Parenting Teenagers And The Difficulties of Teaching Them Responsibility

For any parent one of the most difficult tasks we face is that of teaching responsibility and this is especially difficult when we are looking at parenting teenagers. In many instances you find yourself faced with the problem of trying to instill habits into your teenagers that will result in appropriate behavior without at the same time stifling the need for them to make individual choices.

Taking 'responsibility' for something means simply being the agent for some action that produces an effect which can be either bad or good. Teaching responsibility is thus very much a case of getting your child to understand that every action has consequences and that these consequences may affect not only their own lives but the lives of other individuals.

If you are able to teach your child to see the connection between her or his actions and the natural consequences of those actions then you will be a long way down the road towards instilling a sense of responsibility. This approach is also far better than following the time honored, but frequently totally unproductive, route of merely resorting to telling your teenage children that they can or connot do something 'because I say so'.

Now this is all well and good but, in reality, it is frequently much easier said than done. Take, for example, the teenager who is tempted to start, or has indeed already started, experimenting with drugs. The undoubted consequences of this action are that he is likely to graduate from 'soft' to 'hard' drugs, will become addicted and most likely start lying and stealing, or worse, to feed his growing habit. His school work will start to suffer, as will his health, and finally he will fall foul of the law and possibly end up in jail. However, you try explaining this to a seventeen year old who knows that he is totally in control of his life and is more than able to ensure that this does not happen to him.

Now This is possibly a somewhat extreme example of the difficulties of teaching responsibility and one for which the solution is a bit too complicated for this brief article. It is nonetheless a relatively common problem for parents these days and one which many parents will recognize.

For the moment however let us examine simpler, but still very common problem - that of teaching your teenager to take responsibility for keeping his room clean and tidy.

For many parents the answer to this problem is to simply withdraw privileges until the room is cleaned. As an example, when your teenage son comes home from schools, dumps his bag and is about to rush out to join his friends at the mall, you stop him from venturing out until he has cleaned up his room. This frequently starts an argument in which words such as 'not fair' feature prominently as he heads for his room slamming the door behind him.

The problem here is usually that the boy has not yet made the connection between his actions in simply throwing his bag in the corner of his room and the inconvenience that this causes you in having to go into his room and sort through the mess when it comes time to do the laundry. In addition he has not made the connection between the fact that you have just spent a great deal of money rewiring the house because mice, attracted by the food left in his room, had chewed their way through the electrical cabling.

In simple terms you have inconvenienced your son by curtailing his freedom but this simply is not fair because when all is said and done he is the person who has to live in the room and he does not see that it should matter in the slightest to you what state it is in.

The answer is simply to educate him by helping him to see the connection for himself between the state of his room and the inconvenience that an untidy room causes for you. Once you do this, taking away his privileges and inconveniencing him when he does not keep his room tidy will suddenly be seen as quite fair.

Whilkst getting children to connect their actions with their natural consequences is undoubtedly the key to instilling a sense of responsibility in them, you must remember that the child has got to be in a position to understand the connection between his actions and the consequences.

Despite the fact that it is often all too easy for an adult to see the connection, a child may not always have enough knowledge or experience to spot the connection. It is important therefore to start teaching your child responsibility from an early age so that, when difficulties of understanding do appear, the child will have learnt to trust you when you tell him that he does not wish the consequences of whatever it is he is contemplating.

One final point to remember is that, like adults, children have some degree of their own free will and, like it or not, the influence that you are able to exert over your children is limited. The best that you can often do is to lay down reasonable expectation and, whenever necessary, to take a firm, but not overly authoritative, stance. At the end of the day you are after all raising an individual with the capacity to think for himself, stand on his own two feet and exercise self-responsibility.

Setting a good example and pointing out to your children the path to follow is as much as most parents can do. In the end your children will decide for themselves whether or not they are going to follow the path which you have laid out for them.

Sustainable Living Articles @ http://www.articlegarden.com