Teaching Responsibility

Now that we talked about age appropriateness, I feel responsibility is the next step. Even at a young age we can teach our child about responsibility. My husband aka "PaganDad" says we live in a zoo. Yes we do have quite a few pets in our home. We have 3 cats, 1 dog(an american pit bull terrier), a parakeet and a corn snake.

My daughters responsibilities are that every day she feeds and waters her parakeet, and once a week she feeds the corn snake. We also alternate who does the dishes. When we have company coming over she will clean the guest bathroom(her bathroom). I've never asked her to do this. One day I told her what chores we were doing as we had company coming over, I'm the type that the house needs to be spotless when someone comes over. We did everything we normally would do and I was going to start on the bathroom, when Little Bit(daughter) says that she wants to clean it. And she knows where the spray is and the towels and she was going to do it. (A reminder my daughter is 6). She did a good job, I checked it after she was done. She missed a few little spots and I fixed it but I was very proud of her.

We instill in her pride of doing a good job no matter what she does. She even initiates checking on the cats food during the day, to make sure they won't go hungry. She would love to walk the dog but she knows Odie(the dog) would knock her down.

When a child asks for a pet they are wanting a form of responsibility. Now whether or not they stick to that responsibility is up to us the parent. Yes I have to remind Little Bit to feed Bob(parakeet) on certain days. All ages of kids want their parents to be proud of them. And by giving them a bit of responsibility is a way for their child to shine. Remember we would rather have that positiveness than those negative outbursts. So let them shine and show they can do even the smallest exercises like help put away the dishes or load the dishwasher even if it's not done the way you like it. They are showing you they are growing up in to responsible children who will grow into responsible adults.