Children's Education Responsibility

Educational skills

Teaching children responsibility

In one of the hidden camera episodes, the presenter of the program opened a water tap on the road and began observing the passers-by and their reactions to the flowing water. The reactions varied. Some of the passersby turned a fleeting glance and continued on their way, and some of them expressed some astonishment but continued on their way, and one of them went to the tap to turn off the water. . Why didn't some passersby care? Why did someone care and turn off the water? It is a sense of responsibility.

I was visiting a friend of mine, and while the children were playing and running around, her son tripped on the edge of the rug and fell, hitting the table. The mother got up, hugged her son, and started hitting the table with her hand in an attempt to comfort her son. A scene that is often repeated in such situations. What message does the situation contain and what does it convey to the children? What is its relationship to the issue of responsibility? When the mother hits the table, it is as if she is telling him that the table is the reason for its presence in his way and not the reason for the son’s reckless running. From here, the children learn to pin mistakes on any element in the situation, thus avoiding responsibility. If one of them gets a low score on the test, it is because the material is complex. And because the questions are difficult, and because the professor is stubborn, and because...and it is not one of them, because he was not paying attention to his lessons or because he did not strive to study, God Almighty says:

(And whatever calamity befalls you is because of what your hands have earned.) This is how the Qur’an teaches us responsibility for our actions.

Teaching children responsibility is a goal on which educators agree on its importance, but they differ in defining the meaning of responsibility and how to achieve it. It can be said that responsibility includes two things that must characterize the responsible person, the first: that he takes the needs of others into consideration and steps forward to meet them, and that he sees himself as concerned with solving problems and filling them. Gaps wherever he encounters them, and the second: that he realizes his responsibility for the actions he takes or the situations he takes. Responsibility education means focusing on these two aspects through development and training.

Among the meanings that children must realize and be raised on are the following:

• My work will not be done by anyone else. I have been self-reliant in personal needs, clothing, eating, and brushing my teeth since early childhood.

• If you promise or make a commitment, it must be fulfilled, and it is important for parents to adhere to what they say. If they set a date to accomplish something related to the son in particular, it must be adhered to so that they will be trusted by the children and instill in them responsibility for what they say and what they do. And if their imprisonment is an excuse for fulfilling what they promised, then it is not It is necessary to explain and apologize.

• My concern should not be only for my family, but for others around me. A person begins his life centered around himself, looking at his needs, and then the vision expands to include the needs of his family and society. This must be supported by training him to care for those who are younger than him and take care of the family, including caring for the affairs of Muslims everywhere. “Whoever does not care about Muslims is not one of them.”

• Being responsible and trusted by others: This includes performing work that may be difficult, and I may cancel an enjoyable job that I had planned in order to provide a service to the family.

The most prominent methods for developing responsibility are:

1. Modeling responsibility: Children love characters in stories, sports, or other things, but parents remain the first model that children follow. If we provide them with responsible behavior in practice, they will most likely learn it in a way that makes us proud of them. Acquiring positive behavior occurs through the actions of educators more than through their guidance.

2. The early start: The child, from his first year, is ready to put his toys in their place, help with cleaning and arranging, and bear some self-service responsibilities. It is important to assign children specific tasks to serve the family and participate in household chores. Tasks and responsibilities increase during the stages of life, and it requires Our patience and support. Our haste and lack of patience often cause us to miss many opportunities from which children can learn.

3. Encouragement and motivation: so that responsible behavior is rewarded directly as soon as it occurs, while avoiding the conditional reward, that is, the one in which the son says, “If I do such and such of the work of helping, what will be my reward?” And also the promised reward that the parents determine before the work: “If you do such and such of the work, then you will get such and such.” These methods lead to the opposite result, and the son grows up to expect financial compensation and interest from the work in which he participates, and does not focus on himself and his sense of responsibility. Among the beautiful things that have been said about feeling responsible is the poet’s saying describing his behavior towards hearing the call of a needy, where he finds himself setting out to answer as if he were concerned with the call. So the people said: Who is young? I thought I was tired, so I was not lazy or dull.

4. Let the son make the decision and experience the consequences of responsibility. If he decides to take his favorite toy when going out for a walk, and the necessity of preserving it and warning against losing it is stressed, and the toy is lost, then the child must be left to bear the consequences of that and not take the initiative to bring a replacement toy. This is of course not the case. It means not consoling him for losing the toy, while avoiding blaming him for taking it. The situation and the feelings of remorse and heartbreak of loss it contains are enough to provide a lesson in taking responsibility for preserving collectibles.

5. Giving children confidence, and focusing on their potential and successes and not on their mistakes and failures, then the child will have confidence in himself, which means that if we believe that they cannot bear responsibility, this will be their belief as well.

6. Educational cooperation: It is important that we, as educators, have contact with those in whom we have the correct educational outlook, as this will help us see the strengths and positions of responsibility in the actions of our children and determine the aspects that must be focused on and developed.

7. Moderation in meeting children’s desires: Meeting all children’s desires and wishes reflects negatively on the children’s lives and makes them feel that fulfilling their wishes is a responsibility that falls on those close to them and those around them. Children must be raised so that each of them works to achieve what they aspire to and not expect that from others. Examples of applications include directing children to save money to buy a new toy they want to buy, and identifying additional household chores as opportunities for children to fulfill their desire to go on a trip, visit, or watch a program.

8. Training children to organize work: One of the most difficult skills is balancing work and arranging priorities. Children are confused between school duties, household help work, and playing with peers, and they often forget what they should do because of their focus on playing. We can help them organize their work and accomplish it by asking them Writing a list of tasks and determining which ones will be completed first, then the next, and so on. One of the important applications in this regard is setting rules for completing responsibilities (duties first, then watching TV) and setting daily goals (what should you do today), and for them to learn how to divide tasks The completion of which requires a long time to small tasks, such as setting a review schedule before the exam. When children learn to make a list of tasks and review them to determine completion, they become better able to organize and schedule their work and are more committed to their responsibilities.

9. Instilling the elements of responsibility: Seriousness, perseverance, and patience are among the most important elements of responsibility. These qualities require time and training from parents and children to grow and appear in behavior, and open the way for the emergence of the quality of responsibility, which ranges from acknowledging responsibility, “Yes, this is my responsibility,” to performing duties. Even if his temperament is not ready for this, then the son will have come some way in learning responsibility.

10. Forming social responsibility: It is necessary to expand the vision of children and make them feel that their responsibility does not stop at the family level only. Every individual has a responsibility towards society and the environment in which he lives. We must revive in the souls of our children the principle of “one body” and that each person strive to Among us is to elevate his society, participate in solving problems, and not belittle the performance of individual actions, as they are the foundation that leads to the good of society. Dr. Mustafa Sadiq Al-Rafi’i says, “Responsibility is the measure of greatness, and the first to take responsibility for it were those who volunteered for others, working to serve their brothers and their kindred. The most insignificant people were those who panted under the responsibility of themselves alone and were not concerned with anything else.”

Marty Rosman, a specialist in family education, confirmed in a study in which she followed 84 children from their early childhood to their twenties that the assumption of tasks and responsibilities by children, starting from the age of three and four, of providing assistance, care, and participation in household chores, is an essential factor in the success that she has known as “ “Integrity, good relationships, and academic and professional success.” The importance of performing these tasks lies in the child’s early positive role, strengthening bonds and relationships, developing communication skills, and a sense of value and accomplishment.

Dr.. Sahar bint Abdul Latif Kurdi

Family and child counselor