Teaching Your Child to Respect Their Possessions

    Our job as a parent is to raise our children to be respectable and responsible members of society. As parents we want to be proud of our children and have others admire our children. Good behavior is a great way to get raved reviews on your parenting skills. My children were always welcome everywhere because they knew how to behave properly and show respect for others and other people’s possessions.

    

     Children should be taught early to take care of their possessions. We don’t throw our toys, we put our things away when we are done playing with them, and we put our outdoor toys away before we come into the house… We hang up our jacket, pair up our shoes by the door, put our dirty clothes in the hamper, and put things back where they belong when we are done with them. So we can find them easily when we are ready to play with them again.

      

     When raising a child, everything is a process. You need to mean what you say and be consistent. Most importantly, you need to start the good habits at a young age. As toddlers, they can understand to be quiet when someone is sleeping, not to yell and scream in the house, take off their shoes as they enter the house, not to mistreat their toys or possessions… All these things can be learned from example and explanation. If they should throw or mistreat a toy, you tell them that is not how we treat our belongings. If they are stepping on toys or books, they need to be told not to do that. We need to guide them in the right direction.  We spend time explaining as often as necessary that we take care of our items so they don’t get broken and end up in the garbage. If the item continues to be disrespected, that item needs a time out on the counter with the explanation that you will return it to them when they can treat it nicely.

     

     If you allow your child to disrespect their own items, they are certainly not going to be respectful of other people’s belongings either. We need to teach them to sit properly on a couch as a toddler because of safety reasons; even a fall from couch height can cause a broken arm or dislocated shoulder. As an older child, it is a piece of furniture, it is expensive to replace and therefore should be treated as such.

     

     When they break a toy by mistreating it, please don’t go out and buy a replacement. This will not teach them anything about taking care of their possessions. Either they miss it and realize that they should have taken better care of it, or they need to earn the replacement.  Recently when I requested a preteen to pick up her iPhone off the floor; she replied “It’s no big deal if the screen were to get stepped on and cracked my parents would just buy me a new one.” I was struck speechless that she would be that inconsiderate of the value and disrespectful of an expensive possession. She obviously didn’t deserve such a privilege if these were her sentiments regarding it.

     

     A great habit to start early regarding taking care of their possessions is to have them clean up their toys before they start their next activity. The kids at my house clean up all the toys before we eat lunch. This is just a habit that we started and there are no disagreements or arguments about it. I tell them it is almost time for lunch, and they just clean up the family room like clockwork. Same if we are getting ready to go outside to play or need to run an errand or two, I will say that we are leaving soon and they just begin to clean up the mess. It’s wonderful and it’s just a great habit to start. I am talking about 1 to 4 year olds that think it is just the right thing to do. I am so very proud of all of them.  They also know which toys belong in which bin which tells me kids today are capable of good habits at young ages. If you have no expectations then you get nothing. Either you can start now and develop good habits that can last a lifetime or keep cleaning up their toys and later have a more difficult time getting them to cooperate.

    

     Don’t forget to praise them when they clean up, but don’t overdo it. They need to believe that cleaning up their mess is just the right thing to do. After all, it is!

     

     Small children love to help so please don’t turn down their help. Give them something helpful to do. They can be very young and learn to match up socks or they can just pull out all the socks and put them in a pile. If they want to help you with a chore, try to find a way to let them help because it makes them feel important and it encourages them to help later on. Try very hard not to redo what they have done in front of them if it requires adjustments, it will make them less likely to offer to help the next time. It doesn’t mean not to instruct them to do it the correct way, but they may need some practice before it lives up to adult standards.

     

     My children were making their beds at 3 years old. Yes, it often looked like a 3 year old did it, but they were beginning good habits. It wasn’t important how it looked, who was going to see it anyway? Of course they got better at it as they matured. They felt good about being my little helper. They were also learning to take good care of their possessions and their rooms.

     Please don’t underestimate what your children understand about taking care of their stuff. You need to have expectations and they need to be taught the value of what they own. Learning to respect their own possessions helps them learn to respect other people’s property as well. Respect for possessions also helps them understand a deeper respect for others.