How to Teach Responsibility By Doing Less

Dear Kid Whisperer,

I have a thirteen-year-old who is especially forgetful when it comes to remembering to take things to school: lunches, projects, homework, etc. I have been delivering these things to school for her throughout the years. I try to explain the life lesson that there won’t always be someone there to remember things for her, but she doesn’t ever listen or learn. How do I explain the importance of responsibility in a way that she will learn?

You don’t. You can’t. That’s not how this works.

Kids don’t listen to lectures about responsibility, but they do tend to notice when their irresponsibility makes their lives worse.

You also can’t “explain a life lesson.” Kids learn life lessons by being able to live their lives and by suffering the consequences of making mistakes and growing as a result of those mistakes.

Show me a parent who is tired of telling their kid about the real world, and I will show you a parent who is protecting their kid from learning from the real world.

While the real world contains consequences that make kids better, stronger, and more resilient, the carefully curated world that many parents create for their kids in 2024 allows kids to remain soft, weak, and irresponsible.

When you consistently deliver forgotten items to your kid’s school you are hurting your kid, and hurting your kid is bad.

You are making them less responsible, weaker, and more fragile.

So, when your kid asks you to bring them their forgotten homework, you have two choices. You can either give them their homework, or give them a lesson, but you can’t give them both.

If you deliver the homework, and tell them that, in life, you have to be responsible, you’re teaching them the opposite of what you are saying with your actions. Kids tend to notice actions and tend to ignore words.

Here’s how I would explain the new way of dealing with irresponsible behavior regarding the forgetting of stuff at home.

Kid Whisperer: Hey, Kid. I need to apologize to you. I feel like I have been lecturing you for a decade about being responsible. I am so sorry. That must have been annoying. From now on, I promise I won’t try to teach you about being responsible with my lectures and warnings. I’m just going to let the world teach you those lessons by never bringing anything to you that you have forgotten. This may be hard for you, but I know that you are strong and can get through it. I’ll love you no matter what!

Kid: Whatever. This is weird.

The very next day, Kid Whisperer gets a phone call:

Kid: I forgot my homework. Bring it to me post haste.

Kid Whisperer: Oh, boy. What did I say yesterday?

Kid: I THOUGHT THAT WAS A JOKE! BRING ME MY HOMEWORK! IT’S RIGHT ON MY DRESSER! IT’S WORTH 10% OF MY GRADE!!!

Kid Whisperer: And what did I say?

Kid: Wait. What?!

Kid Whisperer: I love you. I’ll see you after school. I know you can handle this.

Feel free to gently support remembering as a skill before your kid forgets. If you see the homework on the dresser as your kid is walking out the door, you can casually ask, “What’d you forget?” or say, “Oops. Think!” Do not do more than that. You have to avoid making it look like Kid’s stuff is your responsibility.

Also, once Kid has been allowed to suffer the consequences of irresponsibility over and over again, and has shown through her actions that she has successfully learned to be more responsible, then you can occasionally, perhaps for something really important (maybe homework worth 50% of a grade) bring that item to school. Even in that case, some parents will find out the going Uber Eats delivery rate and charge their kid for the delivery service.

Just remember to ask yourself, in each situation, what does my kid need the most? An important lesson about life, or to have the requested item?

Just make sure you have an excellent reason to choose the latter.