Respect is Earned

There are some of us parents who believe kids should give respect 100% of the time, no matter what, no questions asked. Of course there are parenting books and religious doctrines that back up this viewpoint.

But if we take this approach, what are we really teaching our kids?

Sure we’ll get “respect” in the moment when we lose our temper and demand it. But I think we intuitively understand the tighter we squeeze, the more it will slip out of our hands.

So the question should be, what are we doing to deserve respect?

If we only tear down our kids, get angry at them and don’t accept them for who they are, I tend to think that, no, we don’t deserve respect regardless of what religious doctrine says. And we will definitely not be getting genuine respect.

It’s an easy thought experiment, really. Let’s think about a boss who constantly talks down to us, is authoritative and demands we do what they say when they say it. How will we actually feel about them? We most likely won’t respect them. Comply? Maybe, but not respect. Now we can extrapolate that to the relationships with our kids with the only difference in most cases being shared genetics.

But if we take the lead and give our kids respect by trusting their opinions, letting them make choices and giving them acceptance, forgiveness, freedom and generally moving toward the relationship with them, we will get true respect from them. And it will be respect we actually deserve.