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As a parent you know that one of the greatest things you must do for your children is to teach them how to be strong responsible adults one day. These 7 ways to teach your kids responsibility are easy common things you can work on daily in your life with your children. From an early age your kids can learn and understand what it takes to be responsible for themselves and their actions.

7 Ways To Teach Your Kids Responsibility

Always have consequences for disobedience. While not an advocate for spanking or corporal punishment, there are a multitude of consequences that are appropriate for disobedient behavior. Time out for younger children works great. Taking away toys, electronics or TV privileges helps with older kids. Teenagers can be grounded without their phones, tablets or contact with friends outside of school. Always make sure you dole out appropriate consequences for disobedience.

Make basic chores requirement, and not for money or reward. Stop rewarding your children for things like folding their clothing, making their bed or cleaning their bathroom with an allowance. Instead, make these basic chores a requirement as they are things they will need to learn to function as an adult without you to care for them. Adapt the chores to their abilities and age as needed. For an allowance, reward them for going out of their way to do other things not on their required list, for helping out with things without being asked or simply for being a great kid in general.

If they break an item don’t replace it. Parents often will swoop in to buy a new toy when a child breaks theirs. If they break it, they need to learn the consequences and to become more responsible with their belongings. This means not replacing items, but making them go without or earn the money to buy a new one or fix it themselves.

Make them pay for their own extra expenses. For older teens who have outside jobs making them pay for their own expenses is a great way to teach your kids responsibility. From their car payment and insurance to their own cell phone or clothing expenses you can require them to pay for their own things.

Make them get summer jobs. As teens are able to get out and work, make them look for a summer job. It doesn’t have to be full time, but require them to have at least a part time summer job in the summer to help pay for their expenses.

Have them open a savings account and learn to budget. Once your child has money from birthdays, holidays, summer jobs or other rewards make them start a savings account. Set up an amount to put aside each month and help them learn to budget their money. Even a $50 savings account can earn interest and be an excellent start to understanding finances and budgets.

Have them babysit younger siblings. Teens are always great with babysitting their younger siblings. Pay them to babysit for you for a few hour at a time to teach them true responsibility of another person. Make sure they have rules for what they should be doing as if they had a regular child care job. Things like playing games or with toys instead of just watching movies the whole time.

Teaching your kids responsibility is all about requiring them to do the right things. From taking care of their own belongings to finding a job to pay for their extra expenses you can naturally teach your kids responsibility.