At a program I hosted for teenagers on “Goals”, I asked if anyone had goals they wanted to share with the class. A boy of about 14 or 15 put up his hands and as nicely as he could muster, said, “Aunty, my goal is to get out of this class as quickly as possible”. Note that this was just the beginning of the program so trust me it wasn’t that we had bored him to frustration. He was probably reacting to the fact that his parents asked him to attend the program when he had “better” things to do!
I’d like us to discuss this TTV (Time Tested Value) of RESPECT (or the lack of it as the case may be). It’s not always that lack of respect shows up as blatant acts of rudeness. These days it has snuck in in less obvious ways like back talking; rolling of the eyes; name calling; not answering when you’re being spoken to; yelling… and these disrespectful attitudes have almost become the norm, because rather than address them for what they are, we overlook it as – confidence, a joke or cute.
Parents – there is nothing cute about rudeness! We must remember that the world may not be so kind about some of those disrespectful attitudes we overlook in our children. I want us to stop and ask our self “how would I react if my staff (someone’s child) kept clicking away on his / her cell phone when I was talking to him / her?” Chances are you probably will give them a good talking
to. So how come when it comes to our kids we choose to look through rose-tinted glasses?
We should encourage our children to show respect for places, things, themselves and other people. Allow me to stretch the point about respect for other people just a bit more. It’s important that we teach our children to respect all people irrespective of status, financial standing, age or color. For instance, we unconsciously encourage our children to be disrespectful to domestic helps by turning a blind eye!
When it comes to parenting, the “Do as I Do” method has an incredible impact on our children. Tough love – as the occasion demands is another effective method. So, to help us effectively teach the lesson of respect, let’s carry out a quick self-audit – If my children were to “Do as I Do” in the Respect department, what grades will they make? Hmm! Simply by making the necessary adjustments, we would have unconsciously started the lesson.
Watch out for our next post and remember I would like to hear your views. To be a part of this discussion and for other interesting and insightful parenting tips and gist, please follow our blog – www.parentinvestment.com, invite your friends, send us your comments & contributions and let’s join hands to make the necessary parenting investments that would continue to yield positive returns in our children’s lives.
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TTV particularly Respect or regard is on the decline. This should not be happening because as parents we have a huge impact on our children and we need to positively influence them by teaching them from home at a very young age the importance of respect.
Respect is expressed differently in diverse cultures but what is a common is that respect involves reverence for others, self and things. I personally do not think it is ‘cute’ to address a person old enough to be a parent or grandparent by their first name without the courtsey of adding Mr or Mrs although this is now acceptable because of the influence of Western civilization.
From my personal experience as a former volunteer in a junior church, I didn’t think it was cute for children in the teanage church to draw a picture of their volunteer and make funny jokes when the helper was instructing the class. It was aslo not cute for children to pretend they were taking notes with their cell phones when they were actually communicating with their friends via text messages. I realize that these types of situations still persits nowadays.
The TTV of respect is now being categorized by some parents but this should not be the case because everyone deserves respect irrespective of their age, status, wealth sex, religion, race, ability and education. It is not cute but a sign of dis regard for some parents to teach their children that those who are not in their social status do not deserve respect. These parents do not only teach but exhibit dis-respect to others, this behaviour leads children who learn by modelling either good or bad conducts to observe, emulate the rudeness and behave in identical manner to others.
I hope that as parents we would candidly or honestly examine ourselves to see if we will be able to pass the self audit test of if my children were to ‘Do as I do”, will they have a positive or a negative result in the TTV of respect.
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