How to teach responsibility to your child is a vital concern for every parent. And the lessons of responsibility should be embarked on during the early years of childhood. We often see many adults around us who are not responsible for any things, situations or relationships in their life. The virtue of responsibility cannot be felt during adulthood. It is a work in progress where parents should use simple ways to teach responsibility to children so that they can lead a successful and happy life later on.
It is very obvious children don’t love tasks that are not fun to do. But parents have to make understand their child that there are certain things in life that are our responsibility whether it is fun filled or not. But it is also true that being responsible in life will surely make you happy and content in your life. Parenting is indeed a tough job that demands to tackle many tough things but at the same time it is rewarding too. You will love to see your teachings and lessons have made your child a better person in life.
Why do we teach responsibility to children ?
Every individual should be aware that why being responsible in life is so important. So that when we teach a child to be responsible we can make them understand too that why it is necessary. Responsibility is a term that covers wide areas of life. It involves the process of learning to take our own decisions. There are many activities for kids according to their age that help them to learn responsibility. And being accountable for our own actions and staying committed to our own words. Developing a sense of responsibility helps to achieve success in school, college, workplace and many more exams of life. A responsible person creates a trustworthy image for own as he/she does what they say.
Understanding the difference between obedient and responsible
Often obedient and responsible are taken as the same quality. But both are different qualities to be adapted by children. A child may be obedient but lacks responsibility. So both the qualities should be instilled in children by approaching different ways.
For example, when you say your child to pack his school bag, being obedient he will pack the bag. But this action will not develop a sense of responsibility because he just followed the instruction given by his parent. In this case, you should teach your child the consequences if he doesn’t pack the bag regularly. The Child should be responsible to pack all his necessary belongings needed for the next day at school.
Simple ways to teach responsibility to your child
1) Allow your child to say in certain tasks
Every parent wants their child to be happy and so they want to create a bubble shield around them which is impossible. And this lead to over-indulgence of parents in their children’s life. Hence kids don’t learn the basic life skills and remain careless regarding their responsibilities. Therefore allow your child to express their opinions in certain tasks like which dress they want to wear. Or what hobbies they want to learn. This will help children to think about themselves and will be responsible for their choice.
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2) Let your child face consequences and learn from experiences
Let your child be accountable for their own actions as long as the consequences of their actions are not harmful. For example, if your child doesn’t pack their school bag properly, let them face the scenario next day in school. This way when they face the consequences of their actions they will learn from their mistakes. And it will help them to be more careful and responsible day by day.
3) Involve your child in household chores and tasks
Involving kids in simple chores of house will help them to realize that it requires effort to run a family in a systematic way. Whether it is home, school or any organization, it requires an effort that too in proper time and way. And this happens only when you are responsible towards your tasks. So start involving kids in any simple and little chores. Their small steps will have a big impact on developing a sense of responsibility in their life.
You may like to read : Age Appropriate Household Chores For Children
4) Encourage your child’s positive behavior
Many times our children do some activities that are really appreciable and they need positive acknowledgement from their parents too. So never forget to appreciate your children whenever they do something positive. This will certainly encourage them to stay positive and will be responsible in the future. They will realize and understand the value of positive behavior and will take it as a responsibility to continue that in the future. So encouraging your child’s positive behavior is a simple yet effective way to teach responsibility to your child.
5) Set up a routine
You can expect your child to be responsible only when your child have a routine life. You can’t instruct your child to set the bed or clean the toys once in a while as there is a high chance of hearing no from your child. Children don’t love to do these things, but they should learn the fact that they are responsible for their own mess. Set up a routine for children and assign particular tasks for them according to their age. By doing those tasks on a regular basis they will take those chores as their responsibility.
