The Four Words That Help Teach Responsibility to Teenagers, According to an Expert

I’m a mom of a 19-year-old teen boy who has really experienced the ups and downs of adolescence. Some of these are standard for his cohort (pandemic quarantine isolation), while some are more unique to him (grief over the death of a parent at age 12).

And I’m only realizing now that I’ve been so distracted by the wild irregularities of our family that sometimes I’ve skipped learning the basics of parenting, such as how to teach responsibility to teenagers.

Luckily, I found a book I love: Your Turn: How to Be an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims, which details some of the lessons she picked up during years of working with college freshmen and undergraduates in California. I recently interviewed her for tips on getting responsibility through to the teenage brain, and what I gleaned is fascinating. Fair warning—changing teen behavior often starts with changing your own first.

Julie Lythcott-Haims is an American educator, author and politician. She is the author of How to Raise an Adult, on parenting; Real American, a memoir; and Your Turn: How to Be an Adult. She is the former dean of freshmen and undergraduate advising at Stanford University.

“For me, it’s four parts: assignment, ability, autonomy and accountability,” Lythcott-Haims says. By assignment she means, “We expect you to do it, or we've agreed collectively that you will do it.” And by ability, she’s talking about the way parents either teach their kids to do the task at hand or trust them to do it on their own (autonomy). As she puts it, “We're always here if you need us. We're always here in an emergency, but we think you've got it.” This, she posits, is the opposite of micromanagement. As for number four, accountability, this means that the teen will see the task through and the parent will provide feedback as to how it’s going.

• Communicate clearly your expectations: As a former only child who is now a mom, I sometimes expect my child to just know what needs to be done, and do it. Guess what—that doesn’t work. For me, I’ve had to learn to do what sometimes feels like overcommunicating in order to get through to my son.
• Set rewards: A clear understanding that there’s a reward for accomplishing a goal has been effective for my getting my son to do something. If he wants to a big summer trip, he’s got to keep his grades to a certain level. When he was younger, if he wanted a concert ticket, he needed to maintain a certain level of personal hygiene.
• Don’t nag: Lythcott-Haims says that, after a task has been assigned to a teen, nagging can actually undercut any learning. “Nagging ends up eroding the very foundation that you're trying to build, because it tells the listener, ‘I don't trust you, I don't believe you, I think you might not even be capable,’” she explains.

• Act the auntie: Instead of using the authoritarian parenting model that many of us (me included) were raised with, Lythcott-Haims suggests acting as an enthusiastic relative that’s not going to catastrophize or get angry if a task isn’t done. “Show up with love, take an interest and have curiosity, but don't get emotionally invested in the fact that a task didn't happen,” Lythcott-Haims says. In other words, if you can take the emotion out of your expectations with your child, then your anger won’t erode the foundation between you. Ultimately, your kid is going to need a sense of that foundation to take more responsibility themselves.
• Don’t rescue: Lythcott-Haims says that, like nagging, rescuing leads teens to think they can’t really do the task. Instead of rescuing, let a teen experience the consequences of their actions, then sincerely and without heightened emotion ask them what happened, in order to teach the life lesson of asking for help when needed. (Of course, if there’s a life-threatening emergency, you of course rescue your child, Lythcott-Haims says.)
• Learn what interests them: Teaching teens responsibility starts before you ever assign them a specific task. First, you must strengthen your bond with your teen, so they have motivation to accept responsibility in the home.  It seems beside the point, but learn what interests them, and encourage that, as well as listen to them talk about it. I know after I engage my son in a discussion about history or politics (two of his passions), he’s more likely to take the trash out when I ask.
• As a parent, accept the coming speed bumps: Failure comes to every person, including teens, and you as a parent have an opportunity to model any disappointments as teachable moments. Do so, first for yourself as a parent, then outwardly to your child.
• Talk out the positives for their self-care: From teeth brushing and face-washing to med-taking, it’s important to spell out the why of various tasks you’re asking them to take responsibility for. For example, explain that not washing her face can lead to acne; not brushing his teeth leads to toothaches (or brown teeth—vanity is a big motivator for teens!); not establishing a sleep routine makes good grades and a positive mental attitude harder to achieve; and on and on. Little by little, the messaging will coalesce into personal responsibility.
• Set up an allowance: In a recent poll, 68 percent of teens said they’d take a class on money management and personal finance, but only 31 percent of them had access to this in school. Setting up an allowance for your teen—with a clear discussion of what tasks are performed in exchange for it—has been important workplace modeling in my home. Additionally, young teens’ access to a spending accounts such as Greenlight, which parents can monitor, can be a transparent way to talk about spending and saving habits. In my experience, my young teen became so weary of my discussions around his constant requests for spending money that as he got older, he was motivated to get a parttime job to have his own discretionary income. (That job is teaching him accountability in the workplace, so win-win.)
• Use the “Smile and walk away” technique: Lythcott-Haims gave me this great tip for deepening the bond with a teen. “You say, ‘You know what? You love guitar, and things have been so busy, I haven't heard you play it in a long time. But I wanted to tell you that when your fingers strum those strings, it fills me with such joy.’ Then just smile and walk away.” The educator uses this example to illustrate how proactive praise or appreciation shared with your teen, especially about something they enjoy, is foundational for their development. In this way, every engagement with your teen isn’t some check in about a task or expectation; instead, it’s a lovely moment of caring.