When I was growing up, every fall my father would keep us at the table after dinner for one evening, just before school started. During this family meeting, all four of us children and our parents went over the yearly litany of our ages, chores, after school activities, grades, bedtimes, and allowances. My father was a list maker, and he took notes and made lists for each of us. The discussion (and as we got older, the debates), went on until each of us knew our jobs for that year and had clear expectations and full understanding of our responsibilities.

Along with the chores came the discussion of after school activities, who was going to be in scouts, what Sunday school classes were we going to attend, and if we had any outside jobs like mowing lawns or babysitting. We also had birthday parties and after school programs that required us to plan ahead and be sure we took a little spending money with us. At Christmas we shopped for little presents for each other with our pennies at the local Woolworths store. I still have the tiger eye necklace my younger brother bought me for Christmas when I was in 6th grade and he was in 1st grade. Even that little gift was factored into the discussion about allowances.

These stories probably date me a bit. However, the point is this: When parents sit down and take the time to discuss what is involved in keeping a household operational, what is involved in meeting each person’s needs, and set up a system that is routine and dependable, kids listen and learn responsibility. Of course, it’s best if this process begins when kids are young and it’s a consistent part of their growing up. It teaches structure and good work habits, as well as shows them what it feels like to have a couple dollars in a pocket. Well, maybe only 50 or 75 cents back then, but nonetheless, the basic concepts are the same.

The fact that this kind of structured planning may not have been a process prior to going through a divorce is not a sufficient reason to never do it. As a matter of fact, it is a great time to begin new systems and put in place effective structures when other changes are happening. It helps stabilize the environment, gives kids something positive to focus on, and lets them know what to expect going forward into adulthood.

Here’s an example of how kids learn and carry lessons throughout life. When my own sons were still in elementary school, there was a time when no one agreed on what snacks or breakfast cereal we should have in the house. So, I carved out a piece of my grocery budget and gave each of my three sons an equal bit of cash and took them all to the grocery store with me each week for about six months. Their jobs were to take their allotted cash and buy what they thought they would like to eat for cereal and/or snacks for the week. The gig was that if they bought something that ran out before the week ended, they would have to eat whatever was available, negotiate for something else, or wait until the next week to choose something new.

To this day, my sons say they appreciate the reality of what it takes to decide on food purchases and how to make money stretch. Their grandfather, my father, also provided a role model by purchasing primarily fruits and vegetables that were in season, rather than just picking what looked good at the store. Most of the time, in-season items were much less expensive and darn good to boot. We may have had to eat the same items for a bit, but whoever said we needed to have absolute variety and eat from every kind of menu? We have become a nation of many choices, and with those choices, it’s still important to make wise decisions.

These lessons apply to lots of areas of life. The idea of gradually giving children more responsible pieces of the puzzle and including them in what is required to make a family work dates back much farther than our current soccer-mom culture of driving the kids to huge sports complexes, signing them up for as many activities as possible, then running them through drive-in food outlets. It dates back to the times before child welfare laws, which have helped protect children from unreasonable work burdens and abuse, but have also, I feel, created a culture of protected, entitled children who do not learn by working beside their parents to help provide for the family’s needs. Many children are sheltered today from real life work experiences until they almost reach adulthood. A gap between getting basic necessities and understanding where they truly come from and at what cost is the result. Thus, the concept of responsibility has been lost to some degree.

What helps most when trying to teach children responsibility is making sure they see and understand how you, their parents, provide consistency and meet day-to-day needs. They see you provide for the basic necessities and teach them how to gracefully deal with crisis and change. The underlying concept of responsibility is simply this: We as adults know how to show up and live the lives we chose, and we know how to make decisions that help us to live within our means and follow through on our commitments to the best of our ability. Now it’s time to pass these skills on to our children.

We must also role model healthy communication styles about what is going on during crises, teach them how to recover when mistakes or misunderstandings happen, and explain what expectations are part of our individual family and community vs. someone else’s belief system.

The responsibility we take for our choices, and specifically for our children, is the best way in the world to teach our kids. It is definitely not a matter of do what I say, not what I do, although there may be times when this occurs. Stay in the present, communicate clearly and consistently, and be a role model of responsible behavior. That is how you best teach the things you want your children to learn.