Give Credit Where Credit Is Due

I am the kind of person who when someone enlightens me with a wonderful idea that I adopt, I make it a point to credit that person when another person praises it. After all, I can't take full credit for it if it wasn't my idea in the first place.

I suppose it wouldn't be bad if the person wasn't around. But when you have the person right in front of you, and you are blatantly trying to pass the idea off as your own...that's plain wrong.

Several years ago I had a person (we'll call her Tanya)come to me for advice on how to better manage her child's afternoon once he got home from school. She also asked for ideas that will help her child thrive more in school. So I gave her my ideas. She implimented them, and it worked wonders.

Today, we just so happen to have met up with another parent who was complaining about the struggle she is having with her child. Before I could say a word she said "Oh well what I do is I have her do her homework the moment she comes home from school, that way she is still in school mode and hasn't unwinded yet. Then I give her snack and let her chill out. After her bath, I have her work on some workbooks and before bed she reads to me or her brothers so that she gets some reading time in there. Try it my way and it will work wonders!"

I was astonished. This was the exact, word for word, advice I gave her 3 years ago! It wouldn't have mattered had she not said that last sentence. Heck, I didn't have to have her say "Oh Carmen's idea helped me." But the fact that she threw in that it was HER way, knocked my socks off.

Unfortunately for her, Tanya's attempts to quickly change the subject were thwarted when the other mom nodded her head, turned to me, and asked what do I do. I made it a point to look at Tanya and then look back at the other mom and say "Well, the ideas Tanya just gave you is the tried and true approach I gave her a couple of years ago when she was turned to me looking for ideas in assisting her child."

Of course, Tanya now wanted a hole to swallow her whole. She turned beet red and said "Oh, um, yeah, you did give that advice to me. It works great really."She quickly excused herself and went on her way.