I Think He Understood

I talked to my teenager about responsibility this morning.  I had him read my last blog post in which I define what I think it means to be responsible.  I talked about how it involved commitment and accountable and how, as you mature, you start to take on responsibility for more things.

Things went downhill quickly when I started to give examples of things which his mother and I feel he needs to  take charge of in his life.  I talked about all the basic things we have to remind him to do every morning and every night, and how he needs to figure out how to remember these things on his own.  I knew I was right, but  he started making excuses and raising his voice.  I knew I wasn't getting through to him.

So I changed my approach.  I started talking about the areas in his life in which he's extremely responsible.  He's gets mostly A's in 9th grade honors at a very challenging high school.  I told him that, in this part of his life, his exhibits responsibility at it's best.  He's committed to academic success.  When he gets a ton of homework or a difficult exam, he owns the situation.  He doesn't complain about the teacher.  He doesn't expect us to fix things for him.  He demonstrates the hallmarks of responsibility:  commitment and accountability.

I told him that he shows similar commitment and accountability in his passion for scouting college football talent and writing 2-3 articles per week on NFLMocks.com.  I reminded him of the times that he would tell me that he HAD to watch the Senior Bowl to analyze several players to complete his "Big Board" because he owed it to his readers to base his views on actual observation.

I could tell that he was now listening.  I was getting through!  So finally I returned to some of the areas in his life in which he is NOT responsible.  For example, I explained how he fails to take ownership for his poor eating habits.  I sensed that he finally saw my point.  He finally saw how this could be described as failing to take responsibility for yourself.

So I went a step further and told him that a big part of becoming a man is to become responsible for all your own problems and all your own goals, and then to go further and assume responsibility for other people and situations.  Again, I sensed he understood so I ended our talk, satisfied that I had made an impact on him.