I often hear complaints from parents, “My kid is so irresponsible!”
I usually ask, “What does he do that shows he is irresponsible?”
The answers I get, include the following:
“She never does his homework.”
“He doesn’t put his laundry in the hamper.”
“She is late for school.”
“He shirks his chores.”
Then I ask, “Is there ever a time where he is responsible?”
This is a tough question for parents to answer, but when I push a bit, “Something, anything -it does not have to be anything big.”
They inevitably will say:
“She likes to soothe his sister when she cries.”
“He is careful when he helps me out in the garage when we work on my car.”
“She loves to vacuum and will do that anytime I ask.”
“Once his friend Michael was in the hospital and Michael’s Mom asked my son if he could get him the homework that he missed. He called him every night until Michael was better.”
Once parents, (me included) are able to focus on our kid’s positive behavior, we can see that there are times where they actually exhibit responsible behaviors. This can give us clues as to how to foster more responsible behavior in our kids. We can build on those things that they love to do.
So if our child is good with little kids, we can help them get a job as a mother’s helper, which helps build responsibility. Or if he likes to tinker with mechanics you can give him some more responsibility when you are working on your car, or fixing any other appliance in the house. If she loves to vacuum, then that can be her job.
Stay tuned for our next post when we talk about:
Building responsible behavior in our kids for the things that they don’t like to do.