Daniel A. Bochner, Ph.D.

Responsibility is essential to doing good work, having good relationships, and creating a successful life. That’s certainly not news! But if everyone knows that fact, why is it so hard to encourage it in our children; and why is it so hard to understand what that means in our relationships? There is a simple formula that makes the workings of responsibility comprehensible for everyone. This formula facilitates movement toward taking more responsibility in all facets of our lives. It points to ways we can cultivate responsibility in our children, and it clarifies what it means to be responsible within our families. This is the formula: Freedom = Responsibility.

Freedom and responsibility are forever in balance. This simple fact can be seen everywhere. Babies have no freedom (of course, we’re talking about freedom of will, not freedom of impunity) and they have no responsibility. As children get older, the more responsibility they take on (chores, caring for a pet, doing a good job on homework), the more you, as a parent, should trust them. The more you trust them, the more you will let them do what they want. As adults, we have all the freedom in the world bounded only by cultural norms and laws (beliefs, of course, are our own, and thus we are free to believe in them). But in the balance between freedom and responsibility, it is important to notice that freedom comes at the price of responsibility. Unless we do take responsibility in a large variety of ways, we will have little freedom.

The Freedom = Responsibility equation is of supreme importance in child rearing because, unfortunately for parents, it is quite common for children to believe they should be allowed to do whatever they want in spite of the fact that they have very little responsibility...

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