Teaching Your Children Responsibility

The parents have a vital role in developing responsibility in children. They learn the first lessons of how to live, what is right and what is wrong from home. Of course, peers and school also have a vital role to play. At early years of life, what they see and do have a great influence on developing their personality. They learn a lot by observing, hearing and seeing what happens in the surroundings.

Leading by example

Most children think of their parents as role model and follow their footsteps in the early age. They try to speak, walk and talk like them. So, it’s important for the parents to lead by example. They should behave in such a way that there is positive influence on the child. The parents should act responsibly to encourage their children to develop responsibility. They should make sincere efforts to conduct the same way as they would expect their wards to behave. They should show humility, civility, concern and compassion and respect in their actions towards others. They should also exhibit qualities such as self-control, courage and honesty. Many of these may not mean much when they are young but when they grow little older they would be able to analyze them. Sometimes its good to explain to them why the parents behaved the way they did in certain situation and try to ask them if they would have behaved differently.

Better understanding

It’s always good to encourage the kids to ask questions and give them satisfactory answers. This two way communication would help to understand each other better and also develop respect for ideals of good character.

Reading moral stories

Reading out moral based stories is a good way to inculcate good morals and principles in children. Kids usually associate themselves to the lead character in the story and would do the same as they do. It’s also good to talk to them about what had happened in their favorite story and ask them what they would do when confronted with same situation.

Help child judge right and wrong actions

Kids learn to distinguish between good and bad as they grow up and with practice. Parents can help them to achieve good judgmental ability by helping them to analyze the consequences of the actions when there is one more than one choice. Also, they can talk to them about the stories or events and ask them to imagine the result it had been handled differently.

As the child grows up, the way they handle different situations may also change. But the best the parents can do for the child is to arm the kids with good principles and values so that they don’t bog down. They should be able to reason out, distinguish between selfish or reckless behaviour and take appropriate decision. In short, build a strong foundation in the child but developing responsibility in them to face future challenges effectively and efficiently.