Empowering Your Teen to Take on Responsibility

When your child becomes a teenager, she wants to be treated like an adult more than like a child. But her behavior can often still be very child-like. As your teen is in the transition phase of adolescence, your job is to help her become more like an adult — and that means empowering her to take on more responsibility.

He wants freedom, and responsibility is freedom’s counterbalance. He must learn how to take care of his own things and also take care of others. So how can you empower your child instead of hounding him into doing this important work? One way is to involve him in something significant on a regular basis.

Young children are not put in charge of things. Their obligations are trivial. Your teen wants to be treated like an adult and be involved in significant things — and so she should be. She needs to understand the weight of responsibility, recognizing it as a privilege and not a burden. You can involve her in the process of making an important decision, showing her what it takes to make that decision. You can ask her to run a critical errand, going with her if it’s her first time, or sending her to do something that she’s done with you before (and now, by herself).

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“Your teen wants to be treated like an adult and be involved in significant things — and so she should be. She needs to understand the weight of responsibility, recognizing it as a privilege and not a burden.”
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When you hand off an important chore or invite your child into a significant opportunity, you are encouraging him to take on that responsibility in the future. You are giving him the chance to embrace critical tasks instead of shirking them and reverting back to trivial childhood behaviors. You are also giving your teen a vote of confidence and helping him feel better about his capability to do significant things. It won’t be easy at first, but this step can have major benefits and help your teen to leave childish behavior behind.

Take Action: Engage in the Journey of Transition

If you would like to pass on your values to your children but you aren’t sure how, check out the Journey of Transition video course. Developed by the leadership of JH Ranch, this course is packed with wisdom, practical exercises, and field-tested strategies for connecting with your teenager and parenting him or her successfully through adolescence. Find out how you can model the relationship with God that you want your teen to emulate, both now and in adulthood. Click here to learn more!