How to Teach Your Child to Be Responsible

Teaching your child responsibility is an incredibly important part of being a parent. After all, you are essentially raising your child to be able to take care of themselves. You cannot expect to throw your child into adulthood without the proper knowledge of how to be responsible. Different levels of responsibility can be taught to your child based on their age. Even a three-year-old can learn how to put their toys away at the end of the day. If you have an older child, there are a number of tasks you can hand over to them. Expect your child to make mistakes and fail, but this is all part of learning what responsibility is all about.

Start Young

You will find your child resists responsibility if you wait until they are a lot older in order to teach these lessons. A small child learning how to clean up or help out does not seem like it is all that important. However, this builds a strong foundation for the future. You can split up your household duties among everyone that lives in your home. Leave some of the more involved chores for your teens. This might include putting away dishes, taking out the garbage or cleaning bathrooms.

Give Them an Allowance

It is important that your child understands the importance of helping around the house, but a reward system never hurts. You do not have to pay your child a lot for helping around the house. However, an allowance can be given if they keep up with their duties each week. This is a great lesson that teaches children how to be responsible with money. Money should not be immediately spent. Teaching children to save and spend responsibly will set them up for their adult lives.

Assign Them Chores

There are a few different types of chores you can have for your children. There should be chores each week that are expected. These are common things like feeding the dog, putting away laundry, and clearing the table after dinner each night. You can assign other chores that you will pay your child for. This includes washing the cars periodically, mowing the lawn, and performing some spring cleaning duties. Your child probably will not be happy that they are expected to participate around the house, but let your child know that they will not have access to things like video games and texting if they do not get everything done in time.

Get a Pet

Pets are a really great way to teach children about responsibility. Not only do furry friends make a wonderful addition to the family, but you can also have your children partake in the daily care of your pets. This could include feeding the pet, providing fresh water, taking the pet for a walk, playing with them, and keeping their areas clean. You need to prepare your home for a puppy before going out and adopting one. Your children can help with this process. It teaches them that there is a big responsibility that comes with owning an animal. You are responsible for the pet’s wellbeing and safety.

Be a Good Role Model

In order for your child to truly understand what responsibility is all about, we need to act as good role models for our children. A child will be able to handle more responsibility if they see parents taking on many roles each day. We do not have to take care of everything with ease. Seeing us struggle is a big part of the learning process. The outcome that we produce is what they will see at the end of the struggle.

Have Consequences

If you set certain chores and responsibilities for your child, make sure that you are utilizing accountability. When certain things do not get done, you can offer up a reminder to your child. If they still choose to ignore their responsibilities, this is the time where you can utilize a punishment. Punishments can include taking away video games, taking away their phone, setting an earlier bedtime, or preventing them from going to a friend’s house for the week. Children tend to learn very fast when they lose things, they love the most.

Let Them Help

Your young child should be allowed to help with a variety of different household tasks. Learning how to prepare a meal, folding laundry, and cleaning the house are all things you can have everyone help with. This shows the amount of work that goes into maintaining a household. You do not want to provide them with a false sense of security when it comes to getting things done around the house.

Teach Independence

With responsibility comes a sense of independence. Your child should understand that a certain amount of work is needed in order to have a good financial status, a tidy home, and a good job. These are things that you will not be able to provide for your child on your own. You need to teach your child that they need to be responsible for their actions and their hard work if they want to live a comfortable life.

Too many parents these days feel like they should not be giving their child too much responsibility. After all, children are busy with school and other activities. In our adult lives, there will be the need to juggle a number of different roles. Family life is very important. Being able to perform properly at work is also imperative. With friends, a household and other things to think about, responsibility is something that you should prioritize as a life lesson for your children. We tend to want to take care of our kids to make their childhood more enjoyable. In reality, we are not doing them any favors by taking care of everything for them all the time. As not to overwhelm a child, starting with a little bit of responsibility at a time is a good idea. You can include more responsibilities in their days as they get older.

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