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How responsible is your child?
You are the one ‘responsible’ for the level of responsibility your children will display.
If God had named all the animals for Adam, he wouldn’t have stretched his mind enough to do so.
Do you allow your children to carry out responsibilities or you are doing it yourself because you think 🤔 – ‘they are children, they will mess things up, you really don’t have the time, they are slow, they will not do it well, the task is too much for them, they don’t have the power or capacity to carry on’…and the list is endless.
Here are 7 tips to help in raising a responsible child.
1. Raising responsible children starts in your mind – ‘Whether you believe you can, or you believe you can’t, you are right’ says Henry Ford. Work on your mind not to ‘overthink’ it. See them doing it and they will be successful at it.
2. Give them the opportunity to try. Don’t do everything for your children. ‘Omo alagbara loma ya ole’. Give them age- appropriate responsibilities and allow them to mess it up. Don’t stop them because they didn’t do it well because if you do, they will never learn how to do it better.
3. Grow with them. Don’t just leave them to figure out the task, teach them and step back. Let them carry out the task the way they understand it and correct them in love in the right way it should be done until they master it.
4. Sometimes, you have to overlook the mess.
Yes, you have to ‘train’ yourself not to see the water on the wet floor, not to see the oil on the washed bowls, not to be a perfectionist. You don’t have to always correct immediately, give them time to think about the solutions and do it without you prompting them.
5. Work with your child as an individual. Don’t be too harsh on them and don’t compare. I know the task seems simple, but may not be the same for every child at the same age. “Your brother could carry the travel box when he was 2, your sister could make pounded yam when she was 5” are not motivational sentences. Please watch it.
6. Teach them to ask God to help them. Let them know that they cannot do anything in their own power. To be the best in what they need to do, they need God as their Cheerleader. Phil. 4:13.
7. You also need to ask God for help. Phil. 1:6
Let me rewrite Galatians 4:1-2 in IPC Version.
As long as a child is not responsible (does not know how best to carry out tasks), the responsible slave (who had been trained in doing it) will be in charge of all that belongs to him/her until the child is old enough to be taught how to be responsible by the parents.
Galatians 4 NIV
1What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate.
2He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father.
When you see an irresponsible child, don’t blame the child, blame the parent.
Do you agree now?
Looking forward to reading your comments. Thank you.
