DAY+108+DEFENDING+BAD+BEHAVIOR

Day 108 Defending Bad Behavior

Symptom Estrangement: Defending Unacceptable Behavior

 * At times, everyone makes excuses for their misbehavior. It’s common for little kids to say “I didn’t do it!” even when caught red-handed feeding their vegetables to the dog.


 * Even adults sometimes deny or try to justify their behaviors.


 * Even though we all do it at times, this kind of behavior is immature, irresponsible, and irrational.


 * Part of maturity and responsibility is learning to be accountable for our behaviors—even the ones we know are wrong—and not make excuses for them.


 * The 4th type of self-defeating pattern of behavior that we’re going to talk about is when people try to justify their wrong behaviors with all kinds of excuses, denial, or flat out lies. This is called Symptoms Estrangement.

Read the brief scenarios below and ask for volunteers to help identify the excuse or justification that the person is using.
 * Scenarios: **


 * 1) A person is arrested for stealing several bicycles from around his neighborhood. When questioned by the police, he says that he only took bikes that were not locked up. He never broke any locks or took bikes from inside anyone’s house. Therefore, he says that what he did was not illegal.


 * 1) A person steals his elderly neighbor’s social security checks and cashes them. When caught, he says that he needed the money to help his family pay their bills. He says his neighbor is rich and doesn’t need the money anyway.


 * 1) A teenager convinces an eight-year old to deliver a gun to a friend of his. The teenager pays the eight-year old $20 to do this job.