Teaching Responsibility. Responsibility comes in many forms.
I have two girls. They provide constant blog fodder. For the most part, they are okay with that. I even run certain posts by them for approval – after all, it is their story as much as it is mine.
As a parent, we get to help write the stories of our children. The ebb and flow of day-to-day becoming the chapters of their lives through experience and exposure to the world around them.
About a year ago, I wrote a post here called Raising Responsible Citizens. Raising children who are globally aware and are understanding of the need to make a difference in the world is something that is very dear to my heart. It makes me proud to say that my girls have an awareness of the plight of others and the need to be involved. They know the positivity their actions can achieve in bringing change and that their voices can indeed be heard around the world.
This post is a chapter in that book of life on responsibility…because responsibility is a funny thing. We can teach our children about the world and its people, we can teach them laws and rights, and we start when they are just toddlers with the basics of what is right and what is wrong. But what about basic responsibility…let me clarify.
Responsibilities within a family come in many forms. For instance, chores should not be a choice. I don’t believe we should pay our children to do them. I don’t think that they should be a trade-off for reward. Yes, I know some of you have had to sit down, or have done the head shake and do not agree with me. And that is okay, we all know what works for us in our families. This works in mine.
Turning up the music and having a two hour cleaning frenzy with my girls is not uncommon. My oldest will bathe the dog, mow a lawn and clean bathrooms. The youngest will brush cats, wipe down windows and is the Queen of The Clean Baseboards. Do they love to do these things? They are kids – of course not. But they do them anyway – because we all have to muck in together.
Yesterday we had one of those manic cleaning mornings and then we went out in the heat and the rain, yes, a Floridian Summer, to purchase plants for redoing a front flowerbed. The girls made a point of sharing with the checkout lady that we were probably the only people in our Boca community that did yard work and that the neighbors probably found us strange. The lady smiled at me, she nodded in agreement and shared with them the chores she set aside for her daughters because ‘we all gotta do our part’. Wiki gave it a bit of an eye roll, but just in fun, and then they negotiated ice cream for the drive home.
Just before we hit the plant store, we had shared lunch. Over our pizza we had talked about Nelson Mandela in the hospital and how he stood up for what he believed in. We talked about the filibuster in Texas this week which was paramount for women’s rights. We even touched on slavery in the U.S., a difficult topic for me as the adoptive white mother of an African-American child. We garnered the attention of the table next to us with what was probably not your average family day out discussions. But my girls knew I was listening to them, that their voices were being heard…there was no rush, not on the clock, just soaking them in and as I wrote about here before, living in the moment.
After arriving home to yet another summer storm, we stood side-by-side in the kitchen. We sauteed and grilled, preparing dinner for a movie night in pajamas. The movie the girls chose was Parental Guidance, with a fab cast of some of my fave people. Bette Midler even does a little singing, omgosh, love her. There is much that I could write about this great movie and family relationships as they pertain to our lives, but for another day.
One scene in the movie hit home with the messages we give children about owning their behaviour and responsibilities today. Everyone is a winner, everything is a negotiation, words should be sugarcoated and kids have the final say in their choices and then Billy Crystal’s character simply said, ‘No’. The audience cheered. And my girls ‘got it’.
In between the canned laughter, the hilarity of the situation and the absurdity of his action, they understood the underlying message of the scene. They know their responsibilities in this world, they may not always like them…but they step up to the plate none the less. With or without the promise of ice cream.
How do you teach your child(ren) about responsibility?
And as always,
This is an original Post for World Moms Blog by Post by Nicole of Sisters From Another Mister in Florida, USA. She can also be found on twitter @thesistershood.
Sisters From Another Mister
Sisters From Another Mister ... A blog born from the love of 'sisters' around the world who come together to lift eachother up no matter where they are on their life journey. Meet Nicole, a transplanted British born, South African raised, and American made Mom of two girls living on the sunny shores of South Florida, USA. A writer of stories, an avid picture taker and a keeper of shiny memories. Sharing the travels of a home school journey that takes place around the globe - because 'the world truly is our classroom'. Throw in infertility, adoption, separation, impending divorce (it has its own Doom and Gloom category on the blog) and a much needed added side of European humor is what keeps it all together on the days when it could quite clearly simply fall apart! This segues nicely into Finding a Mister for a Sister for continued amusement. When not obsessing over the perils of dating as an old person, saving the world thro organisations such as being an ambassador for shot@life, supporting GirlUP, The UN Foundation, ONE.org and being a member of the Global Team of 200 for social good keeps life in the balance. Be sure to visit, because 'even tho we may not have been sisters at the start, we are sisters from the heart.' http://www.sistersfromanothermister.com/ https://www.facebook.com/SistersFromAnotherMister https://twitter.com/thesistershood http://pinterest.com/thesistershood/ Global Team of 200 #socialgoodmoms Champion for Shot@Life and The United Nations Foundation
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Oh, I agree!
Don’t know where I heard it but this always resonates with me:
“To kee our kids feet on the ground, place responsibility on their shoulders.”
Our kids don’t get paid to do their chores either and know that some things just have to be done.
Our kids get chores at school too, like taking out the class room garbage. And at home, they help with preparing dinner. It’s not really a chore, they just love it! And it helps them eat ‘new’ food too.
One thing that is really important to me, is if they fight, and one hurts the other, the ‘punishment’ of the first one is to nurse the other one. So the hurt one gets to sit on the couch, while the other one brings some ice or bandages, and something to drink. It helps them remember the consequences of ‘bad’ behaviour, and is way more effective than a time out.
I do remember our chores being equally given to me and my siblings when I was young. Nope, we did not like it but we all did it laughing, listening to the music, sometimes arguing about the chores…
We were never paid in money nor got any other prices for doing so.
We were all taught that this is our responsibility like our parents responsibility is going to work and earning money to feed us, dress us and educate us. Our responsibility was to keep the house clean and go to school…
I could not agree more. Kids are not paid for chores unless the said kids do something super extra out of their range of chores but rarely. It is our family, all of us have to participate in its well-being. Plus we take care of our home in a bigger sense aka the planet Earth and our community, which sometimes translates into not sending tens of valentines but sending the money they would spend on them to the fund for fighting cancer in kids and almost always means using cloth hankies to produce less garbage. And they do these with smiles and love.
I do not believe in the idea of kids being entitled to be treated like kings and queens. They are entitled to love and respect, and these mean that we as parents have a very serious duty to raise them as responsible citizens, good people – loving, tolerant, open-minded, not scared of work of responsibilities, resilient, and thinking.
Plus, let’s be honest, if they can operate tablets, laptops, smartphones with so many buttons and keys, the washing machine should be much easier. Mine has less buttons 🙂 Smart kids should be able to manage these.
Nicole,
I can picture your car conversations with your daughters on current events. I can see you all planting that flower bed. I think the level of engagement between your daughters and you is wonderful.
I haven’t started chores with my kids. So, you made me think, “Hey, what am I waiting for?”
Jen 🙂
Waving to Jenn … yes, even when they are teeny they can start to do things around the house. Empty bedroom trash cans into the kitchen trash, bring in the mail, put out mats on the table – my youngest was wiping baseboards at 4 … not the greatest job done but it was a job 😉
Sounds like you are doing a wonderful job raising responsible citizens for this world Nicole – love it!