When I was a boy, like every other boy, I tried to get out of work. One of my favorite tactics for getting out of work was to try it for a few minutes, make a half-hearted effort, and then declare in frustration, “I can’t!”

My mother never varied her answer. “Can’t never did anything,” she would say.

I hated that. Yet, no matter how many times I tried it, she never wavered. Eventually, I would have to do what she told me. We both knew I could.

That one fact, that we both knew that she wasn’t asking me to do something impossible is what made this thing between us work. I’m certain that my mother would never demand that I do something I wasn’t able to do. She often asked me to do very difficult things and it seemed to me that I couldn’t, but if I kept trying, I usually got it done.

In 13-year-old boy code, “I can’t,” really means, “I don’t want to try because it’s inconvenient. I have other things I want to do more. Do it yourself, Mom!”

One of my best friends has adult Attention Deficit Disorder. It’s fairly pronounced and he often has a hard time concentrating. Despite these challenges, he went back to school a couple of years ago and is working hard to get a degree.

As a social worker, my specialty is working with developmentally disabled adults. My job is to train them to meet their goals, goals that are often to do things that their families, society, professionals, and research say they can’t do. I operate on the assumption that the only way to know what a client can’t do is to make our best effort at helping him learn how to do it. I am often impressed at how wrong people can be about what is possible.

When dealing with the child protective services system, it’s important to remember my mother’s saying: “Can’t never did anything.”  For your family’s sake, it would be good to remember that success in keeping a family together will require you to do things you don’t think you can do. It will also be important for you to keep a can-do attitude about those things.

Saying “I can’t” is as good as saying, “Take and keep my children.”

Avoid saying, “I can’t.”

Avoid thinking, “I can’t.”  You’ll surprise yourself with the things you find out you can do that you didn’t think you could.