If you are looking at this website, you must be interested in finding a real-life parenting tool that will work for your family! You have found it!
ResponsiBuilders is not a wordy, self-help book or a lofty article about raising children …it is a real, hands-on tool that parents can use to teach their children how to be responsible, industrious people.
The idea for ResponsiBuilders initially came to me in the early 1980’s when my own children were youngsters. I wanted to create of a way to help with the organization of the family work-load by simplifying the often hectic job of household task assignment. I sketched out a game prototype on index cards … simple verses and very rough drawings. I told the kids that we would now choose our own chores for the day. No longer would there be disputes about, “who-did-what,” around the house.
To my surprise, the idea worked! The kids liked choosing their own tasks. I was no longer fighting with them about what chores needed to be done. We were actually working together instead of against each other. I was starting to be a mentor to my children, teaching them to do things around the house that I had never before even guessed that they could accomplish. They were becoming responsible kids and I was becoming a more relaxed Mom!
My kids grew up and became responsible adults! I put the well worn cards away in the china cupboard where they stayed for 20 years. Every once in a while, my now adult daughters, would get the cards out of the cupboard to read the verses and to look at the pictures. They kept suggesting that I “market” this idea that had worked so well for our family. I would laugh at the thought and tuck the cards back into the cupboard.
In 2006 the time for ResponsiBuilders was right. I traded my skills as a drapery maker with a graphic artist for his skills as an illustrator. The illustrations for the cards were completed. An idea that slept in the china cupboard for 20 year was awakened!
There is another very important, yet bittersweet, chapter to this story. It involved my dear friend, Kathy Martin.
Kathy was interested in my creative ideas. She would frequently ask about this game. We would go through the cards and I would dream about having it become a reality. One day she casually asked how much money I thought I might need to actually move forward and make ResponsiBuilders happen. I gave her a figure and thought nothing more about it. She remembered our words.
Several years later, Kathy lost a long battle with breast cancer. It was a difficult time for me. I lost a friend who I loved dearly.
Not long after her death, her husband, my cousin Bill, hand delivered a note from my dear Kathy. The handwriting showed that it was written in her final days here on earth. She was thinking of me even then. She included a check for the exact amount that I told her in that conversation long ago. She had not forgotten. I used that money to do the first printing of ResponsiBuilders. Kathy’s memory lives on through these cards.
It is my hope that your family will find as much value in ResponsiBuilders as we did.
I wish you well as you work towards having a less hectic, better organized household …. And best wishes for raising your own responsible kids.
Molly L. Smith – Creator of ResponsiBuilders
Molly (center) with her two daughters in front of the china cupboard!
