Tag Archives: teaching responsibility

Teaching Children to do their Share of Work

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by Pat Lamb (Author of: Let the Children Come; Children, Come to Me; When the Stars Fall Down; Widening the Church Doors to Teach the Narrow Way; My Thinking Book; Love is…) Books are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, patlambchristianauthor.com

Train up a child…

Teaching Children to do their Share of Work

         There is dignity in hard work.  There is an inner joy that can be obtained no other way than simply straining to do a job well and then knowing the satisfaction of having done just that.  The work ethic is missing in many places in our country.  We desperately need to teach our children not only the pleasure found in doing hard work, but the responsibility that each of us has to contribute to the betterment of the situations in which we find ourselves. How to accomplish this task is a real challenge, but it can be done.

         We must start when children are very young– even as early as toddler age– teaching the value of hard work. When a toddler picks up a toy and puts it away, that toddler needs to be praised.  As mommy and daddy help the young child pick up all toys and put them away, the parents can talk about how nice it is to have a clean room and how good it feels to see how pretty everything looks when toys are put away in the right places.  Even a young toddler notices how hard mommy and daddy work and at this age, they want to help.  Little children like to help hold the vacuum cleaner with parents and even try to sweep the floor.  Parents need to capitalize on this interest and let children help as much as possible.

         As children leave the toddler stage, chores need to be assigned and children need to be made to understand that they have a role to play in keeping the household running smoothly.  At all ages, children need to have responsibilities and be held to those responsibilities.  To yell at children and force them to do things beyond their ability will simply make them hate to work.  Keeping chores assigned commensurate with their ability and expressing satisfaction at jobs well done, will go a long way toward helping them experience pleasure in work.  

         Too much praise for normal expectations of a child is not good.  There are some things in life we need to do whether we receive praise or not.  Too much praise may cause a child to think that they don’t have to do something unless they receive a reward.  Also, in my opinion money should not be given to do regular chores.  Children have a responsibility to do their part without pay.  It is good to give an allowance simply to teach a child to plan and make purchases wisely for needs and wants, but not for doing things that they should do as their responsibility in the home.

         I know a personnel manager of a company who told me that he loved to recruit from College of the Ozarks because those kids had a work ethic that was better than students at other places where he recruited. In the past, this part of the country has been known for its work ethic.  If our children are to not only succeed, but perhaps even survive in the future, they are going to have to know how to work.  It is a good idea to talk to children before they go back to school this fall and tell them how important it is for them to work hard at their school work and learn all they can to prepare themselves for their future.

         Ideally, a child will learn to “pitch in” and help any time help is needed anywhere when s/he is able.  To let children go for years just having fun with no responsibilities, and then when they are grown expect them to suddenly change and be responsible, simply doesn’t make sense.  Children must be required to work and be responsible in order to learn responsibility.  It isn’t automatic!

Are We Raising an Entitlement Generation?

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by Pat Lamb (Author of: Let the Children Come; Children, Come to Me; When the Stars Fall Down; Widening the Church Doors to Teach the Narrow Way; My Thinking Book; Love is…) Books are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and www.patlambchristianauthor.com.

Train up a child…

Are We Raising an Entitlement Generation?

       It is not uncommon to hear folks complain that we are living in an “entitlement” culture.  Their complaint is that it seems that most people feel they are entitled to certain things whether or not they earn them.  If this is true, and I believe that it is, one has to wonder if we aren’t making the same mistake with the younger generation we are raising now.  To avoid making the same mistake twice, we need to try to understand the cause of this “you owe me” attitude and come up with ways to overcome those things that have given this result.

         We hear over and over on the news that our country is in bad shape financially right now.  In spite of all of this information, rather than being willing to sacrifice for the sake of the country, many are balking at the idea.  Many seem to think that the government should take care of them.  That is not the principle upon which our country was founded.  It is not surprising that many feel that good things should happen to them even if they are not earned.  For several years now, children from the first grade on up in our nation’s schools have been passed from one grade to another without being held responsible for achieving the work required for each grade.  Even upon graduation from high school, time and again I have heard a principal or superintendent say, “I now present the class of ____ who has fully met the requirements for graduation.”  Statistics showed, when I was teaching GED classes,  that approximately one-third of high school graduates could not pass the GED test.  In my GED classes, I have asked my students to tell me the last math course they took in high school.  Quite often they told me that they were in algebra.  I was amazed to hear this because they did not know their multiplication tables.  I taught GED classes more than twenty years, and I could count on both hands the number of students I enrolled who knew their multiplication tables. The fact that children have not been held accountable in the past is one of the biggest reasons they feel that they do not have to be accountable in adulthood. If children are not held accountable and given rewards when the work is not mastered, they will grow up thinking it is the same way in society.  They expect rewards without earning them.

         We need to start helping children early in life to understand that they must be accountable for their actions.  They also need to learn skills to become independent.  From the time a toddler first starts putting on his/her own clothes, we need to let the child do as much as it can by itself.  Sometimes it is easier to do things for the child, but the child does not learn to do things for self when this happens.  Little things that may seem unimportant help shape a child’s attitude.  If a child is told to finish eating vegetables before getting dessert, and the parent gives in and gives dessert anyway, this seemingly little act is teaching the child that good things will happen whether deserved or not. Children should be constantly helped to learn to take care of self and required to obey and perform according to instructions.

         Teenagers should have to earn money for car insurance and be able to care for a car before getting one.  I remember a student who told me that his dad said he would buy him a car if he got his GED.  A couple of classes later, the student came to class and told me his dad had bought him a car since he promised to go ahead and get his GED. Naturally, the student dropped out of class.  He already had his reward without earning it.  

Another way teenagers can learn to be responsible is to give them a clothing allowance and require them to be responsible for buying their own clothes within the boundaries set by parents as to style.  If they run out of money, they do without what they may want.  It is surprising how fast some of the name brands lose importance! 

         If we are to change the entitlement culture in this country, we must start with ourselves and our families.  We can all do better at being thrifty and self-sufficient! 

Children Need to Learn Personal Responsibility

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by Pat Lamb (Author of: Let the Children Come; Children, Come to me; When the Stars Fall Down; Widening the Church Doors to Teach the Narrow Way; My Thinking Book. Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, www.patlambchristianauthor.com)

Train up a child…

Children Need to Learn Personal Responsibility

         “The government should buy each of us an electronic dictionary.”

         “They’re all a bunch of crooks!”

         “The President should__________.”

         “The only jobs there are are those old crappy jobs.” 

“The government doesn’t give us enough money to live on, 

The above are all true comments heard in GED class when I was teaching.  They clearly indicate a lack of understanding of how our government is supposed to be a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people”.  “We, the people,” not “They, the people” are responsible for what happens in our country.

         Children need to be taught at an early age to accept personal responsibility as citizens for self and others.  Without this teaching, people become like leeches, living off the lives of others.  

         Children need to see their parents go vote.  Children need to hear their parents talk civilly about the candidates and their policies.  Children need to understand that our founding fathers set up a government with checks and balances making the congressmen and congresswomen as responsible as the president for decisions that are made.

         I have found that very few of the students I have taught knew the three branches of the government: executive, legislative, and judicial.  They did not know that the Senate and House of Representatives make up Congress.  They did not know that there are two Senators from each state and that Representatives are elected according to population based on the census every ten years. Further, they did not know the meaning of checks and balances, a system set up by the founders of our country to make sure that no one branch of government has too much power.  Had they known about the system of checks and balances, they would have known that the president cannot be solely blamed for mistakes nor can he solely take credit for successes.  In fact, the president can do very little alone.  Understanding this fact would make more people take greater consideration in the Senators and Representatives they vote for.  

         Children need to be taught that all money coming from Washington, D.C., must first go there, and that taxpayers are the ones who send it there.  They need to be told that they have a responsibility to send money to Washington, D.C. and not just think of what they can get fromWashington, D.C.    In fact, right now other countries are helping fund our government, making us indebted to them.  Also, by the time our tax money goes to Washington and then comes back, it has dwindled a great deal due to the many expenses associated with counting, disbursement, etc.  It would be of more personal value to keep it home in the first place.  

         Unfortunately, many parents act as though they do not understand these facts.  If parents and grandparents do not understand, how can they teach the children?  Perhaps greater thought needs to be given before discussing our government in front of children. WE are the government.  We govern through the people we elect.  We have no right to say they are the government.  We need to write letters, attend meetings held by our voted-in officials, and encourage our elected officials to govern as it was originally intended.

         Let’s make sure our children understand the truth about our country.  If we start teaching our children about our government while they are young, perhaps they will know more when they grow up than one student I had who wrote in a paper about “President Busch”.