In this episode, I teach a lesson on taking responsibility and I encourage you to have your family and children listen together. One of the most important things we can learn in this life is to take responsibility for our own thoughts, words and actions.
One of the most important things we can learn in this life is to take responsibility for our own thoughts, words and actions. An American president’s wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, spoke about this when she said, “No one can offend me without my permission.” We can choose what we think and how we act.
When we’re responsible, we no longer blame others, the weather or our memory.
Ask:
1. What would you do if you broke something in our home?
2. What if you had a family job to do, and your friend asked you to go swimming?
3. What if your teacher gave you a math assignment that you didn’t understand, and it was to be finished the next day. What would you do?
4. What if you were tending a neighbor’s child who was in the bathtub when the phone rang?
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This is Solutions for Families – where parents come with problems and leave with solutions. I’m Paula Fellingham – thank you for joining me!
Hello and welcome! Today’s episode is on teaching responsibility.
One of the most important things we can learn in this life is to take responsibility for our own thoughts, words and actions. An American president’s wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, spoke about this when she said, “No one can offend me without my permission.” We can choose what we think and how we act.
When we take responsibility for our thoughts, words and actions, we don’t let other people make us angry. We wouldn’t say, “You make me angry!” because no one makes us angry. We can choose to be in control of our emotions.
When we’re responsible, we no longer blame others, the weather or our memory.
For example, we wouldn't say things like, “It's not my fault, I forgot!” If something goes wrong, we can explain, but we make no excuses. If we make a mistake, we take responsibility for it. We admit when we’re wrong.
Linda Kavelin Papov, in her book The Family Virtues Guide, described responsibility well: “Being responsible means that others can depend on you. Being responsible means to do something well and to the best of your ability. Being responsible is being willing to be accountable for what you do or don’t do. You accept credit when you do things right (humbly, of course!) and accept correction when things go wrong. When you are responsible, you keep your agreements. If you agree to do something for your family or for a friend, you don’t put it off or forget about it. You make sure it gets done. Being responsible is the ability to respond ably.”
Additionally, children learn responsibility by doing as much as possible for themselves. As young children accomplish even the smallest things, older children and parents should praise them and their ability to do things for themselves. Parents, the fewer things we do for our children, the more time we’ll have to do things with them.
Story
Just over the six-foot fence in Jason’s backyard was a parking lot for an apartment building. Someone had tossed a paper bag of empty beer bottles from the parking lot over the fence into Jason’s backyard where he had found them. Jason took the bottles and tossed them, one by one, back over the fence. Since he couldn’t see through the fence, he couldn’t see them land, but he could hear the crash each time a bottle broke in the parking lot. It was kind of fun.
That evening a man from the apartments rang the doorbell, and Jason, who was downstairs, overheard the man telling his father about a punctured tire. Jason went quietly into his room, quickly put on his pajamas, got in bed, and pretended to be asleep.
His parents, after reassuring the neighbor they would pay for the tire if it turned out to be their son’s doing, sat down to decide how to handle the incident. They realized that they had three challenges: (1) to help Jason tell the truth about the matter (they knew him well enough to be pretty sure what the truth was); (2) to help him feel sorry for what he’d done; and (3) to help him feel enough responsibility for his actions that he wouldn’t do something similarly irresponsible in the future. As they thought about it, they realized that it was fortunate the whole thing had come to their attention after Jason was in bed when they had time to think it through, rather than in his presence. Otherwise they might have confronted him without turning it into a learning experience.
When Jason came to breakfast the next morning, Dad said, “Son, I noticed that sack of beer bottles. Whoever tossed them into our yard shouldn’t have done it, should he?”
Jason looked up with a little hope in his eyes and answered, “No.”
Dad said, “You probably felt like tossing them back over and didn’t really stop to think that they might hurt someone or break something.” Jason looked down, but said nothing. “Did you throw them over, son?”
There was a pause, then a quiet, “Yes.”
“We’re proud of you for telling the truth, son. A man’s car ran over one of those bottles and got a flat tire. We’re lucky none of the bottles broke a windshield. But we do need to decide what to do about that flat tire. Do you feel sorry about throwing those bottles and puncturing the tire?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to take responsibility for what you did?”
“Yes.”
Jason cleaned up the rest of the glass. He saved money from working for three weeks to pay for the tire. He apologized to the car’s owner. He promised both his parents and the car owner that he would never throw anything over the fence again. Jason made restitution and took responsibility for his actions.
We’ll answer the following questions. They’ll help us realize that our daily decisions show how responsible we are.
1. What would you do if you broke something in our home?
2. What if you had a family job to do, and your friend asked you to go swimming?
3. What if your teacher gave you a math assignment that you didn’t understand, and it was to be finished the next day. What would you do?
4. What if you were tending a neighbor’s child who was in the bathtub when the phone rang?
Okay, my friends. Until the next episode, have a beautiful day and make sure you subscribe to my podcast, tell your friends about Solutions for Families, and come see me at paulafellingham.com. As always, I send you my love….