Respectful Parenting

                This week, I had the opportunity to watch a video on parenting. I love researching the family—and a lot of the typical family situations of American society are new to me. This video had an example of a “disrespectful” parent. Like most of you, I probably would have thought this situation to be normal for a parent, not disrespectful.

                The teenage daughter, Jada, lounged on the couch in the living room with all of her stuff strewn across the floor and furniture. She jammed to her music until her mother marched in the room and called her name. “Jada! How disrespectful of you to ignore me like that. When I talk, I expect you to listen! If you don’t get this mess cleaned up right this instant you’re going to be in big trouble, young lady.”

                In the video, the roles then swapped.

                The mother lounged on the couch—the mess was gone, but she jammed to the same song. Jada marched in the room. “Mom! How disrespectful of you to ignore me like that. When I talk, I expect you to listen! If you don’t drive me to the mall right this instant you’re going to be in big trouble, middle-aged woman.”

                I always felt, because my parents both had powerful but respectful demeanors, that parents had the reins and you did what they said because you respected them overall. When I watched this video, I assumed—at first—that the mother was automatically in the right.

                But with parenting becoming a reality in the next few years, I realized that the mother was causing a problem for her teenager.

                I could make this post with a million different parenting tips and points, but I’m going to only make one: as a parent, as a spouse, as anyone in any kind of relationship that you care about, be respectfully firm in your position.

                While this concept applies to basically everything, I’ll apply it only to parenting here. I’m sure some of you parents, or maybe some that aren’t parents yet, are skeptical of the idea of respectful parenting. “My kids only do what I want when I shout at them and threaten them and physically drag them around; respect isn’t going to work.”

                What are you teaching your kids, though, if you shout and threaten and physically accomplish what your kids won’t accomplish for you?

                Kids imitate their parents. Maybe that sounds silly right now: “But my teenager talks back to me. They shout and they’re disrespectful, even before I yell at them …”

                If they’re expecting you to yell eventually, maybe they’re just getting a headstart to prove that they can be equal to you.

                Here’s a stanza from a popular song that might be helpful in describing this principle:

                “… [M]y four year old said a four letter word/That started with ‘s,’ and I was concerned./So I said, “Son, now where did you learn to talk like that?”/He said, “I’ve been watching you, Dad, ain’t that cool?”

                I laugh every time I hear this. When I’m a parent, perhaps I’ll see this as my own mistake: our behaviors are reflected in intelligent, observant children that, on their deepest, most subconscious level, just want to be like Mom and Dad, the people that have always taken care of them. If we are in a habit of being dictators to our kids or expecting them to do everything that we want, why should we expect children that are intelligent and yearning to be independent to just adhere and be respectful? Either they will learn to fight back in pursuit of their natural rights or withdraw and collapse on the inside.

                Basically it boils down to some variation on the Golden Rule: “Do unto your children as you would have your children do to EVERYONE.” If you treat your children with respect, the very people that you could show the least amount of respect to and get away with it in the moment, they will learn how to treat others with respect.