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Home › Articles › Family › The Role of Responsibility

The Role of Responsibility

How Much Is Too Much?

By Gail Pirics

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Demanding work schedules, odd-hour jobs and longer commutes for parents can leave the brunt of the day-to-day household chores on their children. Rather than coming home from school to the scent of the evening meal simmering on the stove, some kids face homework, housework and dinner duty. While sharing family responsibilities can be beneficial, how do you set realistic expectations and determine how much your kids can handle?

According to Margaret Rohde Bongiorno, Ph.D., a psychologist in Wheaton, Ill., with expertise in child and parenting issues, striking an effective balance takes preparation, practice and parameters. "It depends on your child and your family and what seems to fit for your family," she says. "Some kids who are 11, 12 or 13 can handle a lot of responsibility and get dinner started and function as nanny or a housekeeper. They are not afraid to be home alone, and follow all the rules that the parents set. Then there are other children who might not live up to those expectations."

Start Early
Parents need to judge for themselves how much a child can handle by starting with small tasks, Bongiorno says. Begin by practicing a task with a child to monitor his abilities and demonstrate the task properly.

"If a child needs to come home and make sure everything is prepared for dinner, the table is set, and food is defrosted, start teaching them at 7, 8 or 9 years old," she says. "If they are able to handle it with a parent then, they will be able to handle it later on alone. On the other hand, if you try to have them do it with never monitoring them, it is not going to get done right."

Bongiorno also recommends easing into leaving children home alone. "Start by leaving them alone for a half-hour and see how it goes," she says. "The next week try a little more, like leaving them with a younger sibling and see how that goes."

Encourage Independence
Assign responsibilities as a symbol of maturity rather than punishment to build a child's confidence and self-esteem. "If parents present chores as signs that a child is growing up, they will feel pride in doing [them] and learn the responsibility of taking a task from beginning to end on their own," Bongiorno says.

For Susan and Kerry Florian, purchasing their dream home along the Kankakee River in Illinois two years ago meant longer commutes to work and a shift in their children's at-home responsibilities. Now their three children travel to separate schools and arrive home at different times.

Prior to the move they enrolled their children, then ages 12, 10 and 8, in an American Red Cross safety program offered through their local park district. Their children practiced emergency procedures, role-playing in dangerous situations and telephone safety. "The nice part was that they each got a card saying they completed the program and had a real sense of pride in being certified to stay home alone," Susan Florian says.

While Kerry Florian, a construction superintendent, leaves home at 5 a.m. and his wife, a manager of decision support services, follows her husband at 5:30 a.m. to make their hour-plus commutes to work, the children engage in daily routines of caring for their menagerie of family pets, making breakfasts and lunches, loading the dishwasher and making their beds before school. For safety, they gather in a neighbor's driveway with other children to wait for their respective buses.

After school the children arrive home in 10-minute intervals. They eat, complete homework assignments and then consult the daily list of chores compiled the night before by their mother.

Don't Take Advantage
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