As a grade school principal, educational consultant, Jim Fay, often woke in the mornings scared for those children who never got into trouble. Now that may sound like an odd fear, but Jim knew from experience that well-behaved youngsters would eventually leave school a lot less prepared for the real world than those children who had learned lessons through occasional misbehavior.

Preparing students for the "real world" is one of the greatest gifts we can give our children. It means teaching them responsibility and decision-making at a young age.

Building Responsible Children

Parents can help children "practice" for the real world by adopting Four Steps to Responsibility:

Step 1: Give your child a responsibility.

Step 2: Hope your child makes a mistake.

If we don't allow our children to make mistakes and then live with the consequences, we are really "stealing" valuable learning experiences from them. And today's mistakes - forgetting to finish their homework or leaving their lunch at home - are bargains compared to what mistakes may cost as they grow older.

Step 3: Allow empathy and consequences to do the teaching.

Learning never takes place from parental anger. Instead, use empathy when you talk with your children to allow them to look closely at their decisions.

Step 4: Give the same responsibility again.

This is the most important step. It sends a powerful message to the child that he or she is smart enough to learn from the previous mistake.