Kids need experiences that stretch them, reveal their talents, and develop their lives for ministry. They need challenges where they develop responsibility. One of the most important life skills all of us have to learn is responsibility. 

How do you teach responsibility to your children? There’s only one way: Give them the opportunity. Trust them with responsibility. Will they make mistakes? Absolutely. You did, too, when you were growing up. Will they sometimes be irresponsible? Yes. But if you hold on to responsibility, you’re actually hurting your children. The goal of parenting from the moment your kids are born is to move them from parental control in the early years to self-control in the middle years to God’s control throughout their lives.

That means you want to give up control! When we take responsibility for people, we take it away from people. If you treat your children as babies and don’t let them grow up, you’ll have to diaper them for the rest of your life. And you’re giving the world another codependent person.

Many parents have told me, “If I had it all to do over again, I’d do less for my children and teach them to do more for themselves.” The only way we grow is by being given challenges that stretch us, develop us, and build responsibility in our lives.

The Bible says, “Whoever can be trusted with a little can also be trusted with a lot . . . If you cannot be trusted with things that belong to someone else, who will give you things of your own?” (Luke 16:10, 12 NCV).

Kids respond to responsibility. Having talked to so many parents over the years and seen this in my own family, I believe it’s far better to err on the side of giving too much responsibility than not trusting your kids enough. They’re going to make mistakes either way! Your goal is to produce a person who walks—not just with self-control—but, more importantly, under God’s control.