Look What You Made Me Do..

photo credit: Enokson via photopin cc

I'm thinking about that phrase today, the "look what you made me do" phrase, because I used it last night with one of my sons. I've used this phrase a lot and I grew up  hearing this phrase.

It's actually a pretty funny phrase, because when I was younger I would be like, "oh, really and how did 'I' make you drop this or spill that?" And now as a parent I can see!! Because you see...when we use this phrase that means that our stress level has already reached it's max.

And once we use that phrase it means someone has exceeded the threshold of our stress level limit and caused us to drop something or spill something. It also means that the young person more than likely already ignored the pleas from the parent to please stop.

The "we're not going to talk about this right now" or "I'm really, really busy right now" (maybe with your hands in raw meat or something - that kind of busy) or the "for the love of God, please stop" (whatever it is that you would like them to stop doing - nagging, a temper tantrum, tormenting each other - anything).

So when the child just keeps going when you asked them to stop, then the blame is instantly on them when you spill something or drop something, or maybe even accidentally walk into something. Anything instantly becomes the child's fault and out comes the "look what you made me do" phrase and the "now see, if you had just stopped, I wouldn't have spilled this, or walked into that, or banged myself with the cabinet" - you get the picture here.