Teaching Responsibility

Responsibility is a really hard concept to teach. And there are so many little things thrown in there as well such as consequences, honesty, and independence just to start. It’s one of those things you have to turn over to the child at some point because if you force them to be responsible, are they? Or are they being obedient? I mean, I do want my kids to be obedient. But I really want them to be responsible. I want them to take care of what they need to do when no one is standing there telling them to do it.

Right now, it’s 10:00 p.m. on a Monday night after a 4 day weekend. My 12 year old is currently sitting in his room 30 minutes past his bed time working on homework. He has already come out to see if he can finish it tomorrow at school and has been sent back into his room to finish.

At this point, we are working on the consequence aspect of responsibility. I hope he learns from this experience. I hope the tears and frustration he is feeling now are enough motivation for him not to do this again.

Noah is my youngest. I have a system in place that has been tried and tested five times over. School is a priority. When my kids come home, they are expected to handle their school work. They can get a snack and decompress for a bit, but then they need to get busy. This is the expectation all through Jr High. Once the kids are in high school. I back off. At this point, I check grades every Friday. If they are lower than they should be, they are grounded until they come back up.

As far as my youngest cutie… I gave him the day off on Thursday. He’d had teeth pulled and shots. It was a rough day. He had an easy day relaxing around the house. 

On Friday, I reminded him several times to run his laundry to the laundry room and take care of his school work. He responded with an ok. The only issue was, he didn’t.

Saturday he played with a friend and then went over to stay the night. Sunday he stayed the night again and didn’t come home until 5:30. I asked him Sunday afternoon when he asked to stay again if all of his work and chores were handled. He assured me they were.

They weren’t. 

Monday evening I took my 14 year old to go get her dress for homecoming and pick up a few groceries. Noah came home while we were gone. We arrived back at the house just before 7:00. It was almost dark, and Noah was running around outside playing with his friend.

I asked him about his weekend and then told him to head in. I asked him to show me his clothes for tomorrow morning and bring me his school work to check. 

I was met with the ‘Oh, crap’ face.

Needless to say, his evening has been spent showering, gathering clothes, picking up his room and doing his homework. His brother and sister have had some chores to do, but they have had time to work on some personal projects and watch TV. Their school stuff is ready to go for the morning. 

Hopefully, these tough lessons work out in the long run for Noah. Kids never get how rotten it makes a parent feel to not see their kids for two days and have to go straight into lecture mode when they do see them. But no one ever said, parenting had to be fun. 

That said, I’d rather have Noah have these tough little lessons now than harder lessons in the future. I believe in logical consequences. I believe them in giving them some freedom and trusting them to make the right decisions until they don’t. So far, it’s paid off. My kids are anything but perfect. However, they are learning to handle life and the transition into adulthood. They have lots of successes and some bumps, set backs and painful lessons. Hopefully, by the time they are out on their own, they will be at a place where their set backs are few and far between.

Having 7 kids, I couldn’t be a helicopter parent even if I wanted to. Which I don’t. At all. I think childhood is a time for failures as well as successes. It’s a time to learn to have self-discipline on small things like school work where the consequence is getting lectured and losing some sleep versus not meeting a deadline at work and losing a job. It’s a time to learn that there is a reason parents tell you to do things, and if you don’t handle things that way, it may be a problem later. And when you choose to have fun instead of getting your work done, you still have to finish that work and it may be a whole lot less fun to do it when you are tired and ready to go to bed!

Speaking of that, it’s 10:45 and Noah is just finishing his work and heading to bed. 7:15 a.m. will get here awfully early tomorrow, especially after the busy weekend he has had. But, it’s finished. Hopefully, he thinks of this experience the next time he chooses to watch TV instead of finishing his project. Hopefully, he realizes it would have been better to sit down Friday and do his work so he could have enjoyed the rest of his weekend on his own terms. 

Hopefully.

But, from past experience, we will probably be here again before it’s all said and done. And that’s ok. He’s learning, and I’m here to come behind him and help him through that process. That’s the stage where we are in his life, and I’m thankful for it and the part I play in helping shape the person he will become.

I’d love to hear how you handle situations like these. How do you encourage your kids to be responsible?

Christy