“If one of the links loosens, the whole chain breaks.”
Many parents want their children to be children who can act with self-confidence, make their own decisions and easily overcome the problems they encounter. The values acquired from an early age in accordance with the attitudes within the family cannot be considered independently of each other, like the wagons of a train. The lack of a sense of responsibility, one of these values, is one of the most common problems today.
Responsibility; It is the ability of the individual to undertake and fulfill tasks appropriate to his/her age, gender and developmental level. Considering the difficulties that even we adults experience from time to time in fulfilling our responsibilities, it is necessary to have the necessary sensitivity and awareness in our expectations for our children.
Responsibility and patience... Two values that cannot be kept separate from each other. Families think like this: “Yes, my child may not have developed a sense of responsibility and, accordingly, his self-belief is very low. Do something and it will get better immediately…” I find this situation as unrealistic as the statement of someone who goes to a dietitian with the desire to lose weight and says: “Touch me your magic wand and I will leave the room slimmed down.” We are talking about a situation where the child learns and begins to gain experience from birth. Therefore, necessary changes and value acquisitions require a certain process.
FAMILY ROLE IN ACQUIRING RESPONSIBILITY
Values such as respect, honesty, patience, responsibility… It is aimed to educate children effectively. However, it is not taken into consideration that the most important educational institution where the seeds of these values are sown is the home and the child's family is the first educator. It is not to be underestimated that children of a certain age (6-7 years old) need to learn how to eat, change their clothes, and put on and take off their shoes during school life.
Conscious parents adapt to their children's developmental levels. If they follow what they can do at what age and act supportively in this regard, the child will have the ability to meet the social-personal needs that he/she should have acquired in school life. He starts with knowledge and transfers his energy to situations where he really needs to learn.
Here, it would be appropriate to focus on the extended family other than the parents. New generation parents are learning more about their children by using technological opportunities more effectively. Therefore, they can know better how to behave in which situations. We also have precious family elders who call themselves grandfather, grandmother, grandmother. According to them; The child is not told no, the child does not cry, if the child wants to be fed, he is fed, the child is taken with whatever he wants, if the child does not want to sleep, he does not sleep... While these phrases can be compensated in a way during short-term family visits, this situation can become more difficult, especially in cases where the mother works and the family elder is the caregiver. If family elders could adjust the degree of sensitivity they show to their grandchildren in accordance with the children's developmental levels, the children's behavior would improve positively. The important point here is that the individuals around the child (parents, family elders, etc.) have similar attitudes towards the child.
Family practices to develop the sense of responsibility:
-
Positive Environments in which the child can exhibit his/her behavior are prepared and reinforced.
-
An active role is given in the regulation and implementation of the rules. “You can wake up yourself, thanks to the clock we put in your room.”
-
Visual reminders and notes remind you of tasks and give you responsibility.
-
Remove the possibility of making mistakes. Get to know him/her.
-
Make sure that the requests and rules are clearly understood by your child. “You need to put your toys in the basket.”
-
If possible, make him realize the consequences. “How is the temperature outside?”
-
Always be a good model for your child.
THE ROLE OF PRESCHOOL INSTITUTIONS IN ACQUIRING RESPONSIBILITIES
The importance of preschool education, which every child must receive at least one year before moving on to primary education, is becoming more and more understood day by day. Recently, especially parents have been in the process of working together, and children have been given this education. It allows them to get acquainted with children earlier.
If you have the opportunity to observe the first few months of preschool education institutions, we usually encounter the following scenes:
-
Waiting for their teacher to be fed,
-
p>
-
Waiting for the teacher to put on his/her shoes,
-
Does not want to pick up toys after playing with them,
-
Not eating because it is not the food he/she wants,
-
Having difficulty complying with the rules in the classroom,
-
Looking for help in changing his/her clothes...
First of all, when we question the reason for this, we see that family attitudes shape the child's behavior and expectations to a certain extent. In cases where the awareness of responsibility, which we attribute as one of the most important values of the education process, is lacking; Negative behaviors such as failure, slowness, inability to speak, crying, not wanting to go to school, and shyness are observed in children. And the family expects the teachers to use a magic stick and eliminate all these negative behaviors. Depending on the child's temperament and the cooperation with the family, this process may sometimes last for a short time, and sometimes it may continue for a period of time.
With the awareness that your child will not always remain small and will become an adult in the future, you must be balanced in meeting his/her duties and needs starting from today. You must move. Our greatest wish is to raise awareness of parents who are completely unaware of the child's power and abilities, such as the phrases we hear most frequently: "He is still a child, what will happen, what will he understand, how will he do it...".
SUITABLE FOR DEVELOPMENT LEVELS. RESPONSIBILITIES
Children between 2 and 4 years old:
-
Eating their meal,
-
Sleeping alone,
-
Throwing dirty clothes into the basket,
-
Protecting and collecting toys,
-
p>
-
Doing errands with simple instructions,
-
Placing small items on the dining table,
-
Wearing one's own house shoes.
Children aged 5:
-
Putting clean clothes in the closet,
-
Combing their hair,
-
Preparing food in the kitchen,
-
Removing your plate after eating,
-
Folding your clothes and putting them away .
Children aged 6:
-
Dressing and undressing alone,
-
Being more active in the kitchen,
-
Watering the flowers,
-
Taking away the garbage in the room ,
-
Helping with housework,
-
Shopping from the market in a controlled manner,
Children aged 7:
-
Having and preparing a school bag,
-
Being aware of your homework and doing it responsibly,
-
Feeding your pet,
-
Waking up on your own with an alarm clock,
> -
Placing shopping in appropriate places.
Read: 0
-