Inable or inable
Inside City Hall,
3 September 2008

I’ve told the story before about the killing of a Chinaman and how Judge Roy Bean handled the case. There are several Chinaman stories floating around the internet. There is even one where Bean’s own son is accused of killing a Chinese laundry man. Young Bean’s defense was that the Chinaman charged too much for washing the problem child’s shirts.

Needless to say, Bean was in a predicament. He sure didn’t want to sentence his own son to the gallows. He called court to order with his usual formalities: “Bar will close in five minutes gentlemen of the jury, buy your drinks now.”

For the next several hours Bean read from his law book to the jury. When he had finished reading the entire book, he said to the jury, “You have heard me read the entire law book. I read about how killing white men, black men, and Mexicans is against the law. But I did not find anywhere in the book where it said the killing of a Chinaman was against the law. This case is closed and the bar is open. Come on in gentlemen, the defendant is buying.”

This week I want to introduce a new term, enabling. In this article I use the term in its counseling or psychological meaning. This is actually a continuation of last week’s article.

It is when family and friends try to “help” alcoholics, they actually make it easier for the alcoholic to continue in the progression of the disease. For this article we can substitute problem teenager for alcoholics, the meaning is the same. Enabling takes many forms, all of which have the same effect; allowing the problem teenager to avoid the consequences of his actions. This in turn allows the teenager to continue along his (or her) problem ways, secure in the knowledge that no matter how much he screws up, somebody will always be there to rescue him from his mistakes.

What is the difference between helping and enabling? Actually enabling has a double meaning. To help (enable) or to empower, is to do something for someone that they are not capable of doing themselves. Enabling (in the counseling sense) is doing for someone things that they could, and should be doing for themselves.

Simply, enabling creates an atmosphere in which the problem teenager can comfortably continue his unacceptable behavior.

Here are a few questions that might help determine the difference between helping and enabling a problem teenager in your life:

1. Have you ever “called in sick” for your teenager, lying about his (or her) symptoms.

2. Have you ever accepted part of the blame for his (or her) behavior?

3. Have you avoided talking about his behavior out of fear of the response? You really do not want to hear the worst case scenario.

4. Have you bailed him out of jail or paid for his legal fees?

5. Have you paid bills that he was supposed to have paid?

6. Have you loaned him money?

7. Have you given him “one more chance” and then another and another?

8. Have you threatened to kick him out and didn’t.

9. Have you finished a job or project that the teenager failed to complete himself?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you at some point in time have enabled the teenager to avoid his own responsibilities. Rather than “help” the teenager, you have actually made it easier for him to get worse.

If you answered “yes” to most or all of these questions, you have not only enabled the teenager, you have probably become a major contributor to the growing and continuing problem.

As long as the problem teenager has his enabling devices in place, it is easy for him to continue to deny he has a problem -- since most of his problems are being “solved” by those around him. Only when he is forced to face the consequences of his own actions, will it finally begin to sink in how deep his problem has become.

I will leave you with another WWJD question: in the story, did Judge Bean enable (help) his son, or did he enable him?