I read a quote the other day that inspired this months blog:

“Life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it.”

Wow, talk about taking responsibility for your own actions. How many times have we seen or shown the opposite of that. As humans we are always looking for an alternative to the case at hand, a way to deflect from ourselves a sense of fault. This is perfectly natural, but terribly unproductive. Wouldn’t it be amazing if when we call to dispute a bill or ask about a reason for a transaction, that the person on the other end of the phone said, “Oh that is so frustrating when that happens, what do you think you would like to have me do about it?” instead of, “That is not my department, this must be your problem because it is definitely not mine!” I know from first hand experience that when the latter attitude is presented, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I am probably not the most patient of callers.

That being said, there truly are times in our lives when something happens that is definitely not our doing or in our control. The only thing that we can be completely in charge of is how we react to it and how we plan to deal with the situation. This is not always easy, nor is it always possible to control, especially when our brain stem thinking is engaged and our fight or flight sensibility has taken over. All we can do is our best to find mechanisms that work for us as reminders to take a calmer, overall look at the situation and take responsibility for how we react to it.

Now, how does this related to parenting? Quite simply, it is finding a go to statement that we use to force us to engage our frontal lobes and creating thinking rather than reacting in both ourselves and our children. I am always amazed at how much of my own parents come out in the way I act as I grow older, some of it great and some not so good. A true testament to the nurture side of learning. Children absolutely pay attention to all the things that we say and do, whether we think that at the time or not. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if we modeled taking responsibility and holding ourselves accountable for our actions?

And that’s what Ms. Marinos says.

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