Responsibility is generally defined as, “Involving personal accountability or ability to act without guidance or superior authority.” A person is regarded as responsible when he is “capable of making moral or rational decisions on his own and, is therefore, answerable for his own behavior.” This principle is recognized throughout the Bible. We read in Luke 12 about a “faithful and wise steward, whom his master will make ruler over his household” who was responsible “to give them their portion of food in due season.” In order to teach responsibility it is often necessary to let our young people experience the consequences of their choices. This is why the prophet said, “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth” (Lamentations 3:27). When parents give gradually increasing responsibilities to their children early in life, they are able to help ease the severity of the consequences. Young people then soon learn that their choices incur consequences. It is better to learn that “Every man must bear his own burden” (Galatians 6:5), whether or not that burden is a household chore, poorly done homework assignment, or later on in life, a missed job deadline or a speeding ticket. It is so important that young people learn “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10) that they may experience success. “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings” (Proverbs 22:29). In this fourth article of the series, our goal is the same – to provide a path by which parents can assist their children to be successful students by directing them to take increasing responsibility for their work. “It is well known that the most effective managers are consultants to the people they manage. They are skilled at delegating responsibility and equally skilled at keeping a respectful distance from those to whom they delegate. They are authority figures, who make their knowledge and expertise available to the people they supervise, but they do not hover over them, watching their every move. They trust that the people they manage can do their jobs properly, and they communicate that trust by not becoming overly involved in their work. They motivate people by gently pushing the limits of their capacity for competence and self-direction. In so doing, they offer them the opportunity to discover the intrinsic rewards of independent achievement. Let’s apply this to children at home. Where homework is concerned, a parent’s proper role is that of consultant as opposed to participant, and a fine line divides the one from the other. Upon crossing that line, a parent steps into emotional quicksand, and in the ensuing struggles, the deeper that parent sinks. Parents who participate in the getting-done of homework not only dilute whatever academic learning was intended, but also, and more importantly, enable the child to become dangerously dependent upon their continued presence and help where homework is concerned. The parent-consultant stands on the sidelines, providing encouragement and support. The parent-participant runs on and off the field, scooping up the child’s every fumble. He might even take the ball away if the child so much as looks like he’s about to fumble. Little does the parent-participant realize that he’s actually causing the child to fumble. He serves as a constant distraction, and his interference prevents the child from ever feeling confident with the ball. The parent-consultant is concerned, but relatively detached. He doesn’t refuse any reasonable request for assistance, but his interventions are brief, rarely lasting more than a few minutes. One such intervention might be to refer the child’s question back to the teacher—a subtle way of reinforcing the teacher’s role as final authority where schoolwork is concerned. The parent-participant, on the other hand, is so emotionally involved in the child’s academic career that he winds up appropriating large chunks of it. His child’s success or failure as a student confirms his success or failure as a parent, or so he thinks. In effect, the parent-participant is in there pitching for himself first and his child second. It stands to reason: The more responsibility a parent assumes for homework, the less the child will assume. The more help a parent provides, the more the child will acquire a feeling of helplessness. The harder a parent works to protect a child from failure, the more the child will begin to feel and act like a failure. Instead of taking the credit when their children do well in school and feeling guilt when they don’t, parent-consultants assign their children responsibility, both positive and negative, for their own academic achievements and failures. Above all else, they allow their children to make mistakes, realizing that the most valuable lessons in life are often learned by trial and error. In all these ways, parent-consultants send messages of trust, affirmation, and personal worth to their children, who are, as a consequence, free to explore and expand their capacity for competence and creativity. Parent-participants, although well-intentioned, are addicted to being overly involved in their children’s lives. They live through their children and thus take their children’s successes and failures very seriously and very personally. They over-direct, over-protect, and over-indulge. They take on responsibility that rightfully belongs to their children, thus robbing them—although unintentionally—of opportunities for growth. Although we’re talking specifically about homework, this applies to virtually any area of a child’s life—social, recreational, and extracurricular—as well as academic. Ask yourself, “How does it apply to me?” First, the overly-involved parent-participant hovers over the child, obsessively preoccupied with the possibility that the child may make a mistake and determined to anticipate and prevent that unthinkable possibility. I call this “parenting by helicopter.” In the act of hovering, the parent-participant assumes irresponsibility, however unwittingly, for the child’s academic (or social or recreational or extracurricular) decisions and/or performance. He over-directs, over-manages, and over-controls. This is over-protection in its purest form—trying to protect the child from failure, and one’s self from the implication that the child’s failure is a reflection of one’s own. The parent-consultant is simply available—there to provide help when help is truly needed—but does not impose his presence upon the child. In the non-act of being available, the parent-consultant assigns responsibility to the child for his own academic (or social or recreational or extracurricular) decisions and/or performance. And keep in mind that the more responsibility one is made to accept, the more responsible that person will eventually become. Unfortunately, the reverse is equally true. In the act of hovering, the parent-participant encourages continuing dependence, weakens the child’s tolerance for frustration, and thwarts the growth of initiative and resourcefulness. What a terrible price for a child to pay because a parent “only wants to help.” In the non-act of being simply and cleanly available, the parent-consultant encourages independence and all of the things that go with it, including self-reliance, initiative, self-motivation, resourcefulness, and the like. In the act of hovering, the overly-involved parent sends a powerful set of negative messages. These include, “I don’t trust you to do an adequate job of this on your own,” and “1 doubt that you’re even capable of doing this on your own,” and “You make me look bad and feel bad when you make mistakes.” These are not the intended messages, but they are the felt messages, nonetheless; felt deep in the child’s psyche, where they grow into feelings of incompetence, helplessness, and guilt. Eventually, they begin to impact upon nearly everything the child attempts. The child may even stop attempting anything at all in a desperate effort to stop the messages from doing their dirty work. In the non-act of being simply available, the parent-consultant sends an equally powerful set of positive messages, including, “You are competent to do this on your own; I trust that you can, I trust that you want to, and I trust that you will.” Let us direct children in material matters but above all in spiritual matters as the apostle Paul directed young Timothy, “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed” (2 Tim 2:15). Adapted from John K. Rosemond, Ending the Homework Hassle which can be purchased here.
Parenting by Helicopter?
