Of Nerf and Men
It’s not about blame, it’s about understanding.
Here’s something I shared with my grandson ‘E’ recently.
It’s not about blame, it’s about understanding.
His uncle got him some Nerf guns and we were having fun with them in the yard. At one point the mechanism jammed and one of the foam darts got torn in half.
He said, "That's my fault."
I responded, "Let's figure out how it happened so it won't happen again. It’s not about blame, it’s about understanding."
For five-year-olds or 50-year-olds, when something goes wrong we should look to understand rather than to blame.
It's good to take accountability for a mistake or something going wrong. That accountability includes figuring out the root cause and preventing future issues rather than assigning blame.
Turns out if you cock the Nerf gun only partway it jams and then when you cock it again it can cut the dart in half.
When we talked it through my grandson realized how he could prevent future issues by taking his time and cocking the gun completely.
No blame, just fun.
That is indeed a beautiful lesson. We do need more understanding and less finger-pointing in the world. We do need to be able to take more time to figure out what happened, and how to resolve a problem, rather than know who caused it or why, but oftentimes, it is the opposite.
Thanks for sharing David!