Hip Shoot

 I try to be sunny when I write my blogs - whether or not that's a good thing, I don't know. At the moment I'm feeling more like I'm in a swamp, and the best thing I can think of is to write about it--more or less.

Have you ever been wrongly accused of something you didn't do? Sometimes that happens to our kids. Do we believe them? Check out what's happening with them?

I hope so. 

When your son or daughter is accused of something, the worst thing you can do, IMHO, is to jump on the accusing bandwagon without finding out what's going on. To me, that means talking with your son/daughter and asking for their version of events. What they say will usually tell you everything you want to know.

When possible, if you can find a witness or some other evidence of whatever it is that's supposed to have happened, that's another important way to get to the truth.

Was I a perfect mom in this regard? No. But I do remember at least one situation when I asked my son "what happened?" And he told me, which helped both us solve the situation.

Why are so many people shooting from the hip when they hear something about their kids--or for that matter, other family members?

All I know is it's business as usual for too many of us.

Today a family member accused me of something that was blatantly untrue, and took the word of someone else without even bothering to ask me about it.

I can't go into details for privacy's sake, but I know the accusation has no basis in reality. And it hurts that a family member would take someone else's word over mine.

So if someone's saying your kid did something wrong, dig deeper. Check it out and ask again, because you owe that to your child.

If someone says you did something wrong, make sure the person who brings this up to dig deeper and show them any evidence you have that proves them wrong.

You owe that to yourself, too.

Evil photo: Eric