Teaching This Is Your Responsibility...

From guest writer Ken Lacy

It seems as if responsibility has become somewhat optional for kids these days. Even as they progress through the many chapters of life, I’ve noticed an increasing reluctance by adults to ask more of their young people. Responsibility should be a foundational principle of our culture. Perhaps older folks are biased in this way, but I feel deeply that this used to be the case.  

Responsibility is a calling. It’s something most of us feel inside, a magnetic-like pull toward certain duties or obligations to the world around us. The culture can either encourage listening to this call or turning away from it.

Education is a wonderful thing, and we should all always be learning. That process is about gaining knowledge and acquiring wisdom. But the value of both education and wisdom comes down to how we apply it. Responsibility is the application process. What good is knowledge without a sense of obligation to act on it? 

Everyone knows the line from Spider-Man, “With great power comes great responsibility,” uttered by Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben in the now classic 2002 film starring Tobey Maguire. There’s an almost better version of this scene in the 2012 reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man, where Uncle Ben is played by Martin Sheen. The boy who would become the heroic Spider-Man has a deep wound left by an absent father. He feels resentment toward the very word: responsibility.

Uncle Ben tells Peter something the modern culture is reluctant to say–that if you have the capacity to do good things, you then have a “moral obligation to do those things–not choice–responsibility.” 

Wow… that’s heavy. It’s almost like Uncle Ben read C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, where Lewis explains that every human being comes into the world with varying degrees of goodness. Some are naturally patient and empathetic, while others will struggle with anger and selfishness. These attributes are your “raw material,” and he proposes that God won’t be judging anyone on those things, but instead “on what he has done with it.”

Teaching a child responsibility is not about changing them as a person, but yet developing it as a pillar in their character to complement good morals and values. 

It starts at the earliest age, meaning as soon as the child is old enough to help pick up toys. Although you as a parent may initially help in the process, the youngster is learning to put things away and that leaving a mess for others to pick up is not okay. 

That’s an important distinction. It’s one thing to be comfortable in a messy space of your own. Some of the world’s brightest minds are total slobs. But it’s wrong to create messes with the expectation that someone else will come behind you to fix it. 

The child is also exercising organizational skills, and this should filter over into taking proper care of their belongings. Ideally, this becomes an instinct of the child over time to simply “do the right thing.”

Picking up toys dovetails into assigning chores when the child becomes older, and opens the door to the concept of a financial allowance. Some suggest that a parent should never “pay” their kids to do chores and help around the house. Although I would not debate that point, there is another side of this idea to consider. It can also be an opportunity to teach money management and the value of the dollar.

The objective of an allowance is not to give the kid money. It’s to give them an opportunity to learn how to use it and answer for their spending choices. This is the journey that responsibility puts you on.

One destination of that journey is that of appreciation. 

Responsibility is a pillar of good character, but it can also be like a vine that produces branches. In addition to the appreciation branch, responsibility teaches diligence and courtesy. 

When a child is taught responsibility, they are also given a sense that tasks must be taken to their conclusion. Finish the job. Meet deadlines. Finish a whole season on the basketball team. Attend the weekend campouts with your Scout Troop. If you got cast in the school play, you now have the highest responsibility to be there for the performance. All of your wants and competing requests for your time elsewhere are now forfeited. 

People are counting on you. 

Imagine being 15 years old and not having any notion that people in your community are counting on you or expecting anything of you, ever. It’s no wonder that kids today are so depressed and rudderless. Responsibility gives people tangible bonds to the world around them. 

As our youth build the pillar of responsibility in their character, they are much more likely to approach life with enthusiasm and purpose. They take less for granted and know that things don’t just happen magically to make the world go round. A functioning town, school, or neighborhood is the result of hundreds of people fulfilling their responsibilities. 

Give them this gift.