAYS be someone elses fault he did or said or acted a certain way. It is like he is completely blind and CANNOT see his part in it at all. That scares me. I fear for his adult future. If I question him about what happened, he will say it was him, but the reason is alwyas someone elses fault. "He made me, she made me, if you only, why didnt you tell me, I didnt know, I couldnt hear, she put it there, etc..."

We role model acceptance all the time. I admit my flaws and faults openly all the time. "OOPS, mommy just spilled the drink. Thats ok, I will be more careful next time". "WOW, I really made a mistake with this recipe. The food came out awful! Looks like pizza tonight kids! I am sad I cooked so hard for nothhing, but I bet next time I will read the ingredients better." So on and so forth. I also show frustration and sadness abut things, but always try to show how its OK that I messed up and everyone does, etc...

I dont know what else to do. I am afraid he will grow up and never see that he has control over his own actions, and do things and blame others. Maybe bad things? Id like to believe not, but how am I to know??

What can I do to help him? Why is it so hard to accpet responsibility? We are not a punative household, we dont hit, we dont call names, we accept errors, issues and mistakes, I dont knwo why he is so opposed to accepting responsibility.

We have similar issues with our seven yr old. I think it is b/c kids do not really feel in control anyway and when you have low executive functions esp. impulse control, I think the compulsion to do x or y is so strong it seems to him like circumstances made him do it.

We are working on getting our son to realize that he is in charge and he will be faced with impulses but that he does have the power to choose not to act on them. So we talk about choices a lot. I would love to tell you some magic bullet, but we are just plugging away hoping it will click.

I've seen NTs far older than your son assume infallibility, so it might disappear with aging or it might not, who knows. Nobody's without fault.

it might, but it also might not. As his parent, it would be shame on me to KNOW my son has this issue and just sit back and watch and hope it goes away!

I want to work with him to make things better for the incase is doesnt just go away.

Reward him every time he "owns" something that went wrong. If he has siblings, praise and reward them for taking responsibility.

anther scenario. He is almost 7 1/2...but I feed him some of his food. Like messy things, he cant do it. SO I am feeding him farina the consistency of soup. I say to him use your lips to clear the spoon not your teeth, casue he used his teeth and got it all over, it just pours out of his mouth. Next spoon, he uses his teeth, AGAIN I say USE YOUR LIPS not your teeth. He does. Next spoon uses teeth. At this point I Am done. He has farina all over the table and himself casue he is not listening to directions. I say it ONCE more, he uses his teeth. I then say "feed yourself". He is now screaming that I am making him cry. And he is NOT feedign himself. So I say yes, you are I am not doing it anymore. You arent listening and you are making a HUGE mess (that, by the way, he REFUSED to clean up). So I tel him he can go to his room, he refuses to do that. So I now threaten him with he isnt sleeping in my bed if he doesnt go to his room. I needed him out of my sight, to be honest.

So he yells, "You are making me cry,!"

HELLO!! !! ! Again, ZERO responsibility. I just dont know what to do with him. ALl he hears is me getting upset but has no idea why. And WHY WHY WHY do I have to get upset and yell to have him FINALLY agree to do what I asked 4x already? I could just cry. I am at my wits end and dont know how to get thru to this child. The ONLY way he hears me is when I yell, and then all he hears is yelling. Not why, not that he didnt listen. I dont know what to do. I dont want to yell, I HATE IT!! ! What do I do? How do I get thru to him? How do I get him to HEAR ME?????? He has zero hearing issues, he scores high on all his speech evals (except artic due to his cleft palate), we are tlaking about a highly verbal child who cannot follow a simple direction EVER or accept responsibility.

Sorry for the rant, I am literally at my wits end here....

He could have no hearing problems but have listening problems or auditory processing issues. He could also have some form of apraxia, where he has trouble executing physical actions when requested to by others. Or (or in addition to that) he doesn't see the point of what you are asking and so just does things his way. We have all of the above issues.

If you ask him about these things later (when tempers are less likely to flair) what does he say? Is it all blame shifting or is their ANY insight you can glean from it?

My son also has non-compliance issues and then when I lose it (because sometimes I do) and yell, he also looks hurt and wants to know why I am yelling. I tell him it is because I am frustrated with having to tell him the same thing over and over again, but he really does not understand. Usually he thinks what I am asking has no point or is not as important (to him) as what he wants and sometimes it is because I am asking him to focus or something beyond his capabilities.

how do I test for auditory processing issues? I always say to him, "Do you understand? If you dont tell me I will explain it" and he says he understands. I dont know. I explained he needed to clear the spoon with his lips rather then his teeth casue it was spilling all over him, the table and floor, and I said he was going to have to clean the mess, which he said no he wasnt. he SAW that was happening but continued to use his teeth unless instructed to do otherwise after each spoon and sometimes not even after I said it 5x.

After the fact, he still tells me he didnt know, he didnt hear me, I made him cry, etc...I ask him, what would you like me to do to help you hear me, to help you understnad what I am saying to you. He doesnt know. I dont know. I am at a complete loss but I just cant stand having this kind of relationship with my child.

My son used to have a much harder time with responsibility at that age. He is 11 now and he is much better and I have to admit that I don't know that it had anything to do with me. I think it was just maturation. And for awhile, if he acknowledged wrong-doing without me asking, he didn't get punished. My 7 year old is very much the same way. EVERYTHING is someone else's fault. But she probably really is more like a 5 or year old, so maybe it's just the age?

My kids are very strange with this. They will often "tell on themselves" by telling me things they did wrong that I would have never known about, yet when I catch them, the freak out when corrected.

Exhausting, isn't it?

exhausting, yes.

My son also tells on himself. I dont get upset over mistakes, accidents, etc...but when he refuses to listen or follow a direction, talks back, etc..that pushes me over the edge.

Im just tired. Its the SAME conversations with the same person all day every day and I kust wish I could get thru to him.

My 3yo is light years easier then he is, I just hope that when he gets older it clicks. I even have to teach him how to outsmart his 3yo sister.

As far as auditory/listening goes our school did not spring for specific testing for that, but the Stanford/Otis-Lennon testing that they gave all the kids had a listening subtest that my son did REALLY badly on. As far as auditory processing goes, I can tell my son has issues with that because sometimes when I talk to him and ask a question or say something he intends to respond to you can see him pausing and he doesn't get anything out about that question or statement until after I have already said something else. The school did not spring for testing on it, and I think there are audiologists who do formal tests for it. I haven't seen the need to spend the $$$$, as I just go on the assumption that it takes him longer to process auditory information, and go from there.

I am not at all saying that that is the sole reason for non-compliance, but it does contribute to it, if your child is afflicted in that way.

One option for the eating thing in particular would be to make a short video of you eating the right way (just in case visual explanations are more effective) with a very slow exaggerated demonstration, and then having him copy it with an empty spoon (no mess that way and you won't get so aggravated.) See if he can imitate it. If he can't, it is an imitation problem.

If he can, the other options are probably either that the wrong way seems better from a sensory standpoint and it feels good for him to do that for some reason. If so, that is harder to fix. The other possibility is he thinks it is funny, or he thinks your reaction is funny to him. If that is the case, I would try to stay calm and unemotional (even if you do not feel calm) so that he does not succeed in getting a rise out of you.

Another option would be if you put a "tarp" out for messy foods just like you might for a baby. When my son was little we got one of those cheepo picnic table covers (they have them at party stores and box stores in the party area or picnic area) It is basically just a sheet of cheap thin plastic. Put it under his chair and feed him with his shirt off. That was what I did when my son was in that messy toddler stage. Then when he dropped things and made a big mess, it wasn't as big a deal. He didn't get a reaction form me, when he made a mess, and so from then on most of the messes were accidental as opposed to on purpose.

This probably won't help you, but how I came to be told that I had auditory processing issues was because I went to an audiologist because others around me were stating that they thought I had hearing loss. I passed an extensive battery of hearing tests, actually doing better than what would be expected for my age. The audiologist asked for my description of what happened when I couldn't "hear" people (the truth was, I could hear them, I couldn't understand them) and he said that my experience, coupled with my test results, and coupled with the fact that those around me noted hearing deficits, indicated that I had a central processing issue and not a hearing loss. He referred me to some kind of specialist and I never went because I already had my answer. I wish I could remember what specialist he referred me to, because that might hold the answer to your question.

I would actually have him repeat back what he heard you say. Just asking him if he understands may not be depicting the truth that he didn't. He could say yes, even when he doesn't. And sometimes people don't realize they don't understand.

Yes, he can repeat what I say, but I guess a parrot can repeat too. But I have gone so far as ask him waht that means, and he will tell me what it means too. SO I am not too sure. I think he just cannot control himself and he is very impulsive, and rarely ever thinks before he acts. Even if he knows better he cant draw upon that knowledge in the moment. And then he cries, or says oops or I didnt hear you or I didnt know. But he does know. He just cannot stop or control himself. It is maddening, I try to explain this to others and they dont understand. If you sat here and asked my son what he should do in all kids of situations, he can give you insightful, beautiful, creative answers. But DURING the situation, he cannot draw upon a single thing.

I dont know how to help him.

Oh my gosh, this SO sounds like me when I was a kid. I honestly don't know what to tell you except PLEASE try to keep it together around him. Losing it around him will only make him feel less safe and secure and maybe give him a complex without ever understanding the reason why. Hold him, hug him, reassure you love him, and when the situation is over then calmly discuss it with him in a non-accusatory, logical manner, why it is not good for HIM to do that and how it makes you feel (worried, sad, etc.). He may not get it for many years to come but eventually it may click when he is REALLY motivated and wants to impress a certain girl or something! My son also has impulse control problems. It is the cycle repeating itself, so I know how frustrating it is. My heart goes out to you. Hang in there!! !!

My son also does this. He trips and then he gets angry and kicks and punches the floor because it is the floor's fault, or the thing-he-bumped-into's fault, or the wall's fault, etc. I do try to explain it, sometimes, "Oh that's so silly! You know a wall doesn't decide to hurt you!" or logical reasoning, but you guessed it--nothing gets through. I'm just holding on to hope that eventually he will grow out of this thinking, however long it might take. But I figure I will have to keep on explaining until he gets it, until I pull all my hair out, or both.

This won't help in the moment......but, frontal lobe development and birthdays will help.

I was really at a point with my son which felt helpless. I kind of gave up on all of the trying to make him develop normally and just adapted to where he was (rather than where I wanted him to be). I stopped asking why. I just started going with it...

Life got so much easier! He's now 13 and infinitely better than I had imagined.

So, with your example of how he's eating...perhaps (before you're really frustrated), say, you know what hon, it doesn't look like your ready for this right now, lets get you some toast... Just let it go... I did that about a lot. Some I regret, for instance, my son sleeps on my floor - UGH. However, he was filled with such anxiety that once I allowed him to just have a mat on the floor, our days got better, he was well rested and relaxed.

Now that he's starting in a good place, we will be working on the sleeping arrangements.