Parenting: Teaching kids to take initiative

A child needs to be required to initiate, an important aspect of boundary training. A normal part of human behavior is to initiate things. Being created in the image of God is being created with the ability to begin something. Often, a problem with initiating things is a boundary problem.

Several years ago, I was with a friend of mine who has a ten-year-old son. While we were talking, Davey came in several times complaining of “being bored with nothing to do,” wanting his mom to design playtime for him. Knowing that he had all the resources he needed, she looked at him and said, “Davey, you are responsible for your own fun.” Not long after that, he found a friend to come over and play.

I recently ran into this mother, and we were catching up on each other’s lives. She reported on all the interesting things that Davey was doing now in his last year of college. Inside I thought, he is still taking responsibility for his own fun.

“Life is something that happens to us while we are making other plans,” says mystery writer Margaret Miller. But for many, life is something they take control of and pursue with diligence. They take their talents and multiply them, ever increasing their involvement in life. They are taking “responsibility for their own fun” and the outcome of their goals. The ones who do not do this are in many cases people who were not required to initiate and complete their tasks and goals; instead someone else did it for them or bailed them out of the consequences of their acts.

When kids reach a certain age, help them to know they are responsible for their own fun. Being entertained continuously by someone else will not help them live a fulfilled life in the future.

From Boundaries with Kids by Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend, Zondervan, 1998.

For more information on parenting, read Raising Great Kids and Boundaries with Kids.