Developing a Child’s Sense of Responsibility

As parents, you have taken care of your child even before your child has been born. Your bond has started ever since the moment you conceived your precious little angel. You have taken care of your child all these years and would like to take care of your child until you still have strength left, but the truth will one day come when all children must leave their nests and start a life of their own.

However, even in the midst of this saddening and sorrowful thought, you can still give your child one final gift to make your child’s life easier when he/she becomes independent. And that gift is your child’s sense of responsibility which you have honed ever since he/she was still little.

What describes an adult is not the age one has, for age is merely the number of years one has existed in this planet. The true measure of adulthood lies with one’s sense of responsibility and character. And if you want your child to become an outstanding adult when the day comes, then continue reading this article to find out how.

How to develop your child’s responsibility

So, you want to instill a sense of responsibility within your child, but don’t know how to. Well fear not, for this list will walk you through what you need to do in order to raise one responsible and outstanding child.

1. Start young

Almost any skill and trait can be achieved and mastered when the individual learning it starts at a young age. This remains true for instilling a sense of responsibility within your child. The younger you start to teach responsibility to your child, the more he/she will get accustomed to it and the better the results become.

You can start as early as early pre-school or by the time they can understand that their actions have consequences. Anything before that would be really difficult as the concept that your actions have consequences is a hard concept to grasp for young children who are have not yet started to interact with children their age.

2. Let them help with household chores

If your child is physically capable to do chores, then it would be a great idea to let them help with these chores to help them develop a sense of responsibility. Let them help by sweeping the floor, watering plants, or feeding your pets. However, do make sure that the chores you assign to them are not too heavy or strenuous as children’s bodies are still relatively weak and their motor skills are not as accurate as that of an adult’s. you wouldn’t want them being tired from chores as that may lead to them despising chores instead.

By letting them help with minor household chores, you have started introducing responsibilities to your child. They will eventually have to do the same things later on in their life, so is better to get them familiar with chores while they are still young and learn at a fast pace.

3. Do not force them

If the chores you assign are too tiring for your child, then they might tend to try and persuade you to not make them do those chores. In the event that this does occur, then you should not force them to do these chores as long as there is a reasonable explanation behind your child’s request to not do a chore.

What you want most is to make them want to do chores themselves and not force them onto it. Forcing them to do chores they cannot physically do or are too tiring can often make them resent doing chores and do the opposite of what you are trying to do.

4. Get them used to a routine

A routine is an important concept you need to teach your child as well. Routines will allow your child to manage them time properly and make them more responsible with handling their schedules. You can set a routine for your child which includes waking up early, taking a bath themselves, eating breakfast, and cleaning the plates. 

You can even set a routine after they have come home from school by hiring a tutor from leading home tuition in Singapore, FamilyTutor. This will make your child get used to the idea that it is their responsibility to follow and abide by their schedules.

5. Encourage them to make their own schedules

Once you have successfully set up a routine for your child, and he/she is following it really well, you can then start to give them a little bit of freedom by giving them an hour or so of free time and letting them choose whatever they want to do with that time.

This will allow your child to make decisions for themselves which will greatly affect his/her life in the future. Having the independence to choose what to do at an early age will make them value their time more and use the time they have responsibly and rationally.

6. Let them clean up their own mess

One of the most important concepts that your child should grasp, aside form the thought that their actions have consequences, is they should be the ones to deal with and face these consequences. You can start making them understand this by letting them clean after their mess when they are done playing, or by letting them help fix the flower pot they dropped.

This will really drill the thought that they have to clean after their own failures and face the consequences of their actions. However, you should be careful not to blame them for accidents as this will result to negative effects in your child.

7. Reward them after a job well done

No child would go through the effort of becoming responsible without something in store for them. And you can keep your child’s motivation high by rewarding him/her every time your child displays acts of responsibility.

You can give your child a reward after he/she has finished their chores, or after they clean up the toys which they have scattered all around their room. Rewards do not necessarily need to be physical and tangible objects; you can always give them a warm hug and a lot of praise every time they do a good job being responsible. Anything that affirms positivity after they do a responsible act will do well to be a reward.

8. Become a role model

A child’s nature is often affected by the people they are surrounded with. If a child grows up in an environment which promotes responsibility and are surrounded with responsible adults, they will adapt this trait and become a responsible individual as well.

This is why it is important to become a role model for your child so that they will have someone to look up to. It takes a lot of courage to walk a road where one cannot see the path; however, it is much easier to walk a road where the path is already lit up by the ones who have previously walked it. Your child needs someone to guide them and help them reach the goal of becoming a responsible individual, and that individual shall be you.

9. Instill the value of acceptance

Another concept that is necessary for a responsible individual is the concept of acceptance. There are things in this world that one cannot control, these include the weather, time, the actions of other people, and almost anything else. And the only thing that one can control is how they react to these events.

You need to teach your child to just accept that not everything in this world goes according to plan, and should just instead work on how they should react to these events to make the most responsible and rational decision.

You can tell your child the story of the spilled coffee, where a mother and a child were having breakfast when the child accidentally spilled coffee onto her mother’s skirt. The mother angrily scolded her child for minutes, went to change her clothes, and got late for work because of the time she spent scolding her child. If she had instead told her child to be careful the next time and changed her skirt immediately, she wouldn’t have been late for work and could have saved her child’s feelings.

10. Cheer your child on

Every individual requires support from everyone to reach the goal and avoid being burnt out from the journey. You should cheer your child on every step of the way to make them feel positive and continue their journey to become a responsible individual. Every step your child takes towards the goal of becoming a responsible individual should be taken with you by their side cheering them on.

Positively cheering your child on will provide the parental support that they need to continue down the path of becoming a responsible individual. Even if they are not yet aware that they are being trained to become responsible, they will look back at their younger years one day and remember the support that you have given them to become the responsible and outstanding individual they currently are.

Carelle

Carelle

Carelle is a teacher who has been through the ups and downs of the teacher and learner life. She wishes for every learner to gain educational satisfaction that will help embody the people they want to be in the future.

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