December 2006

Editor's Note: R-E-S-P-E-C-T

by Wenda Reed

Late last summer, we were on a weekend getaway across state and stayed in a hotel with a pool. A mother was giving her son instructions on improving his swimming strokes. The problem was that she gave him 10 negative comments to every encouraging one. Finally she said, “You’re going to drown your ass. You’ll be the only one at camp who can’t swim.”

The next day, we saw a little girl scramble into the back seat of a car parked at the curb. The mother hauled her back out and reprimanded her sharply for getting her dirty feet on the seat when she’d been told repeatedly how to get in carefully. She told the girl how careless she always is, gave her a swat on the bottom, and ordered her to get back in properly. The girl hung her head.

On another occasion, I watched a father pushing his daughter on a swing. She was having fun until the swing got too high for her. “Stop, Daddy,” she said. He sternly told her that it was perfectly safe, and she shouldn’t be a baby. He kept pushing higher and higher as she began to scream in terror. I was walking over to intervene when he stopped and lifted her down. I glared at him, but still regret that I did not tell him he was abusing his child with his little power trip.

What I see in these instances is that we adults sometimes treat children with far less respect than we do co-workers or friends or even pets. We see children talked about over their heads, ordered, manipulated or shamed into following our agendas, and ignored as far as their own needs or personalities are concerned.

That lack of respect has always bothered me, and has been brought into focus by reading a newly released book, Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids by Seattle writer Sura Hart and her co-author, Victoria Kindle Hodson (PuddleDancer Press, October 2006). The premise is that rather than managing children’s behavior with guilt, shame, praise, fear of punishment or promise of rewards – or even the more friendly-sounding natural consequences, time-outs and positive incentives – we cooperate with our children to meet our needs and theirs.

I think the book goes too far in having parents relinquish their roles as teachers and leaders in the home. I do think there is a place for right and wrong, for correction and praise, for direction and consequences. On the other hand, the authors challenge us to think about what we mean by having our children respect us:

Do we want them to be willing to listen and learn from us?
Give us fewer arguments?
See things from our point of view?
Give us admiration and appreciation?
Do what we want with no questions asked?

Whatever our definition of respect, do we give it to our children as we demand it from them:

Are we willing to listen and learn from them?
Hear their arguments?
See things from their point of view?
Give them admiration and appreciation?
In cases where we are able, do what they want?

Hart and Hobson urge us to take time to connect with our children and to monitor the kind of language we use, avoiding labels (“You’re lazy”), comparisons (“Why can’t you behave like your sister?”) or blame (“Who started it?”) and to make our home a “No Fault Zone,” open to cooperation. The goal, after all, is not to have children behave well just to please us or avoid punishment, but to internalize our values and make their own independent choices.

The dedication to Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids sums up the attitude I wish we’d have for our children: “This book is dedicated to children – here to show us how to live with honesty, curiosity, vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and exuberance.”

©2006
Seattle's Child, a publication of the Washington Post Company
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