Teaching Teenagers to be Responsible Individuals

The ultimate goal of procreation is to produce responsible, productive, and happy members of society. Along the way we become blessed with gifts we could never imagine and are faced with challenges we could never have dreamed up. But the goal always remains the same. Teaching your child to be a responsible and contributing member of society seems like a never ending job.

When a child hits those teenage years, changes in their personality are inevitable. Somewhere in there is the sweet little one you know and love, but they are temporarily taken over by wild notions, strong emotions, and a basic feeling that they are much smarter than they really are.

Every parent faces one common challenge regardless of circumstances or socioeconomic class. How do you taper normal teenage rebellion with the values of responsibility? This is a difficult challenge and a prime example of why we have eighteen years or so to do our most basic parenting job.

Younger teenagers are still heavily influenced by parents and can be geared toward more responsible behaviors even in their most rebellious times. They want to establish themselves as unique individuals with a free mind and free thoughts. Their feelings are normal and important to their development. Fortunately, encouraging them to be free thinkers and relative individuals does not mean that there has to be a change in the basic rules and expectations. A child can be free to take out the garbage and wash the dog while fully expressing themself provided that expression is still respectful.

Older teenagers rely heavily on their friends’ influence more so than their parents, but their parents certainly still carry a lot of weight. How much weight your opinion carries depends partly on what type of relationship you have with your teenager.

Teenagers have a habit of confusing free expression and the freedom to be themselves with irresponsibility. Staying out past curfew without calling is not being an individual, it is causing worry to the people at home. Getting this concept through to them may be a constant challenge, but it is worth it in the end.

Teenagers are more likely to be irresponsible when they are angry at a parent. Their adolescent minds convince them that making you happy is less important than expressing their anger, and often the chores which we assign to help teach responsibility are viewed as mechanisms to parental happiness. It’s not as simple as assigning chores, although chores are a quality method of teaching the responsibility we are seeking from them. We assign chores so that they understand there are things that have to be done regardless of our mood or circumstances in order to keep life flowing.

What would happen if every time we got angry at our bosses we went into work and just sat there with our arms folded across our chest and our bottom lip hanging out far enough to rest a cup of coffee? This is the behavior we are trying to teach our teenagers to avoid, and sometimes explaining it as simply as that can get the message through a lot more clearly.

While teenagers do in fact have a limited range of options when it comes to expressing their anger and resentment, we still have to get the message across that neglecting their responsibilities doesn’t solve the situation, it makes it worse. By arranging a natural set of consequences we can illustrate the natural order of things and why responsibility is about so much more than parental contentment.

Allowing their grades to drop because they didn’t feel like doing their homework will affect the college they are hoping to get into or their A level options in 6^th form. So the natural consequence would be no qualifications, less money. Less money equals fewer luxuries. The natural illustration of consequences would be that the amenities would disappear from the house. If you reduce your income by 30% would there be a computer in your child’s room? How many televisions would you have? How many and what kinds of holiday’s could you take? How much money would be budgeted for your child’s clothing?

While not going to college or staying on at school doesn’t guarantee your child a life of poverty and going to college doesn’t guarantee a high paying career, statistics show this is a likely consequence. There is a huge difference between punishment and consequences. Punishments are typically dealt out in anger and to younger children. Consequences are typically the result that mimics real life reactions.

Responsibility is an ongoing process, a place that we all must find ourselves whether we feel like it or not. Responsibility is a lesson that we never stop teaching our children. From the time they are little until they are grown, we teach them how to stand up in the world and meet their obligations. We teach them to accept responsibility for the pain their negative actions cause when we teach them to apologize when they are young, and we continue to teach this lesson as they age. We teach them that simply because they are angry or upset their actions or inactions have consequences. If we teach them this lesson well they can go off into the world and become conscientious and responsible human beings.