Writing and Responsibility - The Connection

by Dave Marks National Writing Institute

There's a responsibility when we write and this must be taught to children. They must see that their words give to people a picture of themselves. People know us by what we do, say and write.
Just as your children wouldn't wear gym shorts to church, they should be as reluctant to present themselves poorly with the words they write. When we practice presenting ourselves in a specific way, we eventually become the way we have been pretending to be.
This again is an exercise written for children ten years old and older to do on their own. Give them this paper and monitor what they become because of it. They will translate the responsibility they develop into their writing without you encouraging it.

YOU BECOME WHAT YOU
PRETEND TO BE
It comes as a surprise to most kids when they realize that their parents have wanted for them, for the most part, many of the same things that they've wanted for themselves. They just wanted these things at different times. The important thing is that the principles presented here may well be incorporated into how you learn to present yourself when you write.

All kids want to be seen as ready for responsibility and to be seen as serious youngsters by their parents, just as parents want their children to be ready for and to take on more responsibility.
You can understand what your parents want from you and what they would like to be able to expect of you. Once you do, you can perform in ways that will indicate to your parents that you're ready for the kinds of responsibilities that you want and that they would like to give you.

Once you know what they would like to expect of you, you can decide what you'll have to do to convince them that you're ready for more responsibility (freedom). Of course, you'll have to be reasonable in your expectations. You wouldn't expect to drive the car without a license, or at fourteen, to be allowed to take a train alone to New York to visit your friends. But, you mightexpect to be given more choices about what clothes to buy, what and when to study, what to play on the radio, who to visit, and how to wear your hair. Or, if you're older, you might be given more choices about using the family car, places for vacations, friends, curriculum to use, and college plans.

It might be hard for you to believe it, but these are just the things that your parents are anxious for you to make decisions about. They just have to be convinced that you're mature enough to make judgments that will be good for you and reflect well on the rest of the family.

This is your job—to convince them that you're ready for the decisions that you want to make. This is a lot easier than you might think. All you have to do is make a list of the things that your parents ask you to do over and over again. It might read similar to this:

1. Pick up the dirty clothes in my room and put them in the clothes hamper.
2. Help with the dishes.
3. Put tools away after I use them.
4. Make my bed and clean up my room.
5. Return library books on time.
6. Turn off the lights when I leave a room.
7. Shut the door after I go through it.8. Come home when I say I will.

I'm sure you can come up with a much longer list for yourself. These then are the things that you should be doing on your own, but your parents have to ask to do them over and over again. This can be the solution to your problem of your parents feeling you're not responsible enough.

Put your list on your mirror and check it every day to make sure that you've done the things on the list before anyone has had the chance to ask you to do them.

Soon your mother will say something like this to you rfrather:
You know, Bob, Janet must be growing up. I haven't had to ask her in over two weeks to help with the dishes, pick up her room or put her dirty clothes in the hamper. It's really a relief to see her becoming so responsible.

If this were to happen, then when you ask to do something that your parents have not been sure you've been responsible enough to do in the past, they'll have to see you in a new way. Listen to them think:

Janet's growing up. She's showing much more responsibility than she had been. really shaping up. Now that she's more mature, maybe I should let her do some of the things she's been asking to do.
I learned this technique when I was about 15 years old and living with my parents. I had just gotten my driving license, but I wasn't getting the car to drive much at all. All my friends got to drive their family car, but not me. I felt sorry for myself for a bit then made an attempt to analyze fill the problem because it wasn't going away. I hit on this technique. I began washing the car every three or four days. When I did get to drive with my parents in the car, I would insist on putting some gas in it and paying for it myself. I started offering to help with the dishes without the usual fight. I started mowing the lawn without being asked. I waxed the car! In those days there weren't the quick waxes like there are now. It was Simonize (That's a hard wax that takes hours to buff to a shine.). I even cleaned the garage. One day, not too long after I started this process of convincing them that I was getting mature attitudes, my dad handed me the keys and said, "Son, why don't you take the car and visit your friends this afternoon?"

The surprising thing is that I had gotten into the habit of doing the lawn and the dishes without being asked. The joke was on me—I was growing up. If you try this technique, I think you'll find that it works. Many people say we are the kind of people we act like we are and not the people we say we are. In this case, you'll be acting like a mature young person. That means that if you keep it up, you'll become a mature young person. Mature young people get to make more decisions for themselves than do immature young people... Think about it, anyway.