Have you ever considered how valuable you feel when you fulfill your responsibilities, when you strive and struggle for them? I think you can guess how this lifestyle of adults serves as a role model for their children.
Responsibility is the ability of individuals to understand and take on the consequences of their actions, to fulfill their duties, and to be sensitive to the rights of others. This skill, which is established in childhood, continues to develop in youth. Responsibility skill positively affects an individual’s self-worth, success in life and career, and social adaptation. Responsibility skill is directly related to self-esteem, self-respect, and self-confidence. Children and youth feel more confident and valuable when they fulfill their responsibilities (Grolnick & Farkas, 2021). Not only children and youth, but all people feel valuable when they take responsibility. Because taking responsibility allows you to be beneficial both individually and as part of a team, and to discover and rebuild yourself.
IMPORTANCE OF RESPONSIBILITY SKILL
Responsibility skill is of great importance for individuals’ personal, social, academic, and career development. Individuals with responsibility develop self-discipline, improve decision-making skills, strengthen social relationships, increase self-confidence, and contribute to social harmony. At the same time, thanks to these skills they acquire and develop, they begin to be more productive and make a difference by first discovering themselves, their strengths and weaknesses, interests and talents. All these factors are significant steps for a person to realize themselves in their life and career journey.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RESPONSIBILITY SKILL AND SELF-WORTH, SELF-RESPECT, AND SELF-CONFIDENCE
In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid, after basic needs such as physiological, safety, love-belonging, there are esteem and self-actualization needs. These needs include many skills and feelings such as self-confidence, self-respect, self-worth, success, respecting others, being respected, being virtuous, creative, sincere, problem-solving, unbiased, and accepting the truth. It is inevitable for an individual to meet these needs in order to reach the stage of self-actualization internally. When we delve into meeting these needs, we encounter factors such as the responsibilities an individual takes in life and the ability to fulfill them, as well as the struggle to fulfill responsibilities, psychological resilience, problem-solving, and the ability to support internal motivation. Being able to take responsibility, fulfilling responsibilities on time, and developing different ways to focus on the process and continue the struggle when unable to do so, enable the individual to believe in themselves, trust themselves, feel valuable, develop, and produce. Another result of these is that they gain the same respect and trust in society, contributing to their personal and professional value.
Individuals with responsibility feel they have control over their own lives. This sense of control increases individuals’ self-confidence and self-respect. Successfully fulfilled responsibilities reinforce individuals’ belief in their own abilities, which positively affects their self-worth perception (Bandura, 1997). Therefore, instilling responsibility skills in individuals from childhood is very valuable. Responsibility skill directly affects children’s and youth’s self-worth and self-respect. Individuals who fulfill their responsibilities feel more competent and are appreciated by their environment. This increases their self-confidence (Deci & Ryan, 2020). Taking on a task or responsibility reinforces an individual’s confidence in their own abilities. Self-worth is related to an individual seeing themselves as important and valuable (Berk, 2020). An individual who fulfills their responsibilities through their own efforts will naturally feel valuable.
METHODS OF INSTILLING RESPONSIBILITY SKILLS IN CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE
Sometimes, because we love our children so much, we try to make their lives easier. Then we realize that the children have become youth and we start to worry about them not fulfilling some of their responsibilities. That’s where the questioning begins. Why doesn’t he tidy his room? “Why don’t they do their homework or study unless I tell them to?” Why doesn’t he make plans for his goals and dreams? Why doesn’t he fulfill his responsibilities within the family? Do you know why? Because while raising them, we unknowingly take on their responsibilities. For example, they scatter their toys and we pick them up, they forget one of their school supplies at home and we rush to take it to school, they don’t tidy their room or clothes and we do it, they have problems with their friends and we immediately try to solve them, they don’t do their homework and we try to explain the reason for not doing it to their teacher, and sometimes we even do their homework. Our child gets the message, “All these are not my responsibility, but my parents’ responsibility.” So they don’t feel the need to do them. And then they don’t bear the consequences of not fulfilling their responsibilities.
We should not hesitate to give our children responsibilities suitable for their developmental level. The way to follow when giving responsibility is as follows: I express this method as describe, do together, let the child do, give feedback, and remind. For example, we will teach our child to make their bed. First, we should take the child next to us and show and describe how we make the bed, we should do it, then we should do it together with our child, wait for them to do it, give realistic and constructive feedback on their work, and remind them when they don’t make their bed. Of course, these behavioral acquisitions will not be easy. Time, determination, patience, consistency, and tolerance are required. From time to time, when they do not fulfill their responsibilities, they need to face the problems they cause, accept that the source of this problem is their failure to fulfill their responsibility, and be given the opportunity to find solutions by looking for various ways to compensate for it. This is a significant gain of value both individually and socially. While doing this, the child also learns to empathize. They act by considering not only their own welfare and interests, but also the needs of other people. For example, just because they don’t want to wake up early, they should know and accept that they are forcing their parents, who will take them to school, to be late for work, and they should strive to go to bed early and wake up early to compensate for this. Of course, while doing all this, witnessing us adults fulfilling our responsibilities on time and our compensation process for our unfulfilled responsibilities will be a more valuable method of instilling behavior than all our statements. It is very valuable to encourage children and youth to participate in social responsibility projects, support their independence and decision-making skills, develop their problem-solving skills, give them the opportunity to face the consequences, and use realistic positive reinforcements while doing all these and guide them in their life journey.
In conclusion, taking responsibility, fulfilling responsibilities, and struggling and looking for new ways when unable to do so, are versatile processes that greatly contribute to individuals feeling more valuable. This process positively affects individuals’ psychological, social, and emotional well-being. Individuals with developed self-respect, self-worth, self-control, and self-confidence become hardworking, open to learning, have developed problem-solving and critical thinking skills, are prone to teamwork, and are productive in personal and social areas. Therefore, the development of responsibility awareness contributes to raising healthier and happier individuals, which also increases social welfare.
References
- Bandura, A. (2021). Social Learning Theory. Prentice Hall.
- Berk, L. E. (2020). Development Through the Lifespan. Pearson Education.
- Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2020). Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness. Guilford Press.
- Grolnick, W. S., & Farkas, M. (2021). Parenting and Children’s Internalization of Values: A Handbook on Autonomy-Supporting Parenting. Springer.