One of your close friends has a teenager that mows the lawn without being asked. Your cousin has a five-year-old that wakes up, brushes their teeth and makes their bed, no reminders needed. Where did these amazing children come from?
Generally speaking, one of the most important goals as a parent is to raise children who become independent and self-reliant individuals. Certainly, in a child’s early development stage, your child counts on you. As infants, children rely on you, for nourishments, cleaning, and mobility. As we all know, the more children grow, the more independent they become in basic areas of living, however, they still depend on parents for guidance, protection, and support. As your child reaches adolescence, they become less reliant on you and increasingly capable of taking care of themselves.
The bottom line is that kids will be responsible to the degree that we support them to be. Here are five strategies that will increase your child’s responsibility.
Allow your baby to be dependent on you. To starters, our society typically focuses far too much on trying to make babies independent as if they’re teenagers, but quite simply, it won’t work. Think of your child as a house, or a tree. Without the proper care and the right foundation, you will have problems. Attachment is necessary for a child’s well-being. Leaving your baby withholding affection or human touch, and refusing to feed or comfort them at certain points is non-responsive. In other words, you simply cannot spoil a baby with too much love and you will not create “bad habits” or “clingy children” by responding to them. After all, parents and other caregivers play a direct role in their child’s development. If a child sees their parents being responsible, they too will begin picking up the traits.
Let them help you. Don’t grumble and mope when it’s time to do housework. Instead, look at it from a different point of view and take this opportunity to have your child assist you. Most young children have no idea how much work is involved with running a household. Doing chores, however, builds maturity, makes them less impulsive, and more aware of others perspectives and needs. Remember, children aren’t born with these traits; they develop gradually as children grow and mature. So the next time you’re cleaning the house, let your child take on some of the work. Reinforce the behaviors you want to see more of from your child with praise. If you want your child to learn to stay organized and clean at school, you can begin reinforcing those behaviors in the home. Practice with them in your coat room, play room and the child’s own room. If you’re worried their school locker will be a disaster you can ‘play school’ at home with storage lockers or shelving designed with cubbies and hooks for their books and jackets. Regardless of your technique for teaching your kids responsibility in the home it’s important to remember to start young, be specific and make it fun!
Avoid rewards. At Least at first. There’s a place and time for rewards and allowances. Don’t assume a reward system has to be in place for your child to learn responsibility. With a reward system, the burden often falls on the parent to remind kids to do the necessary tasks. “After the first couple weeks, it doesn’t work very well,” says Christine Carter, the author of “Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents.”
Rewarding children could also prevent them from developing a sense of doing the right thing. Some psychologist refers to this as intrinsic motivation, which is the desire to do something based on enjoyment of the action itself, rather than trying to achieve an outcome or reward.
Teach them consequences. Learning to take care of their things can also help children develop a sense of responsibility for their actions. For instance, if your child is playing with crayons, finger paint, and scissors, let them know if the mess isn’t cleaned up they won’t be able to play their art supplies the next time they ask. Then, as the parent, you need to follow through and take away their supplies if they decide not to clean up the mess. In other words, child. The more you enforce the rules, the more likely they are to listen and clean up without being asked, or at least without crying about it too much.
Another scenario: If your child has to pack their bags for school each day and forgets their gym sneakers, then they won’t get to practice that afternoon. As much as you would like to help them, don’t! Hopefully, they’ll remember to bring it the next time.
Praise them. Kids love to help. As a matter of fact, they want to help. To them, chores don’t feel like work. To ensure they stay positive about doing chores, keep up the enthusiastic vibe by offering specific praises for actions. For example, “Thank you for hanging all the coats up on the hook and I’m proud of you!” or, “Thank you for helping with the dishes and cleaning your room.” Praising your child for their cleaning efforts will help them develop a sense of ownership for their action.
Teaching kids about responsibility isn’t easy. But then again, what part of being a parent is? It can take years and lots of practice, but if you follow through with it, you stand a better chance of raising a responsible adult.
Thanks for reading my article. Did I miss any important steps? What are some other ways parents can ensure they’re raising responsible adults? Feel free to comment below.