Parenting with Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility

by Foster W. Cline

Parents who routinely focus on the end result rather than on the learning taking place wind up with kids who have a negative self-concept about their skills. Then parents wonder why their kids never want to help around the house.

Allowing children at a young age to practice decision making on simple issues teaches them to think and control their own lives.

Responsible behavior has a direct correlation to the number of decisions children are expected to make. The more they make, the more responsible they become.

But anytime we explode at children for something they do to themselves, we only make the problem worse. We give kids the message that the actual, logical consequence of messing up is making adults mad. The children get swept away in the power of their anger rather than learn a lesson from the consequences of their mistake.

Adults must set firm, loving limits using enforceable statements without showing anger, lecturing, or using threats. The statements are enforceable because they deal with how we will respond. When a child causes a problem, the adult shows empathy through sadness and sorrow and then lovingly hands the problem and its consequences back to the child.

Our best advice for parents who have reached the blowing-up point is to go completely brain-dead and return to their one-liners. Some of the best are, “I love you too much to argue with you,” “I know,” and “Nice try!”

“Uh-oh! I am going to have to do something about that, but not right now. I am busy with something else. I will get back to you on that. Try not to worry about it.”

Kids seem most secure around parents who are strong, who don’t allow the limits they place on their kids to crumble. Children lose respect for adults who cannot set limits and make them stick. Kids who misbehave without having to face the consequences become brats.

Children lucky enough to have limits placed on them in loving ways become secure enough to not only deal effectively with their own emotions but also form satisfying relationships with others. These limits allow children to develop self-confidence. As a result, these children are easier to teach, they spend less time misbehaving, and they grow up to be responsible adults. When we don’t provide firm limits, our kids suffer from low self-esteem. And when they have low self-esteem, they behave accordingly.

“Well, honey, that’s the way the world works for me. First I get my job done, then I get paid, and then I eat. If it’s good enough for me, who do you suppose I think it’s also good enough for?” The child will always answer, a little dejectedly but insightfully, “Me.” And we always respond with, “Good thinking.”

When we give our children the right to make decisions, there is no anger for them to rebel against. Nobody’s doing their thinking for them, and the limit is established.

CHILD: “Can I have (candy, prom dress, car)?” MOM: “Honey, if anyone deserves that (candy, prom dress, car), it’s you. Buy it!” CHILD: “I don’t have the money.” MOM: “Sorry about that. It’s like that a lot for me too. I guess then you won’t buy it.”

Sorrow and consequences and an arm around his shoulder are powerful teaching agents.