Blame Flames

Walking into a room, I still haven't learned to not say, "Don't lean back in the chair like that," to a specific son of mine who'll immediately scream in response, "I wasn't leaning back!  Why do you always yell at me?"

I'd not raised my voice at all and I'd seen him with my very own eyes leaning back on two chair legs.

"Dude, you're the one that's screaming and lying," an astute observer, another son of mine, might then mention, only to hear the predictable screech, "Why is EVERYONE picking on me?"

I have not been able to change this behavior one single iota.

He thinks his teachers and the administration pick on him too.

His older siblings blame law enforcement, "They just don't like me," they'll boast.

This is where I must always disengage.  It would only result in it being a yelling match and I don't wanna play that game.  Even if I yelled louder, he wouldn't hear my words, nor comprehend that I'm only trying to help him.

These are the people who always get 'bad breaks' or blame their chronic unemployment on everything but their own inability to get out of bed and apply for a job.

They'll never get anywhere in life, but I've sadly discovered that they just don't care.

Inertia is very comfortable to them.

It's just so much better to blame everyone instead of taking responsibility for themselves.

I get it, but I don't know what to do about it.  Most professionals will respond that I can't make so and so change their behaviors until the moment, if it ever happens, that they want to change.

An interesting take on it can be found here.  An excerpt:


Unfortunately, blame is like anger in that it dulls one sense of empathy. It allows a person to act in a hurtful way to another human being. It isn't the act itself, but it often clears the road. This is a small, but important point. Ordinary humans have inhibitions that serve as a buffer against what we know is bad behavior. Blame is not the act itself, but it either erodes or outright removes these inhibitions, often both . It develops a thought pattern that allows the person's emotions to override his/her self-control in order to achieve an often selfish end -- including sustaining dysfunctional patterns.

While this may seem like an overly harsh statement, also realize the kind of mindset that so quickly adopts blame as a defensive posture for emotional/ego protection is exactly the  same one that will put you in front of, otherwise avoidable, physical danger.