fferdecker
Your garage sale is advertised to open at 7:00 and customers
are lined up outside, but Lisa hasn’t arrived with the cash box
full of change. Your grant proposal has to be in the mail today
but the financials haven’t arrived yet. Your son’s church group
couldn’t go to the concert they had planned to attend because
two of the adult drivers/chaperones didn’t show up.
Irresponsible people are just plain irritating! Those of us who
are responsible are left shaking our heads, cleaning up the
mess, and saying to each other, =ECHow can people behave like
that?=EE One thing is for sure=F3we don’t want our children to grow
up like this! We want them to be people we can count on=F3people
who do what they say they’re going to do; who meet their
family, work, social, and volunteer obligations; and who show
up on time and prepared. And by teaching them to be responsible
from a young age, we can help ensure they will grow to be
responsible adults.
Copyright 2007 More4kids Inc. – www.more4kids.info
Teaching children responsibility can be a parenting challenge.
It starts out with teaching your children how to do small tasks
and chores around the house. Two-year-olds can do simple jobs
like getting the newspaper from the driveway, taking their
breakfast bowl to the sink, and putting clean socks in a
drawer. And at this age, it’s delightful to have children help
because they are so happy and eager to be of use! As children
get older, you can increase their responsibilities. Older
children can load and unload the dishwasher, take out the
trash, make their beds, and put dirty clothes in the hamper.
And teenagers ought to be able to do a load of laundry and make
a simple meal.
Unfortunately, your two-year-old’s eagerness to help will soon
dissolve into whines and attempts at procrastinations. It will
help if you can work together on chores and rotate the =ECnasty=EE
chores so no one is stuck with them all the time. Your kids may
also respond to chore games or sticker charts as motivation.
Would it be faster and easier for you to do these jobs
yourself? Of course! And they would probably be done better
too. But then you would lose out on the opportunity to develop
your children’s sense of responsibility and to teach them
valuable survival skills.
Helping out around the house is only one aspect of
responsibility children need to learn. They also need to learn
to be responsible for themselves. Encourage young children to
dress themselves as soon as they old enough to do so. When your
children start going to school, expect them to be responsible
for their own homework=F3both doing it and turning it in. Is it
okay to occasionally take a forgotten math assignment to
school? Sure=F3I have forgotten papers I needed before and my
husband gallantly rescues me. Is it okay to do it every day?
Absolutely not! That is a signal of irresponsibility and you
need to work with your child to find out what the problem is
and how to solve it.
Finally, you need to help your children learn to be responsible
in dealing with other people. If they join a sports team and
later want to quit it, remind them that they have an obligation
to the rest of the team to finish out the season. If they have a
group project at school, ensure they complete their part of the
project. Help them learn to budget their time so they don’t
take on responsibilities they can’t finish.
Don’t expect that your children will automatically know how to
do all the tasks you give them. You will need to teach and
reteach them how to sort laundry and pack their backpacks each
night. You will have to give them gentle reminders to practice
the piano or study for their math test. Be patient and
confident that your lessons are sinking in, whether it seems
that way or not. Your payback will come in a few years in the
shape of a responsible adult.
By the way, as you work on teaching responsibility to your
children, you better check out your own behavior too (isn’t
that always the way?). No matter how much you talk about
responsibility to your children, if they see you behaving
irresponsibly, that is the message they will absorb. So, ask
yourself the following questions:
- Do I do tasks in a timely way?
- Am I usually on time?
- Do I keep my word?
- Do I give projects my best effort?
If you can’t answer =ECyes=EE to these questions, then work on
improving your own behavior so you will be a better role model
for your children.
Copyright 2007 More4kids Inc. – www.more4kids.info
About The Author: Stacey Schifferdecker is the happy but
harried mother of three. a freelance writer, and Children’s
Minister. You can view her many articles on parenting at
http://www.more4kids.info Kevin Heath is the Managing Editor
for More4kids – A Parenting and Family resource. Copyright 2007
More4kids Inc.
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