Responsibility.
As a parent, career person and partner, it seems as though your plate is so chock-full of responsibility, that it has become second nature to you.
Yet have you stopped to consider that when it comes to your child, he or she doesn’t learn about it – rather, your son or daughter has to be taught it?
If you have young children at home, it may be difficult to picture them handling responsibility like the teens and adults. And yet this is exactly the age where you should be instilling such values so that responsibility doesn’t become a dirty word; rather it will become an instinctive behavior for life!
So what are some of the best methods for teaching your child about the importance of responsibility?
First, it’s important to let your child know that by being responsible with chores, homework, etc., they’re actually helping out the family as a whole. Children love belonging to a group or unit, and if you stress how important their task is.
Even if it’s just helping you dry the dishes or picking up dirty laundry off of the bedroom floor – your child will see the bigger picture of what responsibility’s all about: that other people are depending on him or her to perform a task in a certain way.
Get your child involved in daily household activities that are age-appropriate in order to highlight this point. For example, have an older child wash your car or ask your toddler to help you pick up any toys that are laying about. Make sure to give your child lots of praise for a job well done!
Another effective way to teach responsibility to your child is to create a chore chart. This is very similar to the charts that are used in schools, where teachers place gold stars next to a student’s name for a right answer or great grade.
This chart should detail each child’s chore and when it should be completed. Have incentives for when your child gets a chore done.
For example, instead of gold stars, you can create a chart around a points system, where a certain number of points will get your child rewards like a small toy, a trip to the movie theater or a favorite movie. This positive reinforcement will soon teach your child to view responsible behavior as second-nature!
Essentially, teaching responsibility to your children boils down to making them feel as though their contribution matters around the household – and it does! So next time your child completes a chore or picks up after themselves, heap lots of praise on him or her.
This way, they’ll not only learn all about responsibility, but they’ll feel so great about themselves that they’ll want to help out around the house all the time!
Have you try to do the above yet?
Share with me your results from doing these!
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Jamie,
I haven’t done exactly all you said. But I’m going towards achieving it. Thanks for the great post for the weekend!
You have a nice weekend too.
I think the best example to teach our child about responsibility is to show by example. As a parent, showing to the child that we’re responsible of our own actions is a good way to start.
Afterall, we’re the best example/model for our child. Isn’t it?
Hi Jamie,
Thanks a lot for the advices.
I do praise my kids for helping me in everyday chores but I didn’t think about the time-table system.
I’ll have to give it a try as well as for the small gift toys.
Thanks again…
Nadia
Thanks for the tips Jamie, I already knew I should be doing some of those things and I do do the praise things a lot more now but don’t have a chart system set up. My way of doing things is not for my child to expect material things but I do give hugs and praises and hi fives etc he loves that. Ginger
Dear Jamie,
I have a chart for my 3 and a half year old daughter for 3 different reasons, going to bed nicely, getting dressed well in the mornings and not bed wetting this seems to help. I will be trying this idea for rewarding as its so important to make your child feel valued and this is the perfect way to do that thank you for sharing your knowledge Jamie ill let you know how it goes
I have gone through the article, its indeed wonderful!. I will surely try to implement at home and hope to expect great results. As we all know that parent are role models and if one parent does not exhibit the right qualities, the job becomes little difficult. Nevertheless, I will certainly try the tips given in the article. Thanks again for sharing!
Susan, thanks so much for this article! This has been a prayer of mine and on my heart for quite some time. God bless you!