Last night, I gave a new program at parent group. 'Blame' was my topic. My idea was to lay out the things that new parents blame their child's situation on. Often they are so invested on blaming (bad friends, the school, the ex-husband), they are unable to look ahead, to put their energies into improving the situation.
I also introduced the concept of 'agency'. An agent in an economic model is a decision-maker or a member. An entity that can take an action to influence things. If you have no agency, then you can have no effect. I stressed that we needed to encourage agency for our acting out kids and also claim our own agency.
We got a bit carried away. Often, when I'm speaking to a group, I like to be funny, introduce humor. I had prepared a list of about ten possible things to blame but the group of 25 came up with dozens of more. Somebody would call something out and others would agree, chuckling at themselves thinking of some of the blaming behavior they had done in the past. Some of these matters can be pretty serious, sexual abuse or suicide of a parent or domestic violence or the police.
Some new parents started getting offended. How could we be making fun of sexual abuse? That's pretty serious stuff. Some of the parents stopped and stated that they were sell aware that many of these could be very serious but investing precious energy into blaming them was not helping ourselves or our children move forward.
At the end, the program ended peacably as several parents made that same point, we weren't minimizing these situations. Some were not so sure.
Sometimes I think that if I don't offend some people with a program, I'm not really trying......
Wait until the end of the year when I give my gift-giving program, that one often offencs people and challenges others.
Still somebody calling out 'psychiatric diagnosis' and everybody chuckles, I guess you had to be there.
I continue to be amazed at my story about not knowing that my son was attending a high school....I've told it recently twice to Changes parents and they all dissolved into laughter. When I tell that story to any other group, they react with horror, just appalled.
Still your sense of humor may save you......
Picture stolen from ablog used without permission
Whoooooooooooo! Big news!
Dear Sandy,
Congratulations! Your submission to “Stratus: Journal of Arts & Writing” has been accepted, and you will receive an honorarium of $50. Please Reply to confirm that you would still like your submission to be included in the anthology.
No comments:
Post a Comment