The following is guaranteed to produce a child who is responsible - who has the potential of becoming a significant contributor to their family and society.

1. Avoid rescuing your children for their poor behavior. Allow them to learn from their mistakes as long as it is not life threatening.
2. Teach your children financial responsibility. If you don’t offer allowances or extra jobs for pay, set your budget for clothes, toys, and extra curricular activities, share that with your children and stick to it.
3. Hold your children accountable – if they get a traffic ticket; let them pay for the ticket and any additional insurance premiums, provided defensive driving courses are not an option. If they forget their homework, let them experience the consequences. If they are late for school or work, let them explain.
4. Provide your children with opportunities to learn the life skills they need. Work along side your children in order to teach them by modeling.
5. Treat your children the way you want them to treat you, respectfully. It is impossible to teach the concept of respect to children unless they can see and feel what it looks like.
6. Teach your children how to clean up after themselves.
7. Teach your children how to provide for themselves – how to do their own laundry, clean their own room, fix their own breakfast, and eventually prepare meals when you can’t be there.
8. Be a good listener, but don’t allow your children to take out their frustrations on you or their siblings.
9. Be supportive of your child’s education, but stay out of their school work. Let them get their A’s by themselves. Do not pay for good grades no matter how tempting that might be. Find other non-tangible ways to encourage or reward their efforts. (Spending time with them, hugs, etc.)
10. Do teach them a belief system; let them know what your values and expectations are.
11. Share family traditions so that your children feel a sense of belonging or connectedness. If you don’t think you have any, create some.
12. Love your children unconditionally and let them know you love them. Use encouragement and affirmation to gain cooperation.