Children can learn responsibility without being made to feel responsible for everything.

A child having duties and a child carrying the household are very different things. Chores, consequences, looking after a pet: these build something real. Being the one who manages a parent’s mood, keeps peace between adults, or worries about money is a different weight entirely, and it arrives without anyone deciding to hand it over. Children are quick to pick up whatever nobody else is holding.

Give tasks that are clearly bounded and clearly theirs, and let them fail safely. Keep adult problems with the adults, even when a child is unusually capable. If yours has become the sensible one, say that the grown-up things are not their job.