What’s the Difference Between Fault & Responsibility?

 What’s the Difference Between Fault & Responsibility?

“Victims have the moral high ground… someone else is causing the misery, right? Victims can easily justify why they are right … They love to take others’ inventory of faults and are excellent at blaming. Victims become hypersensitive to real and perceived injustice, where any slight becomes a reason to reject. Victimization is the toxic wind blowing through families, fanning the fires of dysfunction.”

― David W. Earle, Love is Not Enough: Changing Dysfunctional Family Habits

Open communication is key in my family. It is an expectation that when we talk, we share the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. When my children talk with me, it is from a place of responsible honesty whereby we discuss, analyze, and review challenging situations together. We identify their role of responsibility and talk about how they can use what they’ve learned to better inform any similar situations in the future. 

You’ll notice I use the word “responsibility,” here. In order to make discussions of conflict truly useful to our children, we must be mindful of how we frame them. With that in mind, let’s explore the distinctions that we make between blame, fault, and responsibility. 

Blame.

Firstly, families must learn to speak without blame. Allowing blame to enter family discussions causes people to get stuck on guilt and the pain of being accused, which prevents resolutions, growth, and freedom. Start by laying the groundwork, establishing that any time your child brings a tough situation to you, they can expect to talk about it without being blamed.

In our family, we assume that everyone in the situation (including our child) did the absolute best they could with the toolbox of skills and insights that they had at that time. Therefore, there is no blame. That does not mean we excuse participants in a situation (again, including our child) from responsibility for their actions. Everyone must face consequences if necessary.

However, it does mean that my child is able to consider the situation without believing they caused it all by themselves. Removing blame from the equation allows my child to see that the other participant is still evolving since we assume that they really did not know any better. My child doesn’t need to take anything personally because the conflict was not about some deficiency within them. More likely, it was about where the other participant was physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually at that time. Similarly, my child received it in a certain way, due to the place where they were physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually at that time. I have found this to be very liberating for my kids, and it has led them to develop a much more forgiving nature, higher self-esteem, and increased confidence.

Speaking without blame encourages a more authentic form of communication, where kids can reveal all of themselves, even the parts that are still “under construction” so to speak. It does demand rawness from both sides, so please do not encourage it if you're not willing to participate fully. We cannot demand raw, self-evaluating honesty from our children if we are not willing to model it ourselves. Our young ones respond to what they see us do, not what they hear us say.

Fault Versus Responsibility.

Another way that we can empower our children during these challenging times, is to distinguish fault from responsibility. When we talk about any perceived mistakes within a situation, we talk about the responsibility that participants hold. The situation may have not been my child's fault, but it is their responsibility to decide how they will handle things within the circumstances, as well as how to proceed afterward.

This is powerful in two ways: Firstly, it helps to separate them from the emotional personalization of the experience so they can examine it in the spirit of learning for future reference. Secondly, it allows them to forgive quickly, which frees their soul to venture unperturbed into the future. 

Again, I would like to emphasize that I believe in owning our discrepancies and doing what is necessary to make amends. It is essential that a leader reflects on their behavior, own it, and improve upon it in the future. However, I also believe that clinging to blame and fault disempowers everyone involved. It prevents us from the essential evolution and growth we need to become the best versions of ourselves.

The trauma work that I do with folks has reinforced this belief for me. I only work with clients who are dedicated to their own liberation. Clients who have moved past assigning blame, have understood that it was not their fault, and are focussed on taking responsibility for their own healing and liberation. I cannot even begin to explain to you how badass, courageous, and profound that is, and it is the only way one can truly heal. 

 Tips on how to help your kids with blame, fault, and responsibility:

• Starting at a young age, help your child move away from the ‘blame game.’ It keeps everyone in the situation stuck and prevents learning and growing.

• When stuck in blame, help them identify with the person on the other side of the conflict. Being able to connect with, identify with, and have compassion for the ‘other’ helps to empower us. It separates us from feelings of fault, shame, and guilt. It also helps us understand that the reasons behind a situation often have very little to do with us, and everything to do with somebody else’s pain.

• Help them to navigate away from fault, their own or anyone else’s. Encourage them to assume that everyone did the best they could with the knowledge they had at the time, and move on.

• Focus on responsibility moving forward. Teach them to say, “I am not to blame, it was not my fault, but it is my responsibility on how I am going to use the experience moving forward.”

-Cathy.