I don’t think is in any book. It’s something that you learn early on, that the children in your life will push those boundaries. They’re going to challenge those boundaries, and you have to be steadfast in things, such as setting curfews and building expectations of what you want from your children, such as educational excellence, spiritual growth, being able to take care of yourself, cleanliness, and so on. There’s a unique science to it. The respect aspect, like I said before, is the cornerstone because it helps you to build on everything else. In the end, it’s the most important dynamic of the parent-child relationship.
I demonstrate respect for my children by being transparent and honest with them. That’s the first part. I let them know that we’re all human and we’re not perfect. I don’t know that their generation does it, but I know in my generation, we put our parents on a pedestal. Mom and Dad could do no wrong, and when they did wrong, it was a great disappointment. I experienced that in my life with my father. The biggest letdown with my dad was when he fell prey to alcoholism, had a nervous breakdown, and suffered through that emotional challenge. It was very disappointing because I had set him up on such a high pedestal. So I am very transparent and honest with my kids. And I do that to teach them the ways of the real world. You have to be honest and transparent to a degree with everybody that you deal with in relationships. It comes with trust and honesty on both sides. I tell my kids that they’re going to make mistakes; the key is not to keep making the same mistakes. I tell them to take counsel when it’s given to them and in the vein that it’s given to them, in love, not because I’m trying to be strict or hard on them, but I know what it takes to survive and sustain productively in life.
Martine Gordon
For me, first and foremost, when you say respect in the context of parenting, I think immediately of the respect that I can demonstrate and show to my child. That includes demonstrating self-respect for myself so that she can also understand that you should respect yourself in addition to feeling others should respect you. You shouldn’t assume people won’t respect you. Culturally, I come from a family in which the children are not necessarily their priorities or their needs aren’t considered first, and that’s a cultural thing in my background, and I as a parent try to disagree with that. I try to consider how my daughter might be feeling in new situations, consider that she might not remember Auntie So-and-So from last year, and so I’m not just going to throw her in her arms when auntie comes to visit; you know, she might be intimidated by that. So for me, it’s both demonstrating that as a role model, I should respect myself, but also thinking from her perspective that I respect her as a person even though she’s very young.
I’ve always struggled with being self-deprecating in my language, not necessarily in my professional life, but when I’m home or with my family, and as I’ve become a parent, one example of how I’ve tried to demonstrate self-respect is by not being self-deprecating, not apologizing for things that don’t require an apology, and just demonstrating that I am worthwhile as a person in small ways, obviously not being over the top and having all sorts of hubris, but demonstrating that I’m a person, I’m an individual, and I think for a woman raising a daughter, that’s really important for me to demonstrate to my daughter that she can be a strong, respected individual.
Justin Hampton
Respect is treasuring, as valuable, the uniqueness and position that someone has. I try to make sure that I’m doing so in front of my children and I’m getting better at it. In reference to me and my wife in terms of how we respect one another and one another’s opinion in front of the children, we have to get better at that because we disagree a lot. We’re not one to yell or scream or argue outright, but our disagreements can probably come to each other at times, and I can see that in the way the kids interact with each other. I can tell they’re mirroring and gleaning certain things. I try to pull them to the side and try to get to the bottom of it. I may say, “Is this something you learned at your school?” “Was somebody in school saying that?” “Why do you say that to your brother?” “Where do you hear that?” If I can identify something they learned at home, I try to correct them, but I make sure that I don’t belittle them in the way that I correct them, in the way that I address them, to make sure that I’m building them up in whatever sort of correcting I’m doing so that they never feel like, “Well, when Daddy has something to say, or when I mess up, he doesn’t care about me,” or “He doesn’t love me.” In correcting, it’s always comes back to “You know I love you, right? But we have to fix this.” So I try to make sure they understand they are also respected.
Leticia Herrera
Well, self-respect, I believe that is the key for every individual. If I do not respect myself, I will not expect to be respected. So I set a standard for myself and passed it on to my son to ensure that he knows the difference between respecting himself and his expectation to be respected. It doesn’t matter what age. I emphasized throughout David’s childhood how important it is to respect other people. That’s the way I raised him, to respect himself and make sure that he will respect everyone else regardless the age, race, or the place or region the individual comes from. He can show respect to people by taking time to look at the person or listen to the person and respect what they have to say. Then he can talk back and share his views and how he feels. Just make sure the other person, regardless of their education or background, will be able to feel respected and valued.
I do believe that by him seeing the way I treat myself and how I treat all people has given him an example of how to treat himself and other people, and that’s what he’s doing because he respects others and he respects himself. When he and I have a conversation, if he doesn’t agree with what I am saying, he will respect that, but then he will come back to me and say, “This is my point, but I respect your opinion because that’s the way you were raised. I know that you grew up in a different time, but this is a different time, and I do respect what it is right now, and I know that you don’t agree.” That’s how we communicate. He will show respect, and he will take whatever is useful for his life. He will also respect what his stepfather says, also anyone who will give him advice, like my family and friends and his friends, because he has seen me do that.
Joseph Kijewski
I think you always have to teach by example, and that’s the best way to teach in any situation, but especially with children. Be the person you want them to grow up to be. Model that person.
Going back to my own childhood, I came from a family with an alcoholic father and a lot of issues with physical abuse and things like that, and I always knew what kind of parent I didn’t want to be. I wanted to be a parent, and I thought I could do it much better. The behaviors that my father modeled, I would never want to take up myself or pass on to anyone else and increase the stress. He grew up in the same kind of household, and that’s what he saw, that’s what he learned, and that’s what he lived with us growing up. Luckily, my mother was very much the opposite. She was an excellent parent. I didn’t have a good model as a father, but I think you have to model for your child conduct that you want to see from them. If you’re not respectful toward your spouse, you’re raising someone who, when they’re married, is not going to be respectful toward their spouse. If you’re having temper tantrums in front of your children, they’re going to have temper tantrums. If you’re disrespectful, or dismissive of others, that’s what they’re going to adopt. I’ve seen it across the spectrum of my family. I’ve seen it with my siblings and my cousins, I’ve seen their traits showing up in their children, and I believe it’s the modeling that you do in front of your children that’s going to influence them more than anything else.
So with something like respect, I’ve always tried to be respectful to my wife. We disagree on things at times, but we’re never disrespectful toward each other. We disagree on things like adults, you know, we’re on the same page when it comes to the children, and the children are always free to disagree with me. They’re free. They’ve always been free to disagree with me, but in a respectful fashion. And it’s my hope that in their relationships as adults, they’ll be carrying on that same behavior as parents.
There are certain parental behaviors that I consider to be disrespectful toward the children, the worst being anything involving physical abuse or physical violence. Children should never be seeing that. It doesn’t