Kristin Hill Taylor

Seeking God as the Author of Every Story

How to teach responsibility

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This week I had all sorts of things on my to-do list: Schedule an oil change for my van. Set up daughter’s online banking access. Run these errands. Text certain people. Have kids mow the grass. Order a birthday cake. Get paint off the dining room table. Do laundry. 

Yes, that’s life. But it’s also being responsible. It’s a lesson I definitely want my kids to learn. I want them to take care of their hygiene, their mental health, their physical well-being, their spiritual lives, and even their belongings. While documenting real life, I want to teach them real-life responsibility. 

Encourage responsibility 

Teaching kids about taking care of things is an important life skill that should is taught throughout the years at home before they have homes of their own, where I’m not going to make morning routine lists and chore charts or offer incentives for being responsible. 

At our house, two of our kids have routine lists to go through each morning and evening. It’s certainly not a perfect process, but it helps me remind them of what they need to do every day. Included in their routines are cleaning up after themselves. I want them to care for the house we have and the things that belong to them. I want them to clean up their dirty clothes so I can wash them and then they can put them away. 

Encourage kids to take some ownership. Let them put away the silverware, even if it’s messier than you’d do it. (Yes, I’m totally talking to myself here!) Give them chores they can do regularly. 

Teach value of belongings & people

There are many ways to teach children about the consequences of being (or not being!) responsible. My husband and I have tried all sorts of strategies in this area – some more successful than others. Recently, my son broke his Gabb Watch. Honestly, not being able to communicate with him when he’s not with me is a little inconvenient for me, but I’m not replacing this broken item. Taking care of this smartwatch was his responsibility. 

It’s okay for our kids to do without luxuries when they have all they truly need. Their toys, extra clothes, band instruments, technology devices, and sweets are all treats. 

More important than things are the relationships within our household. I want my kids to value each other. The other morning one child was calling another child mean names, so the consequence was to clean two of the toilets. Our home is a safe place so sometimes people’s reactions are unfiltered, but I still want us all to strive to love one another well. 

Lead by example

My oldest child, who is a sophomore in high school, recently opened a checking account. I want to teach her how to balance an account, have healthy spending habits, and understand the value of earning money before she’s living on her own. Teaching responsibility like this is important while children are still under our roofs. In our house, we talk about money in a context that hopefully helps our children understand God has been gracious to us, my husband works hard, saving is important, and belongings and experiences have a monetary value. They know about grocery shopping, eating out, and sharing what we have with others. Experiences, like being part of a soccer team, also encourage character traits, including responsibility.

My husband is an entrepreneur and his ideas have rubbed on me after 20 years of marriage. And now my oldest daughter has started her own business, Backroads & Blooms Photography. She’s been selling some flower photographs she took. I’m helping her promote it online, but she does the printing of photos and ordering frames. She keeps track of income and expenses on a spreadsheet. So many lessons on real-life responsibility right there!

My husband and I want to live these ideas out in our own lives so our children witness responsible living. We do our own chores around the house, but we’re always grateful to include them – in both the lessons and the work!

Purging items is good

When it comes to being responsible for items, another important lesson is purging is good! We can’t hold on to every piece of paper that comes home from school, shoes that don’t fit anymore, or toys that they have outgrown. Sometimes we throw things away; other times we give them away to someone who can use them. When my children were younger, I would rotate toys in and out of their closets so they would often feel like they had something new to play with on a rainy day. We wouldn’t open every new birthday toy on the same day, but wait for another day to spread out the joy. 

Sometimes when children are having a hard time figuring out what to play with, try taking away some of the clutter in their room and see if that helps. It’s important that parents help their children develop their creativity by giving them space to play and explore. Plus this helps them appreciate what they already have. 

How do you teach responsibility in your home?

How to document real life

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For so many parents, raising happy kids is the priority. While that’s important, it’s certainly not everything. Yet, in all the brokenness of the world, I want to point my kids to Jesus and document our (mostly good) memories. I want to remember the good. 

Take lots of photos

I love snapping pictures of everyday life, trips, and special events. Of course, sometimes the kids get distracted or aren’t interested in capturing the same moments. I’m thankful for the “live photo” setting on my iPhone so I can go back and choose the best snapshot of the moment when kids were likely moving around and making faces. A photo burst is also helpful with this. 

A photo burst function takes up a lot of memory, which means that you need to be swift in dumping it on your computer so you have more space on your phone. But rather than it clogging up your computer, whether it’s a laptop or a MacBook, you can use software such as free MacBook cleaners to guarantee that you are able to streamline this effectively. Also, hello, iCloud. 

Photo books

Photo books are a logical extension of taking great photos. If we are constantly looking at pictures on our phones, we can almost lose the sense of what the photo is there for. It’s a good idea to get into the habit of printing out your photos on a regular basis. I like designing photo pages in the Project Life app and then printing these pages and other photos for my walls at Persnickety Prints. 

My kids love to look at these scrapbooks too and then I find myself telling them extra details from the stories. What a sweet way to add to their memories! 

Other ways to document life

While photos tend to be the biggest aspect of documenting family life, I also capture memories in other ways too:

  • Birthday books. These are books with pages for each birthday. I add a photo from their party and fill out the questionnaires about that celebration. It’s a simple but fun way to capture birthday milestones and what each child is like at that age. (I have one of these books for each kid.)
  • School books. Like the birthday book, this one has a few pages for each grade. It’s a great way to document kids’ school experiences, friendships, favorite subjects, and field trips. Plus there’s a pocket where report cards and other mementos can be saved.
  • Words note. Especially when kids are little, they say they funnies things. I started a note on my phone for these things. I just list funny, wise things they have said over the years and date each entry. I think I’ll eventually print this and put it in their baby books. 
  • Line-a-day journal. I started using this journal five years ago and love it. Each night, I write down a couple of sentences about our day. Each page has space for five years, so it’s fun to look back on the previous years. In my fifth year, I’m already looking forward to my new journal in January. While this started as something for me, it definitely captures family traditions, habits, and memories. 
  • Baby books. My kids have unique stories because we adopted each of them as newborns. Traditionally baby books didn’t always work, so I found baby books I could take and part and used certain pages in binders that I turned into baby books. These binders also include their adoption stories, which I’ve updated with details and meetings with bio families throughout the years. 
  • Books. While it’s not the usual way, I also have documented my kids’ adoption stories in a self-published book called “Peace in the Process: How Adoption Built My Faith & My Family.” I also documented some everyday life we share with others in a book called “Bringing Home More Than Groceries: Stories about Gathering & Nourishing People.” 
  • TimeHop. Social media understandably gets a bad rap sometimes, but I love capturing memories on there today so I can see them in my TimeHop memories years later. I love a good side-by-side photo comparison! 
  • Creative mementos. I hope to have things like an heirloom to pass along to my children as they grow up and begin documenting lives of their own. Things like T-shirt quilts, special photos, video compilations, and special dishes are creative ways to document life. 

Life is full in every way – but this is one area of which I’m not willing to let go. Sure, it takes some time, but these are some simple ways you can incorporate documenting memories in your real life as you’re living it with your family. 

Nine Ways to Go for God

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We’ve taken our older kids on short-term mission trips and hope to go on more. They’ve served locally. We support missionaries. We want our kids to be open to wherever God calls them and incorporating missions into our small-town life is one way we, as parents, have hoped to teach that. 

I’m incredibly thankful our church – Hardin Baptist Church – comes alongside us with the same message. The middle and high school youth spent the summer looking at different aspects of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20. Youth minister Chase Bright spent the last Sunday of the series looking at nine practical ways that students – yes, even middle and high schoolers – could participate in and pray about going for God. 

Chase shared these 9 Ways to Go with students’ parents, and I asked him for permission to share them with you because even as an adult I want to remember to live on mission – even right where I am. 

*****

In his final marching orders to his disciples, Jesus beckons all of his followers to “go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19). Today, we refer to these last words as The Great Commission. 

In my experience with students, they want to be faithful to this Great Commission. Many of them are passionate about the gospel being spread to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8), and they want to play a role in this high calling and participate in what God is doing across the globe. Many times, however, they don’t have a very good idea as to where to start. They need something practical. To that end, it’s my aim to provide nine brief yet practical ways for students to “go,” if not now then in the very near future. 

It’s my hope and prayer that students and families would prayerfully consider what God may have them do both now and in the future in order to proclaim the gospel and make disciples among all the nations of the earth. 

1. Share the Gospel HERE & NOW 

You don’t have to be in another culture to make disciples. All followers of Christ are called to make disciples wherever God has us now by sharing the gospel with the people around us. A great way to do this is to “Find your One” and commit to praying and sharing with that person. Who’s Your One? 

2. Short-Term Mission Trips

Each summer our high school students get the opportunity to go on short-term mission trips through our church. Take advantage of these great opportunities. Be on the lookout for any information about short-term mission trips our student ministry will be taking. 

(Note from Kristin: These students went to Chicago this summer and my 15-year-old Cate had a great experience outside her comfort zone serving and sharing. Here’s my post about that.)

3. The Radical Gap Year

After graduating high school, you can take a “gap year” before you begin college or your career for the sake of disciple-making and figuring out what God may be calling you to do in the future to make his glory known among the nations. The Radical Gap Year is an amazing way to do this. 

4. Theological Education

How about going to a Christian college or theological seminary that will intentionally equip you to go on mission and equip others in the local church to do the same? There are so many great options that will prepare you to do this. Here are just a few: 

5. GenSend – Summer Missions 

Even as a youth student, you can already begin to think and pray about how you might spend your college summers and breaks. Why not spend them on mission? GenSend, through the North American Mission Board, is a great option for you to be able to do this. 

6. Go2 – Give 2 Years

After you graduate college, what if you spent the first two years in a big, strategic North American city while beginning your career, serving with a church plant, and working to further advance the gospel? Check out Go2, also through North American Mission Board, and begin praying through what this may look like for you. 

7. IMB Journeyman Program

Similar to Go2, the IMB Journeyman Program is for recent college graduates or young adults who desire to spend two years on missions. IMB Journeymen are sent internationally (as opposed to domestically) to strategic nations around the globe. On top of that, IMB Journeymen are fully-funded! 

8. Full-Time Missionary

May God be calling you to be a full-time missionary? What about a church planter? You don’t have to wait to start praying and seeking where or how God might send you in the future. You can start NOW! 

There are so many ways you can be a missionary or church planter. Here are just a few ways that you can begin to research and pray about: 

9. Careers for Missions 

Teacher. Nurse. Farmer. Businessman. These are but a few of the career occupations you might find yourself doing in the future. But what if you pursued these careers somewhere else, like in a place with little to no gospel presence? Start thinking about what career you might want to do in the future, and begin praying for where God might have you do this career so that you can further advance the gospel to the nations. 

By no means is this list exhaustive. However, I pray that it’s a helpful starting place for many youth students looking for some practical ways they can participate in the Great Commission by going. 

To God alone be the glory!

*****

Chase Bright serves on staff at Hardin Baptist Church in Hardin, Kentucky, and as a theology teacher at New Covenant Christian Academy. He also is an MDiv student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Kaitlyn, have two children.