Personal Accountability- A Rant.

Personal accountability.

It's a big issue with me.

I have known people throughout my life, children and adults, who don't seem to grasp this concept.

Any negative thing that happens in their life is the fault of someone else.

"I hit a parked car?
That person shouldn't have parked there. They were parked crooked. My eye doctor didn't give me the right eyeglasses!"

"Bounced a check? Bank error. Couldn't possibly have been anything else!"

Spill hot coffee on yourself? Sue McDonald's!

Overweight? It's not your fault, blame the Twinkies!

Struggling in school? It's not your fault, obviously the teacher doesn't like you!

When I was young, if I did something wrong, my parents tended to look at my friends and put some of the blame on them. I'm not doing my homework because of the friends I'm hanging out with. My grades are slipping because of them.

This makes no sense to me. Never in my life have my friends forced me to skip class, drink, smoke....none of that. I did do some of those things....on my own free will.

I don't believe in blaming others for our own mistakes. When my kids misbehave, I don't blame their friends. While I agree that our kids' friends influence them, I believe that blaming them for your kids' misbehavior is giving your kids a scapegoat and allowing them to avoid personal responsibility.

I think it's important to empower our kids and let them know that they don't have to be a follower. They make their own choices and don't have to follow their friends' lead. And if they choose to do so, they will take responsibility for those actions. The blame will not be placed on their friends. Their friends will not face the consequences of their actions. If my kids do well and get good grades, do their friends get credit for that? I don't think so. But it's the same concept.

We want to pat ourselves on the back for our kids' successes, and find someone to blame for their failures. But we're not doing our kids any favors that way.

"Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that's right is to get by, and the only thing that's wrong is to get caught." ~J.C. Watts

"Some favorite expressions of small children: “It’s not my fault. . . They made me do it. . . I forgot.” Some favorite expressions of adults: “It’s not my job. . . No one told me. . . It couldn't be helped.” True freedom begins and ends with personal accountability." - Dan Zadra

Hershey's Better Basket Blog Hop

My friend Debby over at Just Breathe gave me this virtual Easter Basket!
:::drool:::
There's a really cool concept behind this basket.

Join Hershey’s Better Basket Blog Hop and help to raise $5,000 for the Children’s Miracle Network.

{CMN is one of my soapbox causes! I have volunteered for them in the past & I think they are a wonderful organization!}

Hershey has partnered with the Children’s Miracle Network for over 20 years. CMN is a non-profit alliance of children’s hospitals dedicated to providing state-of-the-art care, life-saving research and preventative education across North America.

This Easter season, Hershey is celebrating it’s new Easter products sold exclusively at Walmart and their legacy of making a difference and Hershey’s will donate up to a total of $5,000 to the Children’s Miracle Network together with bloggers.

How can we do this together? It’s simple:

Participate to Hershey’s Better Basket Blog Hop of giving away virtual Easter Baskets by creating a blog post with specific rules described here.

Hershey Company will donate $10 per each blog post to CMN, up to total of $5,000.

One blog post per URL counts towards the donation, but you can give as many virtual Easter baskets as you want.

The Hershey’s Better Basket Blog Hop will officially begin at 12 AM EST on March 18th and end at 12 PM EST on April 4th, 2010. Blog posts submitted to us before or after that time period will not be counted for.

The blog post link has to be submitted to us for the donation to be counted.

In addition copy and paste the following text in your blog post:

HERSHEY’S BETTER BASKET BLOG HOP RULES

Copy and paste these rules to your blog post.

Create a blog post giving a virtual Easter Basket to another blogger – you can give as many Virtual Baskets as you want.

Link back to person who gave you an Easter Basket.

Let each person you are giving a Virtual Easter Basket know you have given them a Basket.

Leave your link at BetterBasket.info/BlogHop comment section. You can also find the official rules of this #betterbasket blog hop, and more information about Better Basket with Hershey’s there.

Hershey’s is donating $10 per each blog participating to the Better Basket Blog Hop to Children’s Miracle Network (up to total of $5,000 by blog posts written by April 4th, 2010).

Please note that only one blog post by each blog url will count towards the donation.

My virtual Easter baskets are going out to:

ShortMama
My Little Miracles
Crazy Momma
Seizing My Day
Straight from the Heart
Enjoy!

One Day a Week, Cut Out Meat!

I want to say right off the bat, in the spirit of Blogging with Integrity, that I have NOT been asked to post this, and am not receiving compensation of any sort for this. It's just one of my soapboxes. =)

For about a year now, my family and I have had "Meatless Monday" nearly every week. It was actually suggested to me by a vegan friend, as a way of improving our health and the planet's health. If every family in America cut out meat just one day a week, it would make a big difference in the demand for meat in this country, on the enviroment, and world hunger.

The Meatless Monday site is a website with great resources for recipes and information about cutting out meat for one day per week. There are also reviews, articles, & other information to help get started having a meat-free day.

When we started, we didn't know anything about the Meatless Monday website. But it still wasn't hard to come up with a meatless meal just one day per week.

As some of you know, I recently made the decision to go vegetarian. However, my family's diet will stay the same, unless they decide on their own to go vegetarian. But let me tell you, my kids LOVE having Meatless Monday. If I forget, they are quick to remind me. If something happens that we can't observe MM, they make sure we have another Meatless day that week.

There's also another movement called Meat Free Monday. This website has a great explanation of the environmental reasons to eliminate meat at least once per week. It explains how reducing our meat intake can help eliminate world hunger and reduce pollution. It's about animals, but it's also about so much more than that.

I really hope that you will join me in having Meatless/Meat-Free Monday! It's a fun way to add variety to your menu and your mealtime, a great lesson for your children, good for your health, and a big help to the environment.