Parenting Basics: “Don’t Get Me Involved”

Grandma was right! There is an easy way and a hard way to raise kids. By and large, today’s parents are choosing the hard way. This series of blogs (posted on Tuesdays) will tackle familiar phrases that used to be commonplace but fell out of favor during the last few decades of the 20th century—and why parents should not be afraid to follow the sentiment expressed in the phrases.

Sixty years or so ago, mothers had a life of their own. They weren’t waiting around for their children to “need” them—they were out having cocktails with the neighbors, chairing committees and whipping up Jello-molds with one hand tied behind their backs. Involved in their children’s lives? Not on your life.

Image courtesy of Gualberto107/
FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Fast-forward to today: most mothers are over-involved in the minutia that is their children’s lives. No detail is too small to be overlooked or commented on, or scrapebooked. To say you didn’t want to get involved in your children’s lives is tantamount to saying you don’t love your kids.

Which is why the phrase, “Don’t get me involved,” has fallen way out of usage. Some of you reading this blog are wincing, wondering why any decent, loving mother would want to say that to their child. Shouldn’t good mothers be involved?

In a word, no. It all comes down to whose life is it anyway. Is it your child’s life or yours? If your child’s life is yours, then you should be involved. But your child’s life isn’t yours to live—it is your child’s and your child’s alone. Or to put it another way: back off and let your child live her own life.

That’s where “Don’t get me involved” comes into play. Parents of yesteryear used this phrase to encourage their children to solve their own problems, whether with school, siblings, friends, etc. Parents used to know that the only person capable of solving the problem was the person involved with the problem. In other words, when a child has a problem, the child is the only person responsible for solving the problem.

The parent shouldn’t step in just because the child doesn’t want to solve the problem. The parent shouldn’t shoulder the responsibility of solving the problem because the child doesn’t want to or says he can’t solve the problem. The only person capable of solving the child’ problem is the child.

That’s the beauty of “Don’t get me involved.” Telling your child when he comes to you with a problem, “Don’t get me involved,” reminds the child that it’s his problem, not yours, and that your involvement will not solve the problem, but instead will create more of an uncomfortable situation with the child. This works especially well with sibling conflict. The only ones who can solve sibling conflict are the siblings involved in the conflict. Telling said siblings, “Don’t get me involved,” gives them more incentive to come to a conclusion that satisfies all involved.

I encourage you to brush off the old chestnut “Don’t get me involved,” and use it freely with your children. You might find that you can join a book club, have a glass of wine by the fireplace or take up yoga with all the free time you’ll have by not being overly involved in your children’s lives.

In October, Sarah will be giving a series of talks on The Well-Behaved Child: Discipline that Really Works through the City of Fairfax Parks and Recreation Department. Also in October, Sarah and Mary Elizabeth Peritti will speak on Parenting With Love & Leadership in a four-part webinar series. Contact Sarah through her website for more information.