Q: Baruch Hashem, I am blessed with a houseful of sweet, intelligent and compassionate children. However I notice that, often, when I ask them to carry out a basic task or perform a specific job, they either avoid doing it or struggle with it. I’ve gleaned that it is simply too difficult for them to take responsibility and carry out a task to its end.
I am quite worried about this, and I wonder how they will cope with challenges, live independently, and fulfill important obligations in life if they cannot assume responsibility for basic tasks? How can I foster a sense of responsibility in my children?
Hagaon Harav Dovid Levy, shlit”a: Responsibility is one of the foremost attributes that distinguish adults from children. One can only engage, work, and negotiate with individuals who can be trusted to fulfill their commitments. This applies in daily life, the working world, and certainly in terms of building a home and family, and it is thus only natural that parents hope to see their children shouldering responsibility and sharing in the family burden.
The million dollar question is, as you so aptly put it, how does one go about teaching responsibility?
There are parents who suppose that telling a child (or telling him off), “Be more responsible” or “Why can’t you be more responsible?” will make him assume responsibility, but this is far from the case.
A person develops responsibility when he bears a burden that is his alone, without his parents or others assuming partial responsibility for the task.
For example, many mothers complain about the difficulty of getting kids to eat dinner. “My son/daughter refuses to eat anything. I beg them to put a morsel in their mouths, slave away to make delicious meals, and no one looks at it!”
The cause of the child’s behavior is easily explained by the fact that the child takes no responsibility for eating. He knows that he will not go to bed hungry, and that his mother will gladly feed him whenever he deigns to eat.
In contrast, if one follows that same child to camp or yeshivah, one will find that he’s in the dining room right on time.
The difference is clear: The child is well-aware that away from home, no one is looking out for him to ensure that he eats and doesn’t stay hungry. He learned very quickly that if he’s late to lunch or supper, he’ll have nothing left to eat, and he’ll stay hungry until the next meal. Therefore, in this setting, it’s unsurprising that he takes responsibility for his meals; whereas at home, when his mother is anxious to feed him, he has no motive to eat at mealtime.
Returning to the general issue, when we divest ourselves of accountability for particular issues that relate exclusively to our child (obviously in an age-appropriate manner), and place the responsibility for its fulfillment directly on his shoulders by affirming our trust in him to deal with the issue/task and fulfill it, then he will have no choice but to assume responsibility for it, and thus automatically acquire this vital attribute.
Parents can begin teaching children responsibility at a very young age through simple tasks, such as eating and getting dressed, and then proceed to more complex tasks as shopping for basic groceries and performing household chores as the child matures.
In summary: Parents can ingrain responsibility in a child by assigning specific, age-appropriate tasks, and entrusting them—and only them—to carry them out.
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