Should My Kids Respect Me?
It was a very normal day, consisting of very normal events, including my child and I engaging in one of our typical power struggles. This time, it was over whether they were dressed appropriately for the weather and the activity we had planned. I had had enough and was using every sort of fear, force, and shame-inducing tactic I could think of to get my way. Then, it happened: my child stood up, insulted me, and walked away as if my voice didn’t even matter.
“Oh no, they cannot disrespect me like this,” I thought. But I was wrong. My child can disrespect me. They did in that moment, and it would not be the last time. In my better moments, I am able to see that I actually have no ability to control whether my child will respect me.
So, where does this leave us as parents who want the best for their kids? We have reasonable desires for our children to learn to respect authority, even when they disagree. We want to instill this value and rightly recognize that it is our responsibility to teach them to function well in a world that requires respect for authority. With these goals in mind, it wouldn’t be right for us to completely abandon our efforts to instill the virtue of respect for others in our children.
Instead, we strive to hold in tandem our responsibility to teach, with an recognizing our actual realm of influence.
To do this well, it may be helpful to recognize that there are two kinds of respect we want to see our children exhibit. The first is a general respect for human dignity. This includes treating others with kindness and not objectifying people. A level of self-worth also falls into this category of respect for mankind. Giving people dignity is a given; it is not to be granted based on merit. You gain this kind of respect simply by being human. This type of respect is best taught to our kids in moments connected to their view and treatment of others, rather than to their treatment of us, their parents.
The second kind of respect is holding particular people in high esteem. We hold these individuals in high regard because they are of particular value to us, their words carry weight, and we want to be like them. This is the kind of respect we desire from our children as their parents. We want our voice to matter to them, and for them to see the wisdom we have gained through age and take it to heart. However, this kind of respect must be earned.
In the story described above, I would not have respected me if I were my child. I was using my authority to instill fear, so that I could force my child into taking my words to heart. I was not acting in a manner worthy of the second kind of respect.
Instead of asking, “How do I get my kids to respect me?” we should be asking, “How can I grow in acting in a way that is worthy of respect?” Do I treat my kids in such a way that they will naturally want to become more like me? Does the way I teach them lead to them trusting me more or trusting me less? Do I give them the basic form of respect and dignity that every human being deserves?
These questions are hard, and it can be difficult to make the shift from demanding respect to growing it with integrity. In the end, we aim to become more of the parents (and people) we want to be, rather than first and foremost focusing on shaping our kids. We want to model both kinds of respect to our children and have the humility to notice the times we don’t do this well.
