How To Get Our Kids To Be Accountable
A common issue I hear from adults about teenagers is their lack of accountability for their behaviors, mistakes, and fuck ups. Parents, teachers, probation officers, therapists, employers—-all want and need teenagers to be accountable. How do we do this?
Let me introduce you to Madden. I worked with Madden and his family through his very rocky journey from middle school to high school graduation. When Madden was 14 years old he found himself in a lot of trouble when he and some of his friends were caught spray painting the school. His parents were beyond frustrated that Madden didn’t seem to care, kept protesting that it wasn’t his idea or his fault, and “besides, it’s just a little bit of spray paint! Everybody does it!”
Why do we want our kids to be accountable?
In the absence of the child’s accountability, adults usually fear the young person will grow up to be selfish, without a conscience, irresponsible, and generally unpleasant people to be around. The fears are always valid. The problem is when the adults’ parts that get triggered by those fears begin acting out and negatively impact the child. Lecturing, fixing, explaining, punishing, yelling, and shaming parts seem to be fairly common parts that show up. This is what happened with Madden’s parents.
Madden’s parents despaired, and in that despair, they did what most parents will do, they lectured, punished, threatened, predicted a dire future, and shamed Madden:
“We are so disappointed in you;”
“How could you be so stupid?”;
“I can’t believe you don’t care about this! Aren’t you the least bit ashamed of yourself?!”;
Law enforcement and the school’s administrators responded according to their protocols, as they needed to. But peppered throughout their injunctions, imposed consequences, and outlining the procedures going forward were statements like:
“You know, buddy, you keep this up and you’re going to be in juvenile detention or even worse.”
“Madden, you’re on a straight path to nowhere if you can’t own up to this.”
“I thought you were a good kid. You should’ve known better,” said with a sad shaking of the head.
With these statements, the adults are attempting to make Madden responsible for not only his behavior but also for their fears. Underneath the adults’ words is the message, coming from their own protector parts, “You need to be accountable so I can be assured that you learn your lesson, and then I won’t be so anxious.”
My son told me once that when he was 16 years old I had issued him a dire warning that he was never going to amount to anything in his life. I was in a reactive fit of anger and fear at his choices, his lack of accountability, and the shrug of his shoulders. A decade after the occasion he said that it was one of the most shaming and hurtful things anyone had ever said to him and still reverberated through the years. Far from making him accountable, my own behavior was unconscionable, ineffective in helping him make different choices, and worse, left him demoralized and shamed for years.
What does Madden have to do to learn accountability?
We use the word all the time and expect it from our kids. But what is it we’re really asking for? Accountability is not about feeling guilty, shamed, and arm-twisted into a confession and apology. When we tell our kids that we want them to be accountable, we are telling them that we want them to understand, explain, have the ability to respond accordingly to their actions, and learn the lesson. That’s a big ask for kids. It’s a complex process, so let’s break it down.
Madden had to offend to begin with. This is a supreme irony, to learn the process of taking responsibility for something we’ve done wrong we first have to do something wrong. We’re human, our kids are human, and we’re all going to make mistakes. But somewhere along the way, I’ve found, many adults believe that kids shouldn’t make the mistakes in the first place and assume that “they should know better.” However, we know that “if kids could do well they would do well.” (I say more here about adolescents doing bad things.)
Madden must be able to understand his intentions, motives, desires, and goals in making that choice. Why there? Why with these kids? Why this infraction?
Madden must understand the repercussions. He needs to have a measure of empathy to understand the impact his actions have had.
Madden must be able to see that he could have made other/better choices and understand why he didn’t. This takes an extraordinary level of self-awareness.
He has to be able to face his choices without feeling shame and he needs to know how to manage his shame. Shame does not allow for accountability.
Madden must have the courage to be vulnerable and humble to face his behavior, to make amends, and ultimately to face those whom he’s wronged.
Finally, Madden must feel in his bones that he’s still acceptable, still belongs, is still loved before he admits that he’s messed up badly.
This is a highly complex process requiring many advanced skills and conditions. For Madden to take accountability is dependent on a wide variety of factors:
How old is Madden? Chronologically? Emotionally? Cognitively? Is he developmentally capable of this set of processes?
Are there other circumstances that might compromise his executive functioning? Is he neurodivergent? Has he experienced early childhood trauma? Are there current stressors or crises in his life?
Does he have the communication skills to be able to navigate the accountability process? The explanation, the apology, his understanding?
Has he been taught: self-awareness; empathy; the ability to make different choices in the face of peer pressure; and manage his emotional dysregulation and feelings of shame?
Have his parents, teachers, and adults in his life modeled taking accountability for their actions?
Is there a history of emotional invalidation in the way that Madden was raised? If so, then Madden’s ability to take accountability will be significantly compromised, if not impossible.
What is the quality of the relationships between Madden and his parents, Madden and his school community, Madden and law enforcement? Does he feel respected by the adults in his life?
What is the response/reaction from the adults involved in the situation? Are the adults emotionally regulated? Most young people cannot emotionally regulate in the face of the adults’ dysregulation.
Does Madden feel psychologically safe enough to stay relatively calm rather than be in fight/flight/freeze mode?
Things to keep in mind
We want our kids to take responsibility for their actions to the degree that the learning gets integrated so they won’t make the same mistakes again. If we want our kids to be accountable keep these things in mind:
Accountability is a host of complex skills and processes.
Our kids are not going to know how to do this right out the gate. To expect them to do so is to set them up for failure.
To take responsibility for their actions, kids must feel safe. We must always aim for connection before accountability. Accountability will come as a result of that connection and won’t happen when there’s a lack of connection.
Take responsibility for your own actions and behaviors.
The primary work for the adults in such a situation is to self-regulate their high emotions.
Every time our children screw up is an opportunity for connection and teaching valuable lifelong skills. Aim for that and accountability will follow.
And just to let you know, both Madden and my son both arrived into adulthood quite able to take responsibility for their actions and choices.
Image by: Piotr
