Here comes responsibility

Good Morning!  Happy New Year! From my family to yours 🙂

This is what I am thinking about today: Responsibility.  Specifically, how it is going to carry us through the new year.

I am going to go back to New Years Day when a friend of mine brought to my attention an observation that they made.  I was very calm, allowing my 16-year-old to chauffeur my 12 and 19-year-old from a New Year’s Eve party at 1 in the morning, on a very foggy New Year’s Eve night.

It was true, I was. In fact, there was no hesitation, only in the sense that I told him to be very careful when he left–but I always do that.

My explanation to my friend was I felt that my kids were responsible. I have never had any doubts about their decision-making and doing the right thing when a decision needed to be made.

Why is that though?

My trust could be perceived as “laziness” in parenting.  I have never been the mother to check School Tool for grades and assignments (I don’t have the time), I don’t go everywhere with my children, and I don’t tell them what to do, for the most part, they decide. 

I consider their grades and assignments to be their own to manage.  I talk through things with them and usually let them come to their own conclusions on how to handle a situation, with guidance in conversation.

Responsibility begets responsibility.  By giving ownership at a young age to the decision-making process, I feel that my children have benefitted by learning what goes into being responsible because they have helped shape the outcome.   

Passing the burden of responsibility to the kids, in actuality, has given them the gift of freedom.  I feel that my kids have always appreciated this on a subconscious level.  

I qualify that because I hear it in my 16-year-old’s voice telling me that he could only drive 20 mph because it was so foggy when he drove over to get his brothers.  Yes, indeed, that was the voice of accomplishment, pride, and confidence.

I certainly have not allowed my children to run crazy all over the county, nor have I been absent from their day-to-day life, or left all decision-making up to them.  But what I have tried to do is give them the gift of belief in their abilities to make the right decisions, to be responsible.

Now I shift to us, adults, and the new year.  Taking on responsibility for our actions and goals, our mindsets, and thought processes. It’s freeing and powerful.  It’s a new year, a new way.  

No more excuses.  It’s one thing to talk about our new year’s resolutions, and then put them into action, but it’s another thing to really own them.  Through ownership, real strides are made in growth.

Digging in and taking responsibility for what you want to accomplish, where you want to go, and most importantly, HOW YOU WANT TO FEEL is powerful.   

It’s time.  Own it.  Make it happen.  No one is going to do it for you.  

Be responsible for yourself and your decision-making.  You got this.  And when you start to slip, remember, you owe it to yourself to do the right thing—because you are responsible.

With love,
Kate

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