The other day, I was waiting in line at the grocery store. There was a mother and her daughter, about 5 years old, waiting in front of me. The girl was insisting on getting a candy bar and her mother staunchly refused. The girl told her mother she was “stupid and mean.” The mother looked embarrassed and continued to ignore the child while she checked out.
Disrespectful behavior is pervasive in our culture. It is an attitude supported by media. We don’t really know if the media, TV and movies, can be blamed for starting this climate of disrespect, or if they were just echoing the culture. Certainly, it has become a toxic circle. Even children, who are protected from media’s influence, pick up the attitude from their neighbors and friends. Author and lecturer Kim Payne said at a recent conference, “We swim in a culture of disrespect.”
However, as conscious parents, we can’t just shrug our shoulders and ignore the problem. We can’t just blame the media either. We really do need to look at ourselves. Are we modeling respectful behavior at every turn? This can be difficult. As parents, we need to be authoritative, to be the kind leaders in the family. But parenting can be frustrating; children don’t always do what they’re asked to do and they like to test their boundaries. It’s easy to lose your patience as a parent. Soon your tone of voice changes from that of a kind leader to that of jail warden. We need to constantly remind ourselves to speak to our children as we want to be spoken to. Constantly.
We also need to be aware, not only how we speak to our children, but how we speak about others in front of our children. They are always listening . . .
When dealing with disrespectful behavior, the worst thing a parent can do is to echo that behavior back. Your child yells at you and you yell back. What are you teaching him? Yes, it takes a lot of self-control to be a parent.
Another mistake parents make when dealing with disrespectful behavior is ignoring it. Your child yells at you and you do nothing. You’re telling her that yelling at you is OK.
Jean Leidloff, author of The Continuum Concept, says we only know two ways to treat our children, one is punishing/blaming: “you are very bad, go stand in the corner or I’ll spank you.” The other is permissive: “that’s perfectly all right darlings, if you want to walk on mother’s face, she doesn’t mind.” However, he says, there is a third way; it is called information.
Children need to be told when they cross the line; they need to know that respectful behavior is the norm. “Expect children to do the right thing. You then are being a clear model and there’s no conflict. It’s the way nature designed us to behave,” says Leidloff.
Cultural change begins right here.
