Law of Attribution

The other night in my Parenting Teens workshop that I facilitate, I was sharing what I had learned about the Law of Attraction. I also spoke of yet another law that someone told me about a few days earlier. It is the Law of Attribution.

I don't believe it has much of a following as does the Law of Attraction but in our role as a parent it can help us in certain situations.

Imagine a time when you had know idea where your child or teen was. That void in a time when we simply do not know.

The Law of Attribution deals with that void, that hole, by filling that hole with information, answers or assumptions so we don't sit around "not knowing." It's akin to that noticeable silence in a conversation that we feel compelled to fill.

The need to “fill the hole” is basically the Law of Attribution. Attributing information complete our need to know what's happened even though the assumptions we make, the information we use or the answers we give may be wrong. Often we are even more worried because of the state that we've put ourselves in.

Jumping to conclusions is not always helpful when we find our youth has been delayed at a school practice or stayed longer at a friend's house. The anger rises when they come home cheerily and we've been worried sick. Instead of stating how worried we were , we erupt in anger.

What I was thinking about in this type of situation is that we need to take a deep breath, give our kids a hug and state our need to know where they were.