5 Best Ways to Inculcate the Art of Responsibility

Does your kid always have an excuse for their missed commitment? Is your kid’s knapsack always a mess? Does your kid blame others for his or her regular habits? Have you observed a lack of accountability lately? If yes, then there are good reasons to understand and learn how to teach kids to be responsible.

As a parent, you constantly lament that children these days are budding in an atmosphere filled with instantaneous entitlement and gratification. With this, every parent’s anticipations are different. While some expect their kids to do every little task in their early years, others prefer to give them complete independence.

Be it school or life, you certainly want your kids to succeed. You never want to fight over simple things and create conflicts and pressure at home. As a parent, you want your kids to follow good habits, stay organized, finish their homework on time, and never make a fuss. These factors will come together only if you build the discipline in them.

Considering this, here are a few tips to make a note of.

1. Understand Your Child’s Behavior

Now, before you take a step in raising your child responsibly, comprehend what actually works for him or her as an individual. Unveil his or her behavior pattern. Say, for instance, is your kid passive? If yes, then give hints and prompts. Is he or she wilful? Then, stay away from giving orders.

Instead, phrase your statements in a special way. Is he or she easily overwhelmed? If so, give clear instructions. Know that each kid is different and so are their behaviors. In order to enforce responsibility effectively in your kid, take your time to discover his or her personality.

2. Provide A Proper Routine Or Structure

Once you divulge your kid’s behavioral pattern, the next step is to create a task schedule on a daily basis. This could be as simple as waking up on time or performing simple jobs. An ideal way to teach kids responsibility is by setting up a proper routine, which could include things like:

How and when to brush teeth?
When is the right time to eat breakfast?
How to comb their hair?
How to get dressed?

Besides this, you could come up with an everyday after-school routine, which inculcates your kid about dividing his or her time between homework, fun activities, and household chores. Now, comes the most important part – sleep routine. Teach your kid the benefits of sleeping and waking up early.

Just ensure to keep the daily routine simple and clear. It shouldn’t be complicated. With practice, your kid will soon learn to implement every step on own.

3. Explain The Reasons Behind Your Rules And Routines

Setting up routines and making your kid practice is certainly a good way to make him or her responsible, but this is incomplete if you do not explain the real reasons behind it.

For example, rather than saying, “Do your homework once you get back home,” tell your kid the reason behind that statement. You would rather put it as, “It is a good practice to complete your homework and then play around in your free time. You wouldn’t have pressure or feel stressed about it, dear.”

This makes them realize why it is important to finish off the priority tasks and be relaxed. But make sure not to put up lengthy lectures or explanations, as they might not be mentally developed to listen patiently. In fact, this will only bore your kid.

Just a proper and quick explanation as to what made you set up certain routines or choices for him or her, is good enough to understand the importance better.

4. Learn To Accept Your Kid’s Mistakes

As a parent, it is indeed hard to stand and see your kid make mistakes. Still, as long as the consequences are not dreadful, permit your kid to face the outcome of doing such a mistake. Don’t do this often. Keep this session once in a while. They tend to be more responsible only when they learn from their mistakes. While it might seem harsh initially, it is one of the most effective ways to help them remember their responsibility lessons in the future.

5. Walk The Talk

Kids look up to their parents and follow their actions. Therefore, instill responsible behavior in your kids by being responsible for yourself. You can do this with small everyday actions.

Say, for instance, you can teach your kid to be a trustworthy pet owner; however, when you say this, you should take your dog for a walk every day. When your kid sees you doing this yourself, he or she follows it eventually. Give them an opportunity to see and learn the discipline from you. Remember, actions speak louder than words.