Ahwatukee Living’s Ask the Experts

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The Magical "Do-Over"

Have you ever heard kids call a “do-over” during a game? Let’s say Billy, the team’s heavy hitter, gets up to bat, the pitch is thrown, and right before he swings, a dog runs onto the field, distracting him, and he swings, but he totally misses the ball. At that point, Billy yells out, “No Fair! Do-Over!”

In most cases, if the kids feel like Billy didn’t really get a fair chance, they’ll allow the ‘do-over,’ which essentially means that everything goes back to how it was right before that pitch. Any runners who advanced have to go back to the base they were on, there are no strikes against Billy, and the entire ‘at-bat’ just starts over as if the first pitch and swing had never happened.

I have always been fascinated at how children will readily accept that notion. They will all simply act as if the first thing never happened and they will go on, treating the second attempt as if it were the first.

Now, if only we could apply that to adult life…

Your boss tells you that you have to be at the Gonzales home at 7:00 a.m. to begin tiling their kitchen. Mrs. Gonzales takes the day off of work to meet you there. That morning, your son comes down with some mysterious puking disease and you rush him off to the ER, never once thinking of Mrs. Gonzales and her tile.

Later that afternoon, when you’re finally back home with your boy, who just has the flu, you notice an angry blinking red light on the cell phone you left in the bathroom this morning. It’s Mrs. Gonzales, at 7:30, wondering where you are, and again at 8:00. Then, it’s your boss at 9:00 and again at 10. And 11. And 12. His final message lets you know that there is no need for you to report to the Gonzalez home EVER because you are FIRED.

Now, that is the perfect time for a ‘do-over.’ Wouldn’t it be great if we could just call up the boss and let him know that our child needed emergency care and that we need a ‘do-over?’ If the boss would just accept that, then we could just call Mrs. Gonzales as well and ask her for a do-over, too. The whole thing could just start over on Tuesday as if Monday never happened.

Now, why does it work for kids, but it doesn’t work for adults? The thing is, it DOES work for adults, you just have to have the same conditions as the children do in order for it to work.

1. You need to deal with the same people over and over in order to build up trusting, caring relationships. The children grant do-overs to the kids that they know real well, not to the kid who just walked onto the field for the first time that day.
2. You have to do a good job most of the time. Kids only grant do-overs to the ones that normally do pretty well that have just had an unusual bad performance. Kids do not grant do-overs to those who routinely don’t do all that well. (They will, however, make special rules for kids that are handicapped, but that’s different than a do-over.)
3. The mess-up has to really be perceived as not your fault. Kids don’t allow you to do it over if you weren’t paying attention and you missed the ball and grown-ups won’t let you do it over if you were out all night drinking and overslept your alarm, either.

So, if those conditions are true, that you are loyally dealing with the same people over and over, that you usually do a good job, and if the mistake wasn’t entirely your fault, you can often get adults to grant you a do-over, too, but you have to ask for it and in the adult world, asking for it generally includes an apology and a respectful request, not the childish cry of “No Fair!”

If you can remember that, you can often get yourself a ‘do-over,’ even in the adult world!

Posted on November 15, 2004