Summer a time to teach
Summer is upon us once again, and we are all in to that awesome summer mode. When I survey families, most children are in camps or at home with mom or caretakers. In this, most families have ample time for kids to relax and enjoy their lives, as well as stay involved in activities. However, when relaxing these days, there is an over-abundance of time often wasted on Netflix, social media, gaming and internet time wasters.
Why Not Build A Bit Of Character This Summer?
When looking at this question, I find a couple key mistakes in our thinking that tends to cause problems in changing how we manage things at home.
Mistake 1: We OverFunction While Our Children Under-Function With Fundamental Responsibilities.
It’s natural to want your kids to be happy. However, many parents have created a world where we not only want our children to be happy, but we end up doing all the work to try to make them happy. In doing so, we not only sign them up for constant entertainment, sports and friends, but we then compensate by taking on all of life’s responsibilities. In a typical example from my parent coaching clients, one dad regularly leaves work to run home and pick up forgotten assignments, baseball equipment or even birthday presents.
In another more extreme example, one mother explained that her 16-year old son was accustomed to her bringing him lunch in his bedroom while he played video games. He yells down when he is hungry, and she yells back. Eventually, she brings him lunch while he pouts about how slow she is.
Many of you may see this as extreme. However, it is not for many families BECAUSE children are being trained and conditioned to believe that Mom and Dad will do almost everything to keep children happy and to avoid complaints or upsets.
The inevitable part of this over-functioning for children is that teens grow to expect this, while I parents …
Mistake 2. We Believe Children/Teens Will Grow Into Responsibility.
Since years and years of training are involved, children develop an expectation that is very hard to change later in life. We put the academic responsibilities on them, but fail to give them a sense of how to responsible for their daily life. They often grow up expecting that they should get what they want without any effort attached to their wishes. This is not responsibility. In fact, it is the opposite. Not only is negligible effort required, but they learn that complaining, whining and tantruming is indulged when they don’t get what they want. Even worse, they will harass Mom or Dad until they get it. Yikes!
Somewhere in here, many parents are hoping and praying that age and maturing will fix the problem. This is not a strategy. This is a wish… and not one I would rely upon.
Start Building In Responsibility Now
The way that we teach responsibility is to require that children demonstrate responsibility. This is just common sense, right? We don’t just create a list of stuff to do; we hold them accountable to getting it done. And, we choose chores or responsibilities that are commensurate to their age. Here are some examples:
• We don’t have them ironing clothes impeccably at 12. We do have them learning to wash and dry most of their clothes, and put them away.
• We don’t have them balancing the checkbook when they are 8. We do have them balancing their checkbook at 16.
• We don’t have them prepare a five-course meal, but we do have our teenagers making their own lunch for camp.
• We don’t buy a new IPhone when they dropped theirs in the pool. We do offer them extra work to earn the money for a new phone.
• We don’t mow the lawn while they are sitting by the pool playing video games. We give them a rake or trimmer to help.
• We don’t run to grab everything they forget. We let them figure out what happens when I fail to care for my ‘stuff.’
If we do not hold our children accountable to be responsible, how would we expect them to learn about being responsible? It is virtually impossible! Turn this around now, and there is hope! Wondering how you make this happen. Look for next week’s article on making this come to life ... easefully. Dr. Randy Cale, a Clifton Park-based parenting expert, author, speaker and licensed psychologist, offers practical guidance for a host of parenting concerns. His website, www.TerrificParenting. com, offers free parenting guidance and an email newsletter. Readers can learn more by reviewing past articles found on the websites of The Saratogian, The Record and The Community News. Submit questions to DrRandyCale@ gmail.com.