Parenting With Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility

responsible get the job done? These are the questions that should guide
the development of our parenting philosophy.
The gravity of the parenting task hit home some years ago when my
(Jim’s) son, Charlie, was a teenager. Charlie asked to use the family car
to go to a party. “It’s the party of the year,” Charlie said. “Everybody
who’s anybody will be there.”
I trusted Charlie and would have loaned him the car, but I had a
speaking engagement that same evening and couldn’t oblige. Charlie’s
mother, Shirley, also had plans of her own for the second car.
“Why don’t you hitch a ride with Randy?” I suggested, referring to
Charlie’s best friend.
Charlie shook his head. “That’s okay. I understand. I guess I won’t go.”
Then he went to his room. I knew something was up. This was the party
of the year, so I talked to Charlie and pried loose some more information.
Randy, it seemed, had started drinking at parties, and Charlie decided
he’d rather stay home than risk the danger of riding with a friend who
was likely to drink and drive.
The night of that party, Randy, plied with booze, drove himself and
five passengers off the side of a mountain at eighty miles per hour.
Today, roughly two decades later, Charlie has earned his PhD and is on
staff at the Love and Logic Institute. He is now teaching others the same
parenting techniques that saved his life. Because he had learned to be a
responsible teen, instead of dying that night, he has gone on to help
countless others.
Unfortunately, many kids arrive at their challenging and life-
threatening teenage years with no clue as to how to make decisions. They
“know better” but still try drugs. They ignore good advice from parents
and other adults and dabble with sex. Though they have been warned to
be cautious, they are still lured into meetings by Internet predators. Why
do young people sometimes seem so stupidly self-destructive? The tragic
truth is that many of these foolish choices are the first real decisions they
have ever made. In childhood, decisions were always made for them by
well-meaning parents. We must understand that making good choices is