One of the dynamics I find at play in older children is not understanding the connection between freedom and responsibilities. As children grow up they naturally want more freedom. To not have to hold your hand when you go out and about, to play in the next door neighbor’s yard and not just yours, to stay up a little later, or watch different shows, etc. This is normal, and good.
As our children age we, as parents, need to remember to give them more responsibility. Working around the house and in the yard, helping with siblings, caring for their own things and helping with the family and household responsibilities gives them a sense of confidence and self respect.
The healthy progression for a child involves more responsibility in the family and home leading to them earning more freedom in their personal sphere of life. Showing mom and dad how responsible you are becoming is how mom and dad know they can trust you with more freedom. Growing up precedes growing out.
Too often freedom is seen as a right of getting older instead of an earned privilege for taking on more responsibility. When this happens, children feel the lack of balance and generally respond with bad attitudes, poor behavior, typical acts of rebellion. This is often, at least in part, a sign that they have more freedom than they have earned. The response in many homes comes with the parent resenting the attitude and punishing the child by taking away the freedoms. This is an adversarial approach and not only doesn’t address the real underlying issue but often pushes the problem in the wrong direction altogether–the child demands the freedom even more, focus is on the lost privilege, and a sense of entitlement takes over in the young person while a growing need to control is the trap for the parent.
The best way I’ve found to handle these situations is to remove the freedoms as part of a “do over” process. I sit my child down and explain to them that I see they are wanting more freedom and that makes sense because they are X years old and children at their age want to do certain things they didn’t get to do before. I validate this desire on their part. Then I explain (or remind) that freedom is earned. It is earned by taking on more responsibility. Taking freedom without earning it first is stealing.
When we steal something it does not actually belong to us and we don’t have the authority to handle it properly. We may not be ready for it. We won’t take care of it, and we can’t value it the way it deserves because when we have something we don’t value we are careless with it. When we know we’ve stolen something we feel guilty. Since people who feel bad act bad I encourage my children to respond appropriately to guilt and fix whatever situation they have wronged.
They give back the stolen freedom.
I also apologize for not having given them enough opportunity to earn that freedom. We talk about responsibilities they can take on around the house to show they are ready for the freedom they want. I make an effort to give them more chances to help around the house, to take on this or that job, to be even more involved in the family dynamic. As they throw themselves into this new responsibility I restore the freedom (or appropriate levels of that freedom depending on what I believe they are ready for). The natural response in children to ever increasing amounts of work around the house is increased capabilities and skills and growing confidence. Everyone benefits!
This is more than a way I react to situations, though. I try to remember this order to things as part of the dynamic of parenting overall. Too often people read different GBD tools and evaluate them from a punitive perspective and don’t believe they can work. For instance, if my children are behaving inappropriately in a public place we leave. The objection to that I hear most often is, “That will teach the child to just behave badly if they want to leave somewhere.” That is not an issue I deal with at all. The reason being that staying and being successful is always presented as the goal. It is the evidence of growing up and getting bigger. We do not leave with, “Because you are misbehaving we have to leave” or “I wish I could go here but I can’t because you are misbehaving.” We leave with, “You’re not ready to be here. Someday you will grow up more and be ready and then you can stay. Today we need to leave. We’ll try again next time.”
The goal put before them is not “more freedom” because that would encourage them to work for selfish gain. In our home we don’t “work” to earn money, privileges, absence of punishment, etc. That is instilling a life of works.
The goal put before them is always more responsibility–and with that comes more freedom. This encourages interdependence, maturity, self respect, and all sorts of things I strive to instill in my children. Because we are part of a family we focus on our responsibility to the family, our responsibility to one another, our responsibility to godly living. With that comes amazing reward, often times tangible, more often intangible.
This is the essence of internal motivation, maturity, responsibility, and developing the character that is vital for earning our trust as they get older. These things are important for us to see in our children as they grow up, they are even more important for them to become aware of in themselves as they move towards adulthood.