How many times have you heard your child say, "But I thought . . ." when they don't finish a task, arrive on time, or whatever? Watch this Video Answer and learn how to respond to this classic excuse.
Timestamps:
00:19 Examples of excuses children use.
02:24 Response to "but I thought..."
04:43 Response to an incomplete assignment.
06:28 Be calm, never argue.
08:27 Excuses are lazy and selfish.
09:01 Life-long negative consequences of making excuses.
09:33 Second approach to child making excuses.
11:03 Example of an adult making excuses.
12:58 Help children tell the truth about their mistake
Transcript:
Responding to the Classic Excuse “But I Thought”
It’s very common for us to teach children something that they need to know, or to give them instructions to accomplish a task. Especially with the latter, it is not uncommon for them NOT to complete the described task and then to respond with one or more of the following:
- “Oh, I didn’t know you meant for me to clean the whole kitchen (even though you had said exactly that and quite clearly). I thought you meant that you just wanted me to wipe off the counters.” This is after the child decided to make a snack in a completely clean kitchen, pulling stuff out of the refrigerator, the cupboards, and on and on. OBVIOUSLY you wanted the kitchen returned to its original condition.
- “EXACTLY 7:30? (Referring to when you clearly said you would leave the driveway for school at 7:30, which happens to be a precise time on a clock or chronometer) I thought you meant that we’d gather in the kitchen at 7:30 and get ready to leave.”
- “But you only said to mow the lawn. You didn’t say I had to pick up the clumps of grass (those big clumps that fall out of the mower when the lawn is wet, and which subsequently kill the underlying grass). I didn’t think you meant to rake up the clumps.”
I suggest a couple of responses to the classic “But I thought” excuse that is used billions of times every day across the globe.
First Approach to “But I Thought”
The first response is what I call the story of the store owner and giving change. Back in the old days, people paid for things with cash. And when you paid with cash, often you gave the store a certain number of dollars, and the clerk would give you back the coins or dollars (the change) so that the cost of the item you purchased + the change equaled the money you gave the clerk.
I used to work at a fast food place when I was like 15, and we took orders in our head (no register with pictures). Tax and all with line of people waiting. So if an order came to $13.54, customer often gave us $20 bill, and we gave them $6.46 in “change,” or the difference between the purchased item and the money we were given.
Metaphor of the Store Owner and Giving Change
Now, let’s suppose that every week I go to a certain store, and on each occasion the owner makes a mistake in the amount of change he gives me when I pay him.
I keep a written record of these mistakes, and after a year I finally present my list to him. He claims—with apparent sincerity—that many of the prices are printed too small, and sometimes he just can’t see them clearly. Hence the incorrect change.
How can I determine whether he’s telling the truth? Easy: If his mistakes are approximately half in my favor and half in his favor, his explanation is believable. Either he has poor sight, or he is incompetent at calculating change. If all the mistakes are in his favor, however, his vision is not the problem. Instead, he’s been exposed as a thief and a liar.
USE THIS metaphor with your kids.
You give them an assignment. They do less than assigned. They say, “But I thought.”
And then what happens? We tend to argue about what exact words were said, and maybe you didn’t say exactly WHATEVER (according to them), and it ends up being a hurricane of words that dilute and even eliminate the real problem and the message you’re trying to teach.
So next time you hear, “But I thought,” you calmly say—all about the tone—“No, that’s not true. You did not actually think I meant for you to do less. You simply WANTED it to be less, so you created thoughts—consciously or not—to support what you wanted.”
THEN you tell the story of the store owner, and you say that it PROVES beyond all doubt that your child is not telling the truth. If they were, then half the time they would do MORE than you said, but they NEVER Do More. You’ve got them.
You Must Be Calm and Love and Teach
You HAVE to be calm as you do this, or it’s just you and your child having an argument, like two kids yelling in the playground, “You’re stupid, no you’re stupid, you’re stupider,” and ending up with “Well, yo mama is so fat that . . .” Never argue with a child. Love and teach.
Point out to your child that when they say, “I didn’t understand” or “I thought you meant . . .” invariably they have done LESS than was requested of them. Their confusion rarely—if ever—causes them to do more than they were asked. They NEVER say:
- “Oh, you only wanted me to rake the leaves? I thought you wanted the whole yard cleaned up, so after raking, I mowed the lawn, picked up the sticks, took the leaves to the street, and cleaned the house.”
- “I misunderstood. When you said to get my essay from school done by the due date next week, I thought you meant to do it as soon as possible, I didn’t know that you meant sometime this week, so I stayed up all night and finished it.”
HA!! That NEVER happens.
When somebody consistently uses the “I didn’t understand” excuse to do LESS than they were asked, that is not a lack of understanding. It’s lazy and selfish, and most of us do this.
We hear what we want to hear. Often we’re not consciously aware of our deception, but we need to learn to recognize it in ourselves and to point it out when it’s used by people we have a responsibility to teach—our children, for example.
Children CANNOT be allowed to excuse inadequate behavior, because if they are allowed, they’ll do it the rest of their lives.
They’ll uses excuses, justifications, “explanations,” lies, and more. And as a result they’ll get fired, fail classes, and lose relationships. See how important these “little” moments are? You have to stop every one of them, zero tolerance.
Second Approach to “But I thought"
Now, the SECOND approach to the “But I thought . . .” joke that children often tell.
Here’s the scenario. You explain a true principle, or you have a conversation where you hold them accountable for something they did not do as assigned.
Their response? “But I thought . . .”
New approach. You tell them, “What I just told you was quite (principle of assignment). I am absolutely certain of it, and now that you remember what you’ve heard in the past, you realize that what I’m saying is true.
"Its like I’ve just told you that 2 + 2 = 4, and I’ve proven that it’s 4, but you keep telling me, “But I thought it was 5,” and then you explain to me all the details leading up to your false belief that it’s 5.
"Why in the world would I care why you THOUGHT 2 + 2 equaled 5? It doesn’t, so all the blablabla in the world doesn’t matter. It’s 4. No more discussion about what you thought matters.”
Adults are especially adept at describing why they thought something was not as it is. Or how something would work, when it doesn’t. (Guy asked me to help him cut down tree next to power line. I went to see it. 3 feet. He was going to just start cutting, assured that he could avoid the power line and his house because of a wire cable he had fastened to large branch, which he would use to winch the tree in the right direction. I explained how it would actually cause a snap-back and destroy the power lines. “But I thought . . .” Doesn’t matter what he thought.)
With adults, we can ignore their excuses or faulty beliefs most of the time—unless it’s going to result in pulling a tree down on our house.
With our children we cannot ignore excuse-making. It becomes a life pattern. We save our children’s lives by helping them tell the truth about their mistakes and their justifications.
