What is a responsibility?
A responsibility is something that is your job to do something about, or to think about. It is something that affects our lives and other people's lives.
Some of our responsibilities • to follow the rules at home, at school and in the community - after all they are there for our safety and to protect our rights and the rights of others • to stand up for our rights and the rights of others as much as we can • to be the best person that we can be • to take care of our own bodies as best we can • to respect the rights of others • to look after our own belongings and respect the belongings of others • to learn as well as we can • to care about others who are not as strong in some ways as we are.

What happens when people don't accept responsibility?

When people don't take on their responsibilities... • Other people lose their rights, eg. people could be bullied, treated unfairly, abused or feel unsafe. • It's unfair because other people have to do a job that is another person's responsibility. • There could be consequences at home, at school or in the community, eg. people might be punished or harmed in some way. • People could become less successful and happy than they might have been, eg. they might give up trying or keep away from people. • People could feel unsafe or unhappy, eg. they could be hurt or teased • People could be selfish and uncaring. They might not ever know the good feeling that people get when they share and care about others. • People won’t care about their belongings or those of others, eg. they could steal things or damage them. • People could find it hard to learn as well as they might. They could find it hard to stay on task because others were disrupting the class. • People won’t care about each other’s rights, eg. they might leave people out, not let them have a chance to speak, bully them or hurt their feelings.

How do we learn about our rights and responsibilities?

Everyone in the world is an important and special person.
As we grow up, we learn about being a unique person who is part of the world. • First we learn the skills for working with and caring about all the other people in our small world of our family, our school and our neighbourhood. We learn skills like using good manners, taking our turn, sharing, being kind to others, thinking about others’ feelings, looking after our belongings and being truthful and honest. • As we grow older, we add to our skills when we learn that we are all different, but just as special. We learn skills like listening to others, working with others, making decisions in small and large groups, learning to keep promises, admitting our mistakes and learning how to be a friend. • As we move out into the world, we learn more about the responsibilities which go with our rights. We learn that some things that humans do are not acceptable because we are not considering the rights of others - things like telling lies, cheating, bullying, violence, destroying other's belongings or property, and stealing. We learn skills like managing our time and our learning, looking after our bodies, dealing with bullies, recognising when someone is using lies to hurt others, keeping our belongings safe, keeping our promises and standing up for what we believe in. • Human beings have been responsible for most of the changes that have happened in the world. Many changes have made the world a very bad place for some plants, animals and even for other people. We all have to learn the skills of sharing the earth with other living things and to learn how each one of us can take some responsibility for making the world a cleaner, safer and better place.