Young adults are expected to enter the world capable of accepting responsibility for earning a living, maintaining order in their apartment or house, doing the grocery shopping, preparing meals, doing laundry, and otherwise caring for themselves. Even middle school and high school students must juggle multiple responsibilities in order to be successful. College students must manage their lives independently of their parents most of the time.
In order to prepare tweens, teens, and young adults for this level of responsibility, parents should (ideally) begin when their children are young (but if you haven’t done this, don’t despair, just read my future post on the subject of beginning this process later in your child’s life). By allowing the child to take on increasing levels of responsibility over time, the parent helps him to gradually become more independent, responsible, and capable of managing his own life.
Where to begin? Once your child is able to understand the concept of responsibility (at about age three or four), explain to him that some responsibilities are yours and some are his. Your responsibilities include keeping him safe as well as providing food, shelter, and clothing. His responsibilities will depend upon his age and level of maturity. Start small with one or two things for which your child can be responsible. Once you have determined what his responsibilities are, and after you have taught him to perform each of the tasks, explain that you will help him remember to do what he is expected to do but that soon, you will expect him to live up to his responsibilities on his own. Don’t expect miracles here, however. Just aim for steady progress toward that independence.
But how can you get young children to live up to their responsibilities without nagging them? The answer is “routines.” Visit any good preschool classroom, and you will soon recognize the effective use of routines. For example, children know that snack time follows center time; that they must wash their hands before lunch; and, that they must clean up the materials in one center before moving on to another. Preschoolers know that when the teacher signals a transition between one activity and another (“Five more minutes until it’s time to go outside), they are expected to follow the pre-established routine. And, for the most part, they do.
For example, the children know that once the teacher begins to sing the “clean up song,” it is time to stop playing and clean up their area to get ready for the next activity. Good teachers don’t nag--they teach and they routinize. And they don’t get flustered. Parents can do that as well.
Here are some examples. Start small with something like, “When you take off your clothes at night to get ready for bed, you must put them in the laundry hamper so that when I do laundry, all of your dirty clothes will be in one place.” Each night when you supervise the “getting ready for bed” routine, make sure that your child puts his clothes into the hamper. Don’t do it yourself. If he forgets, say something like, “In order to be ready for story time, what do you have to do with your dirty clothes?” Stay positive, but don’t give in. If the clothes don’t make it into the hamper, then you cannot start story time. It’s as simple as that. Be calm and matter-of-fact. Once you have established that simple routine, then you can move on to more challenging responsibilities.
When the time is right, make it a rule that before dinner, it is “clean-up time.” Teach your child what it means to “clean up.” Help him to do so when he is too young to do it himself (“I will help you clean up your toys before dinner for now, but soon you’ll be such a big boy that you’ll be able to do it on your own.”). Simultaneously, develop a signal: a song, a bell, or something else that signals that it is time to clean up toys. Use this signal consistently in lieu of nagging or yelling. If you have done all of these things, and if responsibilities are age-appropriate, then the child will be able to manage them independently in time. Have patience, and trust the routine.
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