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Decision-Making
Helping Kids Be More Responsible for Their Actions
When children help set the family rules, they may be more likely to follow them.
Posted May 25, 2022 Reviewed by Ekua Hagan
Key points
- Children who feel they have the ability to discuss and accept the rules in their household may be more likely to follow them.
- When children feel their thoughts and opinions matter, it can help them develop confidence in themselves and their decision-making.
- Helping children develop a sense of confidence and empowerment can help prepare them to make safer and healthier decisions in their lives.
Let’s face it: Many children act out because they feel their parents are being too restrictive. They break the rules as a way of protesting their parents' control over them.
Unfortunately, they don’t always realize there may be reasons that adults have set the rules in the first place. Often it’s to protect them from situations they may not be developmentally ready to handle. Kids don’t always realize this and can get into a lot of trouble by disregarding their parents’ boundaries.
Crossing boundaries can have real consequences
The problems begin when children make decisions that have future consequences they may not have recognized. Whether it’s drug usage, alcohol consumption, and/or sexual activities, they may be making adult decisions without an adult’s perspective. Unfortunately, when this happens, things can go bad, and it can happen quickly and sometimes irrevocably.
From an early age, children are told they have to follow rules. They are told when they have to go to school, how they need to behave in school, when they have to go to bed, when they have to get up, the types of food they get to eat, etc. Often a child feels that the rules don’t always make sense and when they raise their concerns, those concerns are dismissed. Parents may be rigid in the matter and tell the child they have to accept the rules and adhere to them regardless of how the child feels about it.
As a result, they may become upset that they’ve been bound by rules that have been dictated to them and they’ve had no say over. Children may see the rules as being for their parents’ benefit and not their own.
As they grow into their teenage years, they may believe that breaking the rules is a way to break free of their parents’ control and assert their own identities. In this way, teenagers may see their acts of defiance as only impacting the rules their parents have established. They may not see the potential consequences of their actions in terms of the harm they may be doing to themselves. It is only after the teenager has become addicted to nicotine or starts failing classes in school that it becomes clear there were good reasons for the boundaries that had been set in place.
A possible solution
The question becomes, what can be done about this? How do we get through to adolescents and teens so they understand there are reasons for the boundaries that we set for them? How do we get them to take those rules seriously and how do they resist the temptations to break them?
What if, as young children, they had the rules discussed with them and they felt they had a say in the rules of the household? Most parents let children know what is expected of them. What if, when they were young, they felt empowered to discuss the rules and be able to talk about them? In this way, they would hopefully feel that they had a say in the rules of the house and as a result would have some desire to live within them.
By discussing the boundaries in the family and talking with our children about them, we would give them a feeling of empowerment that would hopefully help them see the rules as family rules and not just arbitrary boundaries from their parents. They would feel a part of the decision-making and not just being dictated to.
Modeling responsibility
What if we brought up our kids to feel they had more control over the decisions that governed their lives? This would be done through a checks and balances approach, where children had to show responsibility (staying out of trouble, getting good grades, etc.) in order to take part in the process. In this way, parents would still be able to set family boundaries; however, the child would hopefully be more invested in the final decisions. The “rules” would essentially be a joint effort with the hope being that the child would be willing to accept and adhere to them.
With that said, it is important to note that clearly there are rules that parents need to enforce regardless of the child's agreement. This post is in no way meant to override a parent's responsibility to keep their child safe and create rules that help them do so. The hope is that parents can openly discuss the rules and the reasons for them. The child can then express their concerns and be heard, which can help them feel included and respected in the discussion.
By instilling in children from an early age that they hold some say in the choices that affect their lives, the hope is that they will be more willing to accept the rules since they have been a part of creating them. The bottom line is that nobody likes to feel they are being controlled by others. When parents lay down the law with their children without any input from the child, there is often a desire to rebel.
As children become teenagers, it’s natural for them to want to establish their own identities. They are in the process of figuring out who they are and what they want in life. That’s why it’s important for children to feel they have a say in the rules of the household. If they can understand them and be part of the decision-making, it is no longer parents imposing their will on their child; it’s agreed-upon choices that the child hopefully has an easier time respecting. Of course, parents need to have the final say. However, maybe there is some flexibility so the child feels they are also being heard and respected.
Even with these efforts, it’s important to note that this is not foolproof. At times, children may let their feelings get the best of them and disregard their agreements. When this happens, it’s important not to overreact. Instead, it can be used as a learning experience to help the child understand the importance of following through on commitments. By children having a say in family rules, the hope is they will feel empowered and recognize that they matter. This can also lead to better decision-making as they see their choices are not just about “getting away” with something; it’s about what’s best for them and their lives.
