We’ve all heard it.

You’re at your kid’s game and there are parents muttering under their breath (and sometimes louder) about the ref’s call or the coach’s decision.  We’ve all heard it and maybe we are the guilty party.  I know I’ve made comments about bad calls or decisions.

At one of my kid’s games this season one of the parents was upset with the official’s calls during the game and confronted the official after the game.  Now, I understand where this parent was coming from but the thing that made me sad is that the team saw.

When my kid got in the car, the comment was made that they lost because of the unfair calls.  I was quick to correct this.  They lost because they didn’t play well.  A couple missed calls wasn’t going to change the outcome of the game.

I hear it at school. A parent of a child who stole some of my kid’s things earlier in the year said it wasn’t her child’s fault. It was my kid’s fault because she left her things in the class.  And although I don’t think it was entirely my kid’s fault, we did have the conversation about being more responsible.

A friend posted on social media this morning that his kid didn’t make the travel team. He went on to add that there was no shortage of parents complaining about the process and policies. Another case of parents looking for someone to blame.  My friend is teaching his kid that he can bounce back from this and that hockey doesn’t define him.  This right here, is parenting.

SO many of us get caught up in the “my kid has to be the best” game that we forget they are tiny humans who mess up and do things wrong.  We are always looking for the reason why.  Why did they fail the test?  Why didn’t they make the team?  Our kids are hearing us say that teacher didn’t send home a study guide or Johnny’s dad is friends with the coach so he made the team because of that, and I’m going to go our on a limb here, but I don’t think that is what our kids need from us.

Where we go wrong as parents is with these comments.  We blame someone else because we can’t bear to think that our kid did something wrong or isn’t good enough.  We don’t just do it with them, we do it with our own lives too.  We don’t want to feel less than and we don’t want to admit that maybe we were wrong about something so we lay blame.  “That’s not what I thought this relationship would look like.” “My boss just doesn’t have realistic deadlines and doesn’t realize how busy I am.”

I think one of the greatest gifts we can give our kids is to teach them to take responsibility for their actions.  This is rare.  It is like Bigfoot, rare.  We need to stop blaming the teacher, the coach, the principal, the friend, the ref, the other kid at school.  We need to take a solid look at our roll in the situation and get honest.  You’re not perfect.  Your kid is not perfect.  Wouldn’t you rather they learn the hard lessons now?  I’d much rather my kid not make the team or fail the test now and learn how to work hard to accomplish a goal, than have everything handed to them and flounder in a new job when they are fresh out of college.

Our kids need to know what to do when they fail.  They are going to fail.  We all do. Will we accept it?  Will we examine and take responsibility for our part? Will we teach our kids to take responsibility or will we continue to turn a blind eye to everything they do? I don’t know about you but I’m teaching my kids responsibility.  And I’m calling them out when they’re shits.  Sorry for the language but I am not naïve enough to think my kids are perfect outside my walls.  They are tiny humans who make mistakes.  Their mistakes don’t define them but how they handle those mistakes says a lot about their character. I would rather my kids be the ones with great character than the ones that passed every test and made every team.