He or she who owns a problem, solves the problem. It’s a simple philosophy and one that Australia’s leading parenting educator, Michael Grose promotes as a guiding principles in his parenting handbook, Thriving! Michael believes that problem-ownership promotes responsibility. It also emphasises maturity, as solving issues that you own is a mark of growing maturity within society.
“Sometimes we take responsibility away from kids by solving their problems for them,” he says. “We do this when we cover for them when they can’t get their homework in on time; or give them extra pocket-money when they spend it too quickly; or do their chores for them.”
We can all cite examples where we resolved kids’ problems for them. But if they are to learn, we need to teach them how to resolve issues for themselves. Michael suggests using these three responses to shift the problem to where it lay when faced with the common request to “Stop him/her being mean to me!” when they are trying to deal with sibling rivalry:
- “How can you fix this?”
- “How can you make it up to your sister/brother?”
- “Have you asked your sister/brother to forgive you?”
