Children Learn Respect By Being Treated With Respect

When our children feel disrespected by their primary caregivers, they lose heart.

I was impressed by some of the parenting advice given years ago by family psychologist John Rosemond’s, and recommended the DNR run his weekly column “Living With Children.” 

As a family counselor and teacher of parenting classes I especially liked what Rosemond said about having clear family rules and expectations, with consistent and well understood consequences, and about letting those consequences, rather than our heavy handed lectures, teach children good behavior. The example he used was that of a referee in a game who, when a player commits a foul, simply blows the whistle, applies the penalty, and then has the game continue, with the offender learning that one is always better off following the rules that define how the game is to be played. In other words, parents don’t need to shame, blame or preach long sermons, just be professional and fair umpires or referees that go by a clear and fair family playbook.

In recent years, though, I’ve become concerned about Dr. Rosemond’s repeated insistence that children need parents who are more like drill sergeants than their “friends” (DNR 3/12/22 “Your Child Needs a Boss”). I totally agree that parents need to avoid just being their children’s friend, and certainly not if that means granting their every wish and failing to draw clear boundaries around acceptable behaviors. But parents should, in my opinion, be one of their children’s best and most respected adult “friends.”

Parenting expert and author Dr. Philip Osborne outlines four important areas of successful parenting, each of which requires a different skill set. The first of these is what he calls the “No Problem Area,” in which parents are like friendly team captains providing good experiences of work, play and conversations together. These have little to do with problems, but everything to do with building relationships that increase a parent’s positive influence on their children. This area needs to be expanded to where it makes up the majority of time spent together, where parents are making lots of deposits in the family friendship account so that when withdrawals need to made they don’t find themselves in overdraft territory. This is the area in which children learn most about being respectful and responsible adults, by the example set by their parents and other role models they look up to.

A second often overlooked area is the “Child’s Problem Area,” involving things children are bothered about that don’t necessarily bother the parents—except for the empathy they feel for their offspring. Examples would be problems children have with their friends, their appearance, or with just everyday disappointments. Here parents wear their coach/encourager hat, practicing being good listeners rather than just good lecturers, and where they are neither rescuing nor blaming, but supporting their young in becoming good problem solvers and resilient future adults.

Osborne’s third and also overlooked area is the “Mutual Problem Area,” where both parents and children are bothered about something and need to work together at solutions. This may involve family meetings in which everyone gets to contribute their ideas, and where parents are willing to give each person’s views due consideration, while maintaining veto power over any proposed changes in the family’s ”legal system” that are not consistent with its basic values. So while it remains clear that not everything is negotiable, some things are, and should be seen as opportunities to teach good negotiating and conflict resolving skills. This is not about children getting their way, but about respectfully offering them opportunities to have their say, with the understanding that anything that can improve things in the family will be heard and considered, and perhaps given a try to see how or whether it might work. We are, after all, preparing children to become active, participating citizens in their communities rather than simply subjects of autocratic systems in which they are simply told what to do and what to think.

His fourth area is the “Parents’ Problem Area,” where parents are bothered by their children’s behavior but where their children are not sufficiently bothered. Examples would be their not doing their chores, being disrespectful of parents and others, and not observing their family’s health, safety and housekeeping rules. This is where clearly defined policies, with clearly understood and consistently applied consequences, come in, and where parents are the responsible law enforcement officials. But like other good work supervisors, teachers or highway patrol officers, they are respectful, professional and assertive adults who know that you can’t teach respect disrespectfully, patience impatiently, or responsibility irresponsibly. In other words, effective parents lead by example in living by good rules and by working at changing any that need to be changed,

In summary, a family should be a classroom for learning how the real world works, or at least how it should work, not by yelling, threatening or assaulting members who are out of line, but by correcting and teaching them to behave like mature adults and active citizens. 

Children are, after all, just short people who deserve the same respect as us taller and older ones.