Empower your kids through responsibility

Would you like to improve your teen’s chances of succeeding in life? If so, teach him or her how to tackle responsibility.

Encouraging children and teenagers to acquire decent grades and clean their bedrooms is a solid starting point.

But, to teach responsibility, you want to help your teen learn “critical thinking skills.”

If you push your children to stay ahead of their responsibilities, you will help them build inner strength to cope at every stage of life.

Without these skills, life will start pushing them around.

Also, keeping your child busy — to help him avoid drugs or the wrong crowd — is not the same as teaching him responsibility.

Staying busy with sports or dance lessons is good. But teaching true responsibility requires helping a young person approach problems with confidence, stay on track when the going gets rough and feel the reward of conquering difficult situations.

Responsibility demands that we learn to think ahead at all times, plan our steps to complete goals, and notice how our actions will affect others.

All of us need leadership skills in whatever role we play. Any home that lacks leadership is in a lot of trouble.

Consider a friend of ours we’ll call Jill. Her 35-year-old son is still living at home with his 10-year-old daughter in tow.

Jill is making a million excuses for her son. She lends him her credit cards, baby-sits her grandchild while her son relaxes with friends and collapses into bed every night since she is the sole family breadwinner.

Jill says, “I created this monster of a problem. Throughout his life, I allowed my son to ignore the rules. I felt sorry for him because he didn’t have a dad.”

We argue that Jill has a bigger problem than she realizes.

We contend that Jill is really clinging to her son — not the other way around. She is afraid of being alone, so she is enabling his dependent behaviors. She wants him around, and she works to keep him dependent upon her.

Jill’s son is bound to know that something is wrong with the way his mother raised him. His early training is not serving him well, and he’s bright enough to know this.

Any parent can help teens mature and master responsibilities by doing the following:

• Teach your child to cook. Cooking requires lots of thinking and planning. A person must shop for food, envision the actual meal, prepare the food, serve it and clean up.

• Require your teen to work for pay. Every teen, regardless of the family’s income, should work at least five hours per week in addition to attending school full time.

• Assign two small chores per day. Every child should contribute at least two five-minute tasks to the family every day. Feeding the dog, taking out the trash, or cleaning a sink is doable even for a six-year-old.

• Teach consistency. If your teen washes the car once per month, this is good. But, requiring your teen to hang his laundry every time he pulls clothes out of the dryer will teach him consistency.

• Teaching life skills and responsibility should include lots of praise for your child. Reward him or her with hugs and positive words. Brag to anyone who’ll listen how proud you are of your child’s maturity.

Unlike Jill, you want to help your little bird fly confidently from the nest. You want him or her to grow into a strong adult whom you can lean on one day.