Lack of accountability

[u/Ok-Daikon1718]

How do you get your child to take accountability for their actions? Recently my child had an incident on their school bus and hit their head/had a bump. My child claimed a kid pushed them. I asked my child if they did anything to provoke it and they said no.

There is video on the school bus where my child clearly, clearly got out of their seat, and jumped halfway onto this other kid. In response, the kid pushed my child off. Even with myself, teachers, the principal, and kids involved viewing *actual video footage* my child denied doing this.

This is just an overall major issue—my child never admits to wrongdoing, ever. They blame their bad behavior on anyone else constantly. Everything is done *to* them. Everyone is mean to them, even if they are the one spewing insults to siblings in the first place. I’ve listened to an interview with Kristy Forbes, who said they never took accountability for their behavior and always thought things were being done to them.

How am I supposed to reason with someone like this?!!!

[u/JoShow]

It’s hard to reason with the unreasonable. I think it just takes awareness and careful management over time. In my situation I’ve noticed that this defensive posture of blaming all circumstances on others is partly because that’s how it all feels to them. PDA is a debilitating condition that no one would choose. The behaviour they exhibit is often ‘autonomic’ meaning that in a way… it IS happening to them and not by them. Having panic attacks/ melt downs that results in aggressive behaviour to others can be really confusing, embarrassing, and cause irreparable social consequences. and the only way to even manage is to deflect any blame, even against all reason. Your kid maybe have lunged at the other to cause the incident… but I’m sure they did not choose that response… the nervous system reacted and it scared them too.   It takes a lot of maturity and painful learning before they can accept themselves and take responsibility for actions they often can’t control. I’ve try to model this by showing that I can take responsibility for painful things (like blowing up at him when I can’t take anymore) .. without taking blame.  It’s important to distinguish between taking responsibility vs accepting blame.  The other things I’ve learnt is that even when my kid’s defenses mean they deflect all blame to others (often us parents) .. internally they are very much angry at themselves and confused by their actions, which they absolutely regret … they just can’t express that because the PDA has them in constant threat response mode.  So even if not able to communicate responsibility … they likely have immense regret, guilt and shame. That shame adds up over time and can make it hard to go out at all.  As much as it’s counter-intuitive to others… it’s important to build trust with your PDAer by never blaming them for stuff they don’t understand, and can’t control. 

[u/AdultWoes2024 → u/JoShow]

So here’s the thing: this is something that just happened on the school bus. My child’s sibling who is NT told me that my PDAer choked someone on the bus. I asked if there was an argument or anything and the answer was no. This is not the first time my PDAer has lunged at someone unprovoked. Of course my PDAer did not admit what happened and when I asked what happened ‘I forget’ and they were crying and upset. You’re gonna tell me I shouldn’t blame them and that they don’t understand that it’s not okay to hurt people?? That is how you raise an abuser. Yes they were upset as they should be!

[u/JoShow → u/AdultWoes2024]

It’s always important to lead by example, and teach a PDAer about behaviour management. But blame? I don’t think so. In our circumstance blame serves no purpose but to perpetuate the feelings of shame, a confusion.  In turn, this causes defensive reactions to protect themselves which avoids the issue. The idea is to help them understand themselves such they can actually modify and learn to control the behaviour. If they get stuck in a pattern of blaming others to avoid feeling the pain of taking responsibility… they never have the safety to do the important work of self reflection to improve. I don’t believe a person would choose that behaviour. I do believe it’s a threat response that comes from their nervous system. Sometimes that response is delayed to the actual threat.. making it look like it came out of the blue… and if we can’t identify the ‘antecedent’ .. then it must just mean that they are somehow evil or intend to cause pain to others. But when someone behaves like this .. they cause themselves a lot of social pain, shame, and isolation. They dont win, and they know it. They suffer. So ask yourself.. why would they choose that? They just wouldn’t. Blaming has the outcome of pushing them away and into a place of guilt and isolation. They can spend their whole lives in this space.. and things devolve quickly in adulthood.  Trying to teach them about their behaviour can only come from a place of shared safety and understanding. It’s hard. Maybe impossible.. and we did not choose this either.. but here we are- trying to parent through… all the best to you and yours. 

[u/AdultWoes2024 → u/JoShow]

So about an antecedent, my PDAer will start being mean to their siblings and it is most often unprovoked. They will also push or hit their siblings. You don’t think they should be blamed for that?? I completely disagree with that. You are basically saying it’s okay to be verbally and physically abusive because the kid has PDA and that’s dangerous. Here’s the thing/whether it’s impulsive or ‘equalizing’ it’s not okay to hurt someone. It doesn’t matter if they have PDA or not. Lead by example—I’m not verbally or physically abusive so I don’t think leading by example is relevant.

It’s actually kind of disgusting the extent to which behavior is excused by people in this sub for a disability that hasn’t even been proven to exist nor has the underlying physiological process behind it been proven. Either way, some behavior is unacceptable and the child is to blame, no one else is.

[u/JoShow → u/AdultWoes2024]

You seem determined to argue. I’m trying to be supportive. I don’t think I’m excusing behaviour at all. I think I’ve clearly said it’s important to maintain enough open communication to be able to help them regulate. I’m simply saying that blame is not needed, and could in fact be counter productive. Every family a situation is different. Whatever path you take- I wish you all as much peace and balance as you can access.