The Blogfathers

I had a real crappy morning with the kids yesterday.  I lost my temper over something minor and screamed at my 5-year old son.  We rarely have issues, he’s such a good kid, so he was of course extremely sad and a bit shocked.  After a while I did the only thing a real man, or real woman, should do.  I admitted I was wrong and explained why. This made me think of  guilt in general.  Why do people have such huge problems  admitting guilt and moving on regardless if it’s a minor issue or a huge crisis?

I’m used to  being wrong.  After having worked 15 years as a currency trader in fast moving markets you quickly learn when to take a loss and and start over fresh a few seconds later.  Tens or hundreds of  times each day.  The people who can’t admit they’re wrong, and take a loss, never make it.

I tell my kids it’s alright to be wrong and I want them telling me when they make mistakes.  Regardless if they broke a window, hit a friend, stole borrowed a toy, or dropped daddy’s camera in the toilet.  This works well for me and I’m hoping this kind of relationship will become very important in the teenage year.  When my kids are 15 and get too drunk at a party at 3 am in the morning, I want them to call me.  I will be glad to pick them up without giving some fatherly speech and instead sort that out later.

Maybe this is something that needs to be trained, just look at how many couples have issues with accepting blame, admitting mistakes were made, and just move on. In my experience, people who can’t admit ever being wrong never earn that extra amount of respect from others. That’s why I try real hard convincing my kids it’s fine to be wrong but they should admit it and move on. Is this something you find important to teach your children?

Interesting things happen when people take charge of the situation and say those difficult words, “I’m sorry, mistakes were made”.  This is even more clear when someone does the opposite and stubbornly refuses to accept any blame and instead pretend there are no problems at all.  Great example would be Bush speech last week regarding the bailout package.

No one is to blame for the crisis, the economy is just fine, and this is just a minor disturbance.  The economy is doing fine and we should all stop worrying.  Which is interestingly exactly what Lehman Brothers, AIG, and Bear Stearns said one day before going bankrupt.  Personally I think a leader would be better off saying something like this to be respected.

I really hope my kids learn their lesson from my mistakes.  It’s no fun when a whole world doesn’t even bother to get mad at you, they just laugh since what’s being said belongs in a bedtime fairytale for children instead of the world stage.

Behavior