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?

God always finds them

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Bedtime is always full of shenanigans around here – and most of the time, I rush through the bedtime routine with my youngest two kids because I’m ready for my own bed. But I have a different story from a recent night. 

I was tucking in my 6-year-old Rachel. And by “tucking in,” I mean getting the blankets right, praying, singing, and answering 85 million questions. She asked if I’d read her story. That’s usually her daddy’s job, but he wasn’t home that evening, so I said okay. She had “The Jesus Storybook Bible” by Sally Lloyd-Jones sitting right here, so I told her to pick out one of those stories. 

“I want to read the pig sty one,” she said as she was already flipping the pages to find it. 

When I saw what she meant, peace washed over me. “Oh, I love this one.” I read “Running Away,” which is retold from Luke 15, better known as The Prodigal Son.

A boy starts thinking he will be happier if his dad wasn’t telling him what to do. He wanted to look after himself. His father was sad, but he didn’t want to force him to stay. So the son went and did whatever he wanted to do until he runs out of money and gets a job feeding pigs. Being in this low spot, showed the boy maybe his dad’s home wasn’t so bad after all.

Then Lloyd-Jones writes: “The dad leaps off the porch, races down the hill, through the gap in the hedge, up the road. Before his son can even begin his I’m-Sorry-Speech, his dad runs to him, throws his arms around him, and can’t stop kidding him.” The father proceeds to have a party to celebrate his son’s homecoming. 

“Jesus told people this story to show them what God is like. And to show people what they are like. So they could know, however far they ran, however well they hid, however lost they were – it wouldn’t matter,” Lloyd-Jones writes. “Because God’s children could never run too far, or be too lost, for God to find them.”

I was teary when I finished. While this Bible story was retold for children, the words brought to mind when I decided to follow Christ on Jan. 20, 1996, after hearing someone speak about The Prodigal Son during a Chrysalis weekend. I nailed some sins to a wooden cross in the sanctuary, representing surrender. I remember thinking of the beauty of the father welcoming his lost son home, understanding how the younger son thought he could hold together his own life, and relating to the older son who stayed and did what he was supposed to and found himself not quite willing to celebrate his brother’s homecoming. 

I told Rachel an abbreviated version of that story of being a 16-year-old girl hearing that story and making a decision that truly changed my life. Here more than 26 years later, I’m thankful God welcomes me home over and over again. I’ve surrendered and squandered and sulked, and God keeps opening his arms, which led me to salvation initially and continually prompts surrender.

*****

If you don’t know about “The Jesus Storybook Bible,” I definitely recommend it for the kids in your life. Let’s be honest, I love reading too and I’m thankful it’s back in the rotation around here. 

5 skills to raise kids well

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Parenting is a broad job that doesn’t really fit on a resume. Life lessons pop up at various moments throughout the day. Adventures can lead to conversations about all sorts of topics. And skills are learned all along the way. 

Often I wish I had a manual for my kids. We all know that’s not how life goes, though. Some days I do better as a mom than others. Regardless, I consider motherhood my greatest and hardest job.

Here are five skills that help parents raise children well:

Cooking

Being able to cook for yourself is one thing. But having the ability to prepare meals for the whole family is quite another. Crafting recipes that offer everyone sufficient nutrition that also taste good requires a lot of skill and is much more challenging than you might imagine. I know it’s a winner if nobody complains! 

The good news is that cooking skills are something that you can develop quickly. Once you’ve followed a dozen recipes, you soon get the gist of it, and your creations improve tremendously. I say this from personal experience! When Greg and I were first married, I hardly knew how to cook. Now, two decades and three children later, I’ve gotten to the point I can make up some of my own meal creations and get excited when I find a recipe I think my family will enjoy. 

Stress Management

Stress is part of life, but it can be managed. The idea here is to reduce the pressures and burdens of life on everyone, helping them to relax, and accept whatever happens as just another challenge. 

For kids, keeping the stress of school work and social relationships under control is important. If stress levels rise too high, it can impact bodily health and physical strength over time, leading to all sorts of issues in the future. Some of the ways we manage stress around here include talking through events, listing things for which we’re thankful, reading scripture, praying, remembering life isn’t all about one person, and preparing for the next time a similar situation arises. 

First Aid

Being a medical professional may be a good career background to bring into parenthood! My kids are always getting injured or sick. I’ve learned a lot in this area as a mom! Of course, investing more in learning first aid could, according to MyCPR NOW, could save someone’s life.

First aid, for instance, teaches you what to do if someone gets knocked out or has a cardiac arrest. It also teaches you what to do in the event one of your children gets injured or has an open wound. Little tidbits of information like this make it easy to save a life and avoid catastrophe. 

Love

Love is an emotion and a skill. Sometimes it’s hard to find outlets for love. Parents bring their own emotional baggage with them and don’t always take the time to work through underlying issues, possibly from childhood. As parents, we are always able to learn and grow. We can become better versions of ourselves as we go along.

All sorts of resources are available for parents on how to love children better. Considering children’s love languages is always important in this area. 

Conflict Resolution

Conflicts inevitably arise in families. You’ve got multiple people with different personalities and preferences living under the same roof and sharing daily life. 

Learning a set of conflict resolution skills that work is vital in family life. This helps parents avoid the yelling and hurt feelings that so often accompany family relations. Conflict resolution skills prevent a parent from losing their temper or trying to get their own way. Many of them start with working on yourself and looking for ways to feel understood and not offended. 

What’s another skill that’s important to your family life?