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U.S.D.O.E.    June 1993    Page 1




Helping Your Child
Learn Responsible Behavior

with activities for children








By Edwin J. and Alice B. Delattre

Edited byTheodor Rebarber


















U. S. Department of Education
Office of Educational Research and Improvement
June 1993




Helping Your Child
Learn Responsible Behavior


Introduction

    Our children deserve to learn important lessons from us and to acquire important
habits with our help.  They need help in learning what matters to us.  We want our
children to grow up to be responsible adults.  We want them to learn to feel, think, and
act with respect for themselves and for other people.  We want them to pursue their
own well-being, while also being considerate of the needs and feelings of others.

    Today, there is wide recognition that many of our children are not learning to act
responsibly while they are young.  Studies show that many children see nothing wrong
with cheating on tests.  Some see nothing wrong with taking things that don't belong to
them.

    If proper attitudes and behavior are not learned early, problems can mushroom
with even worse consequences when children are older.  As crime has increased, teen-
age offenders have shown less and less feeling for their victims.  But even for the
youngsters who will never commit a crime, it is better to learn responsibility when they
are young, rather than when they are older and they have to change bad habits.

This booklet focuses on practical suggestions for helping young children
appreciate the importance of acting responsibly in their everyday lives.  Further, it
provides ideas on how to help them make responsible choices, and stick with them,
even when doing so is hard and the material rewards are few.

Many parents will also want to share with thier children deeply held religious and
moral convictions as a foundation for ethical behavior.  This booklet discusses habits of
fairness, respect, courage, honesty, and compassion that responsible people share, and it
can be used by parents with different beliefs.

As parents, we can give our children the best in us by helping them acquire habits
and character traits that they can rely on in their own lives.  If we help them learn to
take pleasure in thinking and behaving well, they will have the best chance to lead good
lives as individuals and as citizens in the community.  This will be true no matter what
unpleasant situations or bad influences they come across.

What Do We Mean by Responsibility?

None of us is born acting responsibly.  A responsible character is formed over
time.  It is made up of our outlook and daily habits associated with feelings, thoughts,
and actions.  Responsible people act the way they should whether or not anyone is
watching.  They do so because they understand that it's right and because they have the
courage and self-control to act decently, even when tempted to do otherwise.

We want our children to appreciate the importance of being responsible.  We also
want them to develop the habits and strength to act this way in their everyday lives.
Learning to be responsible includes learning to

Ñ    respect and show compassion for others;

Ñ    practice honesty as a matter of course;

Ñ    show courage in standing up for our principles;

Ñ    develop self control in acting on our principles;

Ñ    maintain self-respect.

Respect and Compassion for Others

As part of being responsible, children need to respect and show concern for the
well-being of other people.  Respect ranges from suing basic manners to having
compassion for the suffering of others.  Compassion is developed by trying to see things
from the point of view of others, and learning that their feelings resemble our own.

Daddy, why was Grandma crying?

She is very sad.  One of her closest friends just died.  Come and sit with me.  Do you
remember how you felt when your gerbil, Whiskers, died?

I felt sad and lonely.

I'm sure Grandma feels that way, tool  Maybe you can think of a way to help her.

I could give her a hug...

That's a great idea!  I'm really glad you thought of it.

Respect for others also includes the habit of treating people fairly as individuals,
regardless of race, sex, or ethnic group.  As we mature, respect includes realizing that
not all our obligations to others, such as caring for a family member who is sick, are
chosen freely.  And it includes tolerance for people who do not share our beliefs or likes
or dislikes, as long as they do not harm others.

These habits are especially important because many of the wrongs people commit
result from indifference to the suffering they cause.

Honesty

Honesty means telling the truth.  It means not misleading others for our own
benefit.  It also means trying to make decisions, especially important ones, on the basis
of evidence rather than prejudice.  Honesty includes dealing with other people and
being honest with ourselves.

To understand the importance of being truthful to others, our children need to
learn that living together depends on trust.  Without honesty, trusting each other
becomes impossible.

Honesty with ourselves involves facing up to our own mistakes and biases, even
when we have to admit them to others.  It includes self-criticism.  The point is to learn
from our errors and to do our best to correct them, not to dwell on them.

Courage

Courage is taking a position and doing what is right, even at the risk of some loss.
It means being neither reckless nor cowardly, but facing up to our duties.  It includes
physical courage, intellectual courage to make decision on the basis of evidence, and
moral courage to stand up for our principles.

Courage does not mean never being afraid.  It can involve trying to overcome our
fears, such as a fear of the dark.  But our children also need to learn that sometimes it is
all right to be afraid.

Daddy, a man showed us money by the school playground today.

What did you do?

We ran for the teacher.

Why did you do that?

We were scared.  You and Mommy and our teacher Mrs. Jones said never to take anything
from grown-ups we don't know.  Run away.  Go and tell somebody we know.

Good for you.  It was right to be scared.  Lots of people are nice, but some are very mean.
They can hurt you.  The mean ones sometimes try to fool people by pretending to be nice.
Now, tell me, what did the man look like?

Courage becomes especially important by the time children become teenagers.
They often have to stand up against peer pressure to do the wrong thing, such as using
drugs.

Self-Control

Self-control is the ability to resist inappropriate behavior in order to act
responsibly.  It relates to all of the different aspects of responsibility mentioned so far,
including respect and compassion for others, honesty, and courage.  It involves
persistence and sticking to long-term commitments.  It also includes dealing effectively
with emotions, such as anger, and developing patience.

Self-Respect

People with self-respect take satisfaction in appropriate behavior and hard-won
accomplishments.  They don't need to put others down or have a lot of money in order
to respect themselves.  People who respect themselves also view selfishness, loss of self-
control, recklessness, cowardice, and dishonesty as wrong and unworthy of them.  As
they mature, if they have learned the lessons of responsibility, they will develop a good
conscience to guide them.

In addition, people who respect themselves respect their own health and safety.
Similarly, they are unwilling to be manipulated by others.  Patience or tolerance does
not mean allowing others to mistreat us.

While we help children have high standards for themselves, we also need to let
them know that failure is no embarrassment when we have done our best.  For example,
losing a game when we have played our best, and our opponents have simply played
better, is no disgrace.

How Can Parents Encourage Responsible Behavior?

Everyday Experiences

Especially when they are young, children learn best about responsibility in
concrete situations.  What they do and what they witness have lasting effects.  Most of
the activities described in this book are for you and your child.

We are always teaching our children something by our words and our actions.
They learn from seeing.  They learn from hearing. They learn from overhearing.  They
learn from us, from each other, from other adults, and by themselves.

All of us acquire habits by doing things over and over again, whether in learning
to play a musical instrument, to pick up after ourselves, to play games and sports, or to
share with others.  The best way to encourage our children to become responsible is to
act as responsibly as we can in their presence.  We must genuinely try to be the sort of
people we hope they will try to become.

We can show them by our words and by our actions that we respect others.  We
can show them our compassion and concern when others are suffering.  They need to
see our own self-control, courage, and honesty.  They need to learn that we treat
ourselves, as well as others, with respect, and that we always try to do our best.  As they
grow older, they should have the chance to learn why we live as we do.

Daddy, why are you leaving that note on the garbage can?

There is broken glass inside, Matthew, and I don't want the garbage collectors to get hurt
because of me.  I am warning them about the glass.

Are they your friends?

No.  I don't know them.

But you don't want them to get hurt...

As our children watch us daily, as we talk to them, encouraging their questions
and trying to answer them thoughtfully, they begin to understand us -- and we begin to
understand them.  Understanding each other well is the best way to teach our children
respect for our ideals of good character.

Using Literature and Stories

Children learn about responsibility through many activities, including reading
stories.  They learn by identifying with individual characters or because the message
from a favorite story strikes a particular chord.  Children can be touched deeply by
good literature, and they may ask to have things read to them again and again.

Children can learn all sorts of lessons from stories.  They might learn about
courage by reading about David standing up to Goliath.  Or they might learn the value
of persistence and effort from The Little Engine That Could.

When they are older, reading can help prepare children for the realities and
responsibilities of adulthood.  It is usually better for children to read a good book about
such things as war, oppression, suicide, or deadly disease before seeing these things up
close.

When our children grow up they often remember stories that were told to them by
family members when they were young.  When we tell stories to our children, we
should remember old favorites of ours, like The Three Little Pigs, not leaving out a single
time the wolf says, "I'LL HUFF, and I'LL PUFF, and I'LL BLOW YOUR HOUSE IN!"

Developing Judgment and Thoughtfulness

Judgment on ethical issues is a practical matter.  Children develop their capacity
for judging what is a responsible act, just as they come to appreciate the meaning of
responsibility, through practice.  Especially when they are young, children need to see
moral questions in terms that are meaningful to them.

We can also help our children develop good judgment by talking through
complicated situations with them.  One way is to help them understand the long-term
consequences of different choices.  If they tell us about a story they have read, we might
ask them to imagine what the result might have been if a favorite character had acted
differently.

Sometimes, it can be difficult to know the difference between acting bravely and
acting recklessly or how to balance duties when they conflict.  As parents, we can help
by making it clear, through what we do as well as what we say, that it is important in
such situations to think carefully and honestly about what should be done, as well as to
keep in mind how others will be affected by what we do.

Your child's ability to reason about different issues, including ethical ones, will
improve as your child matures.  Just as reasoning can lead to a more thoughtful
understanding of responsibility, or what actions to take in complicated situations, it
may also become easier to rationalize selfish or reckless behavior.  But if you have
helped your young child develop strong habits of considering the welfare of others,
honesty, courage, and admiration for worthy accomplishments, your child will have a
solid foundation on which to build.


Specific activities to help kids learn what responsibility means will be posted in the
future.