Kids & Responsibility
Looking for some insight here. At what age do you start ensuring your kid is held accountable? At what age do you let them start to experience the circumstances of NOT being accountable for their own activities? I'm talking extra curricular activities..When is it reasonable for the parent to start ensuring the kid remembers his own stuff? Especially when going back & forth between 2 houses 50/50.
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I will weigh in on this. My
I will weigh in on this.
My ex thought the appropriate age was 10.
I personally think the appropriate age is 12/13 = to 8th grade
Most should have their own
Most should have their own schedule by 12... I wouldn't expect too much before that but kids need to be trained to do this. Do they have a calendar where they fill out the days that they have things going on?
>When is it reasonable for
>When is it reasonable for the parent to start ensuring the kid remembers his own stuff? Especially when going back & forth between 2 houses 50/50.<
Depends who you ask. If you were to ask me, I would say the child should be made responsible starting at age 9
If you were to ask my wife, it would be at age 30.
Thanks! FSS is 12, will be
Thanks! FSS is 12, will be 13 in a few months. He is the flightiest kid ever. But FDH and BM always make sure he has everything he needs and never let him show up without something he's forgotten; or they do all the leg work to figure out what he actually needs/needs to do for a BS project if he doesn't pay attention to find out for himself. I think he's getting too old for this but FDH doesn't seem to agree with me. His Kid...but like today..I have to go and pick him up after I get out of work so FDH can run to the BS store to make sure he has some special book that FSS didn't want to mention until a few days ago for some project he needs for Thursday. The other day we had to make a special trip to meet BM so FSS would have his BS pants for a meeting..FDH reminded him several times to go get his pants before being picked up by his mom - he didn't want to do that so he didn't have his pants..but FDH and BM feel it's still their responsibility to make sure he has his things when he doesn't take the care to make sure he has them for himself.
Your FDH and BM are enabling
Your FDH and BM are enabling him. My DW, unfortunately does the exact same thing with my SS. I can't tell you how many times DW has run out to the store, library, etc at the last minute to get something that SS needed for a project that SS has known about for over a month but SURPRISE SURPRISE, it's due tomorrow.
Just this last weekend, when were about to leave my in-laws place (meaning we were all in the car and rolling down the driveway). SS blurts out "Mom? Do you have my sweater?". I stopped the car, put it in park and just as I was about to tell SS to go back to the house to get it, DW jumps out and runs to the house to fetch it for him. I love my DW, but I don't think she will ever be able to teach her child to be responsible.
I think they need to learn as
I think they need to learn as young as possible. Start them out with small stuff. The skids starting at 5 years old were responsible for not forgetting their DS players. If they forgot it, then they were out of luck. Then as they got older that had to be responsible for more things. Now they are responsible for their clothes, games, homework, everything but medicine which is our responsiblity.
What do you mean
What do you mean accountable?
Whole life? From the beginning? The moment they understand the word "no"? From the moment they understand cause and effect?
For example, BD8 months will sometimes throw her spoon on the floor to see what will happen. Then she will invariably throw it down on the floor again if we give it to her because it's now a game. The number of times before we take away the spoon altogether gets less and less, until she no longer gets the spoon the first time she throws it on the floor on purpose (if she accidentally drops it, we give it back to her once or twice, if she continuously carelessly drops it--usually because she's bored with it and not paying that much attention to it anymore--we take it away.
Never too young in my book, but the level and what they are accountable for goes up in age. I've just started, since she started cruising, putting her toys away at night WITH her, instead of just doing it myself after she falls asleep.
I mean I think I'm creating a responsible human being by getting her started as young as possible, but ask me if I succeeded in 18 years...
>What do you mean
>What do you mean accountable?<
I took it as meaning that the child has to learn to deal with the consequences of forgetting an item that they want/need. If the parent is constantly swooping in to "save the day", child doesn't have any consequences, and therefore is never held accountable.
BM here is in her 30s and
BM here is in her 30s and can't remember skids 4 and 6 extracurricular s so I have low expectations
This is awesome stuff in the
This is awesome stuff in the Blender. And I want to aspire to what you have done. Can you tell me what responsibilities you have foisted on your DS and OSS?
The reason I ask is because I want my SS to have more chores/responsibilities but had backed off on it so that SS can concentrate on his studies. I did a log of what SS has done this past week and he has (on average) about 3 hours of free time every day).