The blog was originally posted on themikeharrisons.blogspot.com. I had to repost it here because it truly belongs here and there will doubtless be follow-up posts in the very near future.
After yet one more blowout with Cory today about irresponsible, thoughtless, "entitlement" behavior, I lost it completely and then redeemed myself. Yelling doesn't get through to him, but I gave it a good effort. But it was working me up and it wasn't working on him at all...
So, I sat on the floor, took a deep breath and counted to a hundred before I spoke to him again. I sat there on my berber and tried to think of a way I could speak to him that would get through to him, because my next option was to literally give up on him and opt for murder. Then it came to me, and I explained this concept...
You open a bank account and you have to put deposits in before you can make withdrawals. You can’t withdraw more money than you have in there. If you try, there are penalties. If you leave enough money in there on a regular basis, you actually gain interest on the money you have put in and managed to keep in there.
Our family relationship is the same way.
Every member needs to make deposits, not just withdrawals.
There are actions that are deposits, and there are actions that are withdrawals. Some actions are worth more than others – but all actions count towards the balance one way or the other. And carrying a positive balance all the time is a very good and necessary thing to establish good credit. People look at your credit when they are deciding whether or not to approve for your things.
And by god, I think it worked. I don't mean that I think his behavior will henceforth be sparkling and a right-wonderful example of the ideal boy. That would just be silly. However, I explained it in terms that he could understand, and will be able to remember for more than twenty seconds.
In theory...
-k
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