In life, responsibility produces freedom. If you are not responsible for your requirements, you can lose your freedoms. This is true at every age of life. It’s also a crucial character trait to teach our students and children. Thrive empowers students to try and live responsibly. Not just in who they are meant to be, but also in what they desire to accomplish. Often, this is hard for our students. Young brains are still developing the patterns that empower them to live with future goals in mind rather than in the moment-to-moment. Here are four helpful postures to keep in mind as you communicate with your students and children. Using these postures can create stability, clarity, and motivation for your child to begin to learn the character trait of responsibility in their life.
Love: Your child must know that you are on their side. To the best of your ability, convey this in everything you communicate to them. Love can help your child hear what you are saying and create space for willingness to try the boundaries you are setting in place. When your child senses unconditional love, there can be a greater willingness to listen.
Expectations: There are rules and requirements. Your child needs to know your expectations and their boundaries so they can choose to cross them or not. This empowers you as a parent to not react in the moment and respond to the clearly communicated issues. This also speaks to your child that actions they take in life matters and is significant to the world around them.
Freedom: You can choose to accept or reject boundaries. Freedom to choose poorly is necessary for learning to choose well. You can never MAKE your child choose the right thing. But keep the end in mind. We want our children to in wisdom and responsibility so they can learn to make the right choices. Freedom grows when we can accept healthy boundaries and learn to choose well.
Reality: Describing the consequences. This step is necessary to make the first three postures effective. It’s essential to walk through consequences with your kids beforehand. Being proactive empowers you as a parent to respond, rather than react. Your child may be upset when their consequences happen, but they won’t be surprised. It’s vital to reinforce the consequences. If you don’t consistently enforce the realities of their choice, it can train your child to ignore your boundaries. The message they can receive is that their wrong choices truly don’t matter in the end.
For further engagement go check-out the Netflix documentary called The Social Dilemma. It explores the de-formative influence of social media on adolescents (and adults).