Helping Your Teen Learn Responsibility
Most parents don’t have unreasonable expectations of their teens with regard to their responsibilities. In fact, parents are often puzzled as to why it is so hard to get them to do some things: practice good hygiene, keep their room clean, do their school assignments on time, be on time, eat properly, participate in some chores around the house. Simple right? Yet so many households are often stressed and chaotic as their teen resists these simple tasks. How do you get their buy-in and help support them master these basic skills?
Well, by the time your teen is a teen, if they haven’t mastered some of these skills, it is even harder to get them to participate. Here are the steps parents need to follow:
Identify the problem. Is what appears to a be lack of responsibility just that or is that a symptom of something else that is going on? If they are holed up in their room all the time, they could be depressed or addicted- to vaping, to social media, to texting their friends non-stop. They could be struggling with peer drama and need to zone out. They could have ADHD. They could simply know that if they don’t do what they are supposed to, you will ultimately do it for them. All of those causes can manifest as a lack of responsibility, but the solution is in dealing with the underlying issues- getting them therapy or medication, limiting social media time until work is done, setting boundaries and being consistent.
If the problem is not depression or addiction to the above, if it is not being overwhelmed with peer drama, then your teen is simply having a hard time making their responsibilities a priority. They may have trouble organizing themselves or a problem with time management. They may have mastered the art of procrastination!
Discuss your concerns with your teen. Help them identify what the problem is. If they feel overwhelmed, work with them to identify what the most important responsibilities are and work on just one or two of them to start. Try a collaborative approach and ask what they would like help with in managing their time. Come to an agreement as to what constitutes support vs nagging. Have rewards or consequences (not every teen learns from consequences).
Try to to structure their experience of developing responsibility with small tasks, ideally around something they are passionate about. If they want a dog, for example, you could get them one, BUT you’d have to be capable of following through about re-homing the dog (no matter how attached you get!) if they can’t meet that responsibility.
Help them understand that privileges are earned not deserved and they come after a task is completed. The use of the car is a privilege (even if you give them a car) that is earned when other responsibilities are met. Work with your teen to decide what is reasonable and what is not. And what is a priority and what is not.
ABOVE ALL: Send the message to your teen that the need for them to be responsible is not to make your life easier, but to help them develop a discipline of mind and habit that will ultimately make life easier for them!!!