Stop Blaming Yourself for Your Son’s Challenging Behavior—It’s Not Your Fault! Here’s What to Do Instead

Parenting a challenging boy is very hard. You walk on eggshells and are on alert 24/7 because you never know what will set your son off next. It’s unrelenting. Challenging behavior problems also often lead to more tension and fighting between parents as the stress and desperation of the situation wears on their nerves. And, while most parents feel that their parenting is negatively judged at least some of the time, the parents of challenging boys experience judgment and blame almost constantly. They know that others believe that their “bad” parenting is the cause of their son’s disruptive behavior.

The truth is nobody has any idea about how incredibly difficult it is to have a challenging boy, but they will judge you and blame you anyway. This ever-present criticism from others is painful, but it isn’t even as bad as what is going on inside the head of the parent of a challenging boy. You agree with the critics! You believe that you are bad parents and that the problems your child is having are all your fault. While it is easy to get into criticizing and blaming yourself, you need to stop it. You shouldn’t blame yourself, because it isn’t your fault.

In my experience over almost thirty years of working with challenging boys and their families, I’ve yet to see a case where bad parenting caused the child’s challenging behavior. At its heart, challenging behavior is mainly the result of temperamental challenges (specifically high emotional reactivity and poor self-regulation) and executive functioning problems (poor inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility). These are the things that make a child challenging—not bad parenting.

That you didn’t cause your child’s challenging behavior doesn’t mean that you are helpless to bring about change. In the words of Dr. Stanley Greenspan, “You aren’t the cause, but you can be the solution.” Not only are you not the cause, but getting caught up in the pain of blame just distracts you from focusing on the things you can do to “be the solution.”

There’s a scene in the movie Apollo 13 that takes place with the three astronauts many thousands of miles away from the earth in their damaged spacecraft. Tensions are running high. A very real possibility exists that they won’t make it home alive and two of the three astronauts (played by Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton) start angrily pointing fingers of blame at each other. Finally, Commander Jim Lovell (played by Tom Hanks) interrupts them and says, “We are not going to do this. We are not going to go bouncing off the walls for ten minutes. We’re just going to end up right back here with the same problems, trying to stay alive.” Lovell points out that they have problems that urgently need attention if they are going to make it safely back to earth.

Blame does not help us solve our son’s problems. When it’s directed at ourselves it upsets us and makes it harder to keep our cool. When we direct it at others, it alienates the people we need to team up with to have a chance to solve our big problems. The astronauts in Apollo 13 need to work together to survive. Their argument over who is to blame threatens that teamwork. To solve the problem of challenging behavior, we need teamwork between parents, the child, and others including extended family members, teachers, special educators, pediatricians, and therapists.

When we’re looking to place blame, it appears on the surface that we are trying to identify the causes of the problem. However, blame isn’t solution oriented. It is about criticizing, judging negatively, and determining who is the bad person deserving of punishment for the mess we are in. Blame encourages ruminating on backward-looking thoughts like, “How could this have happened?” “Why me?” or “This can’t be my life!”

Instead of taking the blame (which you shouldn’t because you aren’t the cause), I want to help you take responsibility. Responsibility is empowering. It aims at understanding the problem: What happened? What is my contribution? What can I do to change things?

While blame is stuck in the past, responsibility accepts present circumstances as they are and focuses on creating a path to a better future. Blame asks, “Who should feel bad about getting us here?” Responsibility asks, “What are we going to do now to make things better?” Blame focuses on pain and regret around past choices. Responsibility focuses on the choices you are currently making and the ones you will make in the future. Letting go of blame helps us take responsibility. Freeing oneself from blame is essential if were are going to “be the solution.”

To sum up, here’s why you shouldn’t blame yourself for the problems your son is having: First, you aren’t the cause of the problem, even if you have unintentionally contributed to it. Second, blame is stressful and upsetting which makes it harder to keep our cool. Finally, blame diverts attention from finding solutions and interferes with engaging in the type of thinking needed for good problem-solving. I hope I’ve been convincing.