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Raising Respectful Kids {Episode 184}
766 Plays2 years ago
If there's one thing we long for from generations past, it's the feeling we get that children had a lot more respect for the things that matter! Whether teaching reverance for God, country, property, animals, the earth or anything else, we hope to raise children who value and honor more than just their own interests.
Let's talk about the top 5 ways we're working on teaching respect!
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Transcript
Introduction & Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to episode 184 of Outnumber the Podcast. Okay guys we fully realize that this sentence is going to make us sound super old but is anyone tired of the disrespect they're seeing running rampant in society especially among young people? We really really really want to raise children who show respect for elders, the earth, themselves, god, everything under the sun but how do we do it? How do we avoid raising children who are disrespectful and instead raise loving contributing members of society? Let's dive in.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumbered the Podcast. I'm Audrey. And I'm Bonnie. We are experienced moms to a combined total of 19 children. In our weekly episodes, we explore relatable topics using our perspectives of humor and chaos. Tune in for advice and encouragement to gain more joy in your parenting journey.
Why Raise Respectful Children?
00:01:01
Speaker
Hello, friends. Welcome back. We are going to talk about one of our
00:01:04
Speaker
biggest parenting pet peeves and probably that of most parents out there. And that is working with disrespectful children, right? And not only is it our children that drives us crazy when they're disrespectful, but other people's, right? They just drive you nuts. So nobody wants to raise kids that don't treat people and property with respect. So we're going to talk about that today.
00:01:24
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know if I'm supposed to start with a humor segment, but just today I was in town running errands and my kids broke the oven door. So what, what do we do? It's like one of those funny, not funny things. Like, I don't know if I'm going to make them like cook supper or work off the payment for a new oven door or make them try to fix it themselves or
00:01:53
Speaker
Just the things, you know, it's like a day, it's like you work on it. It's a big picture idea thing in your house, you know, basic respect. And then I think just a lot of this is just kids not thinking, not using their brain for rational thought, like, huh, I wonder what happens when I, you know, stand on the dryer door or the dishwasher door, you know, any door basically in our house has been broken because there's been a kid standing or swinging on it. Yep.
00:02:18
Speaker
That sounds about right. I think maybe you need to dive a little bit deeper and find out exactly what happened. If they were opening it to bake a batch of cookies, then it's okay. You will replace it for them. If they opened it and then they put a child on it to use as a trampoline, then it's their responsibility. Right, right. I want to know what they were doing, what they were trying to reach by standing on the oven door or something. I mean, that's my guess. Right, right, right.
00:02:45
Speaker
Hey, you guys, we have something fun we want to tell you about. So here we are on episode 184. That's a lot, you guys. And maybe you can't remember all the episodes that we've done. Spoiler alert, we can't really either. Neither can we. But they're good ones. We promise. They're all good, every single one of them. So what we have done, what we've started doing is making some episode guides. These things are free.
00:03:10
Speaker
They link to our most popular episodes on a lot of topics. We've done a lot about self-care. We've done a lot about teenagers. We've done a lot about marriage, these different series that we have. We are going to have these available for you guys and for other people. If you want to refer other people, somebody just says toddlers, maybe send them the link to the one that's just about
00:03:35
Speaker
babies or toddlers or that kind of thing. So anyway, those are going to be linked in the show notes. Yeah. We've spent a bunch of time creating these PDFs and there's going to be tons of them. We've got about five ready already and we're going to just keep adding to them. But click that link in the show notes. Go download however many you want. You just put in your email and we send them directly to you. Yeah. And that should be a good guide, especially to new listeners on where to start for specific topics.
Defining Respect for Children
00:03:59
Speaker
Okay, now back to respect, we always like to define the words that we're trying to teach our children, right? We want to teach them respect, what does that even mean, right? So the dictionary includes lots of words that are similar, right? A special regard to respect something, hold it in special regard, particular attention to it, or the state of being esteemed, right? If we want respect, we want people to esteem us kind of highly. It is also connected to the word concern. So having concern for something or someone would be to respect them.
00:04:29
Speaker
Right. I think it helps us to define these things because then we, like we can aim at something. We know exactly what we're talking about and we can have specifics, you know, generalities with kids, big ideas like respect us like, but if we can actually define for them, okay, so this is what it means to be respectful and this is how we're going to try to be respectful. Um, and it's helpful to them. So there's a few areas where we notice kids need special help in this.
00:04:57
Speaker
It's like respecting, well, like we were just talking about, their home or our home, a room, you know, things that we spend money on. That's what commonly comes to mind when we think about, you know, a lack of respect for things. But then there's also our bodies or our values that we hold as a family, their siblings belongings. That's what a lot of our, you know, parenting is about, isn't, eh, she touched my stuff, he touched my stuff.
00:05:27
Speaker
That kind of stuff. Yeah,
Teaching Respect Through Role Play
00:05:30
Speaker
totally. I love what you said that if we're going to be explaining and teaching a big picture topic like this, especially a word that's a little bit hard to define, we've got to do our best to break it down for our children or else they're never going to be able to get it. They're going to have this vague conception in their head of what respect is. One way to do this, I know we've talked about this before, our little role plays. These can be really fun, especially at the dinner table or sitting around in the car.
00:05:53
Speaker
to say, okay, somebody goes into your room and grabs your thing and takes it and uses it. Is that respectful or not? What would be a more respectful way of treating that person's property? They could ask permission, they could leave it alone, any number of things. Especially real life examples that you've seen happen in your house. Somebody pokes somebody, somebody steals something, that kind of thing. A little while ago, I know I've talked about this before on the podcast and a couple of times on our Patreon podcast, but
00:06:18
Speaker
A little while ago, I decided, I kind of came to me that most of our fights and issues, conflicts around the house were related to some sort of respect issue or disrespect, I should say. Things like respecting each other's bodies, respecting the home, respecting their parents. We started talking about using respectful language, respecting God. So they were very, you know, appropriately, had appropriate behavior doing prayers and worship services, that sort of thing.
00:06:48
Speaker
I actually created a poster outlining all these things that my kids should show respect for. And I felt like that was a really easy way to kind of shrink down all the behaviors that I was expecting from them. And we actually offer that to our Patreon subscribers. So respect's been on my mind for a long time.
Five Steps to Overcome Disrespect
00:07:03
Speaker
Yeah, for our topic today, we're going to, we kind of split it down into five steps on helping our kids overcome disrespect. And so we're going to try to, you know, break it down, like just from the very basic value, where do we start? How do we build more respect in our kids if we have, if we're dealing with basic.
00:07:22
Speaker
disrespect in our homes so respect and obedience are very very interconnected like you can't really separate one from the other and this is just like a fundamental belief in you know in our house if you are not obeying your parents you're disrespecting your parents um you know that kind of thing and so you know just basic obedience like starting from the very time their very time they're the time they're very youngest toddlers and so like
00:07:52
Speaker
I tell you to pick up your toys and then if you don't pick up your toys, then I take your hand and I teach you how to pick up toys because that is teaching your obedience and then by extension that's teaching your respect. Right. This seems almost unfair to start off with. We'll just teach them to obey and then all your problems will go away. Yeah, we get that that's the main thing we're working on the entire time. We are parents to children at home, right?
00:08:16
Speaker
But obviously, if you want your children to be respectful, but they still don't even listen to you in the simplest of things, then that's where we need to start, right? When I ask you to do this thing, you need to follow through and do it. I'll remind you guys once again to go back and listen to our episode with guest, Andy Martineau. We shared her book that she wrote recently on Instagram.
00:08:36
Speaker
because she has a really, really unique way of parenting where you choose connection over correcting the bad behaviors, and this is an excellent place to start. I highly recommend the book. Anyway, even just re-listening to that episode because if you feel like there's a major breakdown in your relationship with your children, connecting will be the long-term solution to that misbehavior, right?
00:08:57
Speaker
Right. And if you're well connected to your kids, they'll obey you and respect.
Connecting vs Correcting in Parenting
00:09:03
Speaker
They'll obey and respect you even like when they don't want to, because there's like a connection with you that they don't want to disturb. Right, right. I love the thought of we, you know, how do they say it? When we want our children to behave better, we actually have to make them feel better first. We don't make them behave better by making them feel worse.
00:09:23
Speaker
And yet somehow, over the generations we've been taught, well, we discipline and we do these things to make our children feel shame or bad about themselves, and then they'll fix themselves. Well, does that work for us? Nope, sure doesn't. When I feel ashamed, I don't want to get better. I just want to get angry. Building our children up will help them want to be better people.
00:09:42
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. This is a hard one, but we encourage you to work, continue working on obedience with your kids, because this will make your entire home a happier place and it will make life easier across the board, like for you and for your kids. They, they really, um, we're going to talk about it here a little bit more in, in a second, but this really gives them.
00:10:04
Speaker
security in their home with you when they know that this is just something they can fall back on. We are respectful and we obey. Yes, yes, yes. And when that becomes your family culture too, they know what to expect. Like you say, they know that this will be allowed and this will be frowned upon and they know what to expect from their siblings and they're not going to be perfect either, but they know that they can come to you and say, hey, I really felt disrespected in this way or another and mom will follow through with some consequences because that's our family culture is to show each other respect.
00:10:33
Speaker
Okay, so number two on the steps to teaching respect is to teach them the value of something greater than themselves.
Respect for Higher Powers
00:10:41
Speaker
Okay, so I think it's pretty common
00:10:45
Speaker
In fact, I've never met a person who has not in some way or another rebelled just a little bit at some point during childhood or young adulthood, right? It's just kind of human nature. We're like, well, even the really good kids that have always obeyed without question, eventually they stand back and go, why am I doing this? There has to be a greater purpose, right? And so whether it's rules or what the parent says or against laws even, if that's their highest level, their highest allegiance is to the law or to their parents,
00:11:14
Speaker
They might get to the point where they want to rebel against that too. There has to be something even higher than that. And so for us, it's God. It's this respect for someone who will hold them accountable to these rules and these morals that is way higher than themselves and way higher than mom and dad. In the end, what we are teaching our children is to be respectful to their own values. We want to teach them their own value system so that they can grow up and live according to that, not just living according to our
00:11:42
Speaker
rules here at home. That's not my main priority. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yes, it does. It sure does. This is actually where the security part comes in for kids. This is actually very comforting because here's the key. They don't have to be the authority. See if they don't believe in a higher God, if they don't believe in a greater good,
00:12:02
Speaker
then they have to be the ultimate authority. And that is such a burden for kids. But when they know you respect and obey a higher power and you're encouraging them to respect and obey a higher power, then they don't have to be in control. They have knowledge that there is a greater, greater power in control. And I have to kind of share something here my husband's been saying.
00:12:26
Speaker
for a while is kind of this social justice society that we're in right now is a sign of people not or fewer people believing in a higher God like a God that is in control and there will be justice someday ultimately so people have to seek this justice for themselves because they don't believe in a higher power that's in control and then ultimately justice
00:12:50
Speaker
will happen. So it's interesting. Yeah. So it's so comforting for kids because they don't have to be the greater power that it's out there beyond them. And, and also then of course you teach them that this greater power, this God loves them and wants the best for them. And that's really where the comfort and the security starts coming in.
00:13:10
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And as I was thinking,
Generational Shifts in Respect
00:13:12
Speaker
as you were saying, not only do they not have to be the expert about anything, but not even their parents. Because that ends up being a real shift for kids too, about 18, 19, 20. They start stepping back and realizing, my parents don't really know anything either. They're just these human beings that are doing the best they know how to do. And that can be a real foundation-shaking event. Like, oh, my parents. Oh, shoot. They're fallible too. But again, with that foundation of, but God isn't.
00:13:38
Speaker
and he's got me, whether my parents screw up majorly or not, because some of us do, and cause major issues, but what a confident way of seeing the world. Yeah. If you want to dig into this a little bit deeper, I would suggest you go read some books or follow Dr. Jordan Peterson. He's a real good one for amplifying this idea.
00:14:01
Speaker
Okay, moving on to number three, teach, reverence, and honor. This is like a step away from it and it goes hand in hand with teaching about God.
00:14:13
Speaker
reverence and honor. Okay, yes, this is a very interesting concept that I've thought about a lot. It seems to me that in the past couple generations, that respect for really anything outside of themselves is kind of gone for the youth, right? Young adults, they just don't, there's not a lot of that. I want to go out and be a good contributing member of society anymore. And I'm really hoping to breathe that into my children. Yeah, you know, it's almost like, it's exactly the opposite of what
00:14:42
Speaker
some of the previous generations, like even some of our parents still had instilling in us. Like, you know, respect for yourself is bad. And now we're like, yourself is the only thing you can respect. Like, it's just like, flip the switch. And you guys know us, we don't advocate, you know, self-loathing and all that. We've talked about all that, okay? But we do demand respect from ourselves.
00:15:11
Speaker
Two others and then from our children like when we have that for ourselves we we don't it's not too much to ask our children too because we've seen the fruits of it from Past generations like our grandparents generation that we're taught to respect and be respectful and we like that We like what we see so teaching the next generation to honor something like your country like a flag um
00:15:33
Speaker
like religion, like other people's beliefs, like the laws of your country, just something, like there's benefits, it will serve them in many ways, like not even just, I mean, yes, they'll respect you and that's awesome, we need that, but it goes beyond.
00:15:51
Speaker
Yes, I am so grateful that you brought that aspect up of being able to see something outside of yourself, right? So like you're saying, our grandparent's generation was maybe a little bit too invested in everyone else to the point of self-sacrifice and an unhealthy emotional
00:16:09
Speaker
boundary type issue that happened a lot and now we've swung the pendulum completely in the opposite direction and we have our own truths and our own sense of self and what anybody else says doesn't matter because if it's not my truth i don't live it it's like well i don't know that you know
00:16:25
Speaker
Surely there's a happy medium where we respect others' choices, they respect ours, and we live in community together, right?
Cultural Observations on Respect
00:16:34
Speaker
And we're able to honor and have reverence for things that are special to us and to others, right? That's another thing is there's just not a lot of things that are special to people, that are reverent to people, that require honor. One example of this is I traveled to Israel and Egypt several years ago with my husband. It was a fascinating trip.
00:16:52
Speaker
And what I loved about Israel was just how religious the entire country was. Unlike Europe, there was no pornography on the streets. They were clean streets. The people were dressed very conservatively. There were families everywhere. I was just really, really impressed at what a beautiful and family-oriented country it was in general. And I think a lot of it was some of this, this reverence and honor for something greater than them.
00:17:20
Speaker
We need a little bit more of this going on in America.
00:17:24
Speaker
Yes, yes, that is for sure. More respect is going to benefit everybody in the country, not just us or our families. Think bigger than just us. Okay, so number four, the one that we don't love to talk about, but it's just as important as all the rest, and that's to teach by example. What are they seeing when they see their parents
00:17:50
Speaker
Act in regards to respecting things what do they see you respect do you have a hard fast line that you won't cross in regards to certain things yeah so think about an exam and put the magnifying glass on how you act and speak in regards to things that should be respected like caring for the Plants animals the planet our earth that was created you know
00:18:12
Speaker
God the rest of God's creation. How do we treat that? Honoring others beliefs, even if they're different than ours, like just kind of a basic respect. Caring for your own property, for things in your home, for the food that's been prepared for you, for
00:18:29
Speaker
you know, the land. We talk a lot about stewardship of the land that we're living on here on our farm and prayer, religious services, all these kind of things. So examine how we exemplify that for our kids.
00:18:45
Speaker
I think I mentioned this before, but we pray before each meal, and our prayers were starting to get a little bit on the chaotic side. Some kid would be still walking around, and some kid would be going to take a drink, and finally my husband just put the kibosh. He's like, everyone sits, everyone closes eyes. There's no touching, there's no talking, because it just very easily loses control, especially when you are outnumbered to the extent that
00:19:08
Speaker
I am, and Audrey is. But to just, that was a hard, fast line for us. We do not disrespect God by doing whatever we want while we're communicating with him. And you get to decide what that is
Modeling Respect and Accountability
00:19:20
Speaker
in your home. Maybe you really require respect for people more than anything else, or you have something that you want to hold kids accountable to more than anything else. Start with one thing. Start with one area that you really want to teach.
00:19:32
Speaker
and made by example, right? Okay. And then finally, number five is to make sure that there are consequences that you are comfortable with enforcing when disrespect comes up and enforce them with love. Okay. So this is how kids work. They like to push boundaries. They like to figure out where mom's actually going to snap. What? Like, can I do this? Can I do this? And so there has to be boundaries. There have to be the consequences for bad behavior, but they don't need to be enforced out of anger.
00:20:00
Speaker
or malice or any of those things that can be enforced with love, with a connecting relationship, right? Natural consequences are always the best. And with disrespect, those come pretty quickly, right? If you disrespect another sibling, they're probably going to hit your back.
00:20:16
Speaker
I don't know that we encourage that, but there are some things that we don't have to do anything about sometimes that just things happen, right? If you are disrespectful to an animal, that animal will treat you unkindly and maybe hurt you, right? But maybe the earth, if a child litters, you make sure that child is responsible for picking that garbage up and throwing it away, right?
00:20:34
Speaker
Um, if they disrupt someone's quiet time, maybe it's, um, they have to go and apologize and see if they can make it up to them in some way or another. So, uh, you have to get creative a little bit, but anywhere that it's possible, let those natural consequences roll. Right. If you broke it, now you don't have it anymore. That's a pretty black and white consequence. Yeah. So teaching with love, like parenting with love, disciplining with love, um, in a, in a good relationship, this is the best way to help kids learn. Um, because.
00:21:02
Speaker
We can't control them and their lack of respect, but we can and must control our way of teaching them to respect and like the discipline and the love and that's like that's on us. That's what we'll be answering for. So we encourage and lift and guide them.
00:21:22
Speaker
We show it to them, but then in the end of the day, you know, the, the choice is theirs. And like, my belief is like, while they're in my home, I require a certain level of respect, but you know, when, when they're out and they're an adult, then that's on them. Like I gave them all the tools they needed to be respectful people. But, um, you know, in the end, if I taught it to them and they're not using it, that's on them. Right. Right. Right.
00:21:50
Speaker
You know, I'm reminded that in past generations sometimes the discipline of children was not even particularly respectful to the child. And that's one thing that I'm glad to see a lot of us coming back from where we can discipline and teach our children with love and respect.
Respectful Discipline
00:22:08
Speaker
How do we teach respect if our discipline is disrespectful to the child, right? Even a three-year-old deserves some respect, right? And we teach that through our own lessons. So it can be something as simple as,
00:22:18
Speaker
Oh, you know that was a choice that went against our rules. I'm so sorry you made that choice. Now, this is the consequence. I hate when that happens. And a hug and a love, and I'll come get you when the consequence is over, whatever. That is mind-blowing for a little child to realize I'm worthy of love and acceptance. I just messed up. And so next time, I'm probably going to try to do a little better. Or maybe I won't for a while. But that's on them. They know that we will always be a loving place and a respectful parent.
00:22:48
Speaker
So at this point, we would encourage you guys to go out, look at your lives, look at areas where you're seeing a lot of disrespect, either from yourself or your children, and pick one or two to focus on, right? A few other areas that you might want to consider encouraging respect, just to give you ideas, are maybe how they speak with elders, right? This used to be a huge thing, right? You look anyone older than you in the eye and you shake their hand firmly and you speak in complete sentences and all these things. And kids just don't really do that anymore, so that could be a fun one to start with.
00:23:16
Speaker
Learning to be quiet where that's appropriate, right? In a church service or in a, I don't know, I almost said courtroom. I don't know how many children are frequently in courtrooms, but any place where they're required to be a little bit more subdued, right? Not touching or messing with other people's possessions. I'm sure every family can work on that, right?
00:23:37
Speaker
learning more about someone who's different from them, right? There have been an influx of immigrants and refugees coming to our country in all different areas. That could be a great chance to learn about someone who's vastly different from them, has different religious beliefs and dress and language and food and everything, and to learn to respect them, even though they don't understand everything that they do.
00:23:59
Speaker
Yeah, I just want to share a couple little examples here of additional ways that we teach our kids respect. So let's say, for example, the kids broke something. Let's go back to the oven door example. So the natural consequence is to talk about what's going to be done to be able to replace this. But then we talk about not only respecting the money
00:24:24
Speaker
Um, that, you know, it belongs to mommy and daddy and respect that. But then like the money that mommy and daddy have to spend on replacing this, that we won't be able to be spending on other things. And then, um, think about the time that daddy spent making this money so that we can replace it. So like you're disrespecting his time when you just destroy things, tear things up.
00:24:47
Speaker
And then another thing that we do to teach respect is just a respect for life in our family.
Respect for Life and Empathy
00:24:54
Speaker
And so we do things like grow,
00:24:58
Speaker
chicks from eggs hatch them into incubator and just that amazing amount of respect that a kid has when they watch the entire process and then as part of the experience they go and they take apart the eggs that didn't hatch and what happened here and you know so and then raising the chickens we have lots of animals here that we raise but let's just continue with chicks so we raise those chicks and then we
00:25:22
Speaker
You know, we feed them and we water them and heaven forbid one of them dies because we didn't properly care for it. That is a natural consequence and that is something we talk about. And that is a lack of respect for life. And then, you know, then we get to the point where, yes, we're growing these chicks.
00:25:38
Speaker
these chickens for meat and so respecting the life that this chick chicken gave that we helped it have because we cared for it from the beginning to the end um so that we can have food and just like the thankfulness
00:25:52
Speaker
to both God and the time that we spent and all that. So part of our animal husbandry that we do is teaching a respect for just the basic concept of life. And that is like a huge one on our list of what we want our kids to respect. That is so powerful. Talking about the respect for life,
00:26:14
Speaker
That's something that is that I have had to learn over the past few years in regards to creepy crawlies. So this is something that we have had to figure out during homeschooling because I want my children to have that respect for life from the ground up. And I want them to learn.
00:26:31
Speaker
But I don't like bugs. I really, really don't like bugs. And so I have had to try really hard to show an example of, you know, fascination and curiosity and, oh, look at this interesting bug. And I wonder why God created it like this. And I wonder what its purpose is instead of just, oh, squish it. I'm a city girl now living on a little bit of property. So spiders are also not my thing and they're everywhere. So I'm working really hard on it.
00:26:55
Speaker
getting over my own issues. Anyway, that's been a really fascinating lesson for me to learn to exemplify love for all creatures, great and small. Yeah. And you know, that's something, it's not that we don't squish bugs around here. I mean, obviously you've got to, you've got to smack the bugs, but we talk about exactly like you do. Like why, what is this bug's purpose? Like why was it here on earth besides just to make us go, ew.
00:27:22
Speaker
Yes, and I do try to get my kids to release bugs if they find him in the house sometimes.
00:27:29
Speaker
I do also teach them that if they find black widows, they're required to kill them for good reason. Obviously, it depends on the situation, but we don't allow cockroaches to run rampant in our home, that sort of thing. It's just been an interesting shift for me who grew up thinking that all bugs were icky, so curious. My final thought is regarding remorse and apology. When we disrespect other people or other people's property,
00:27:56
Speaker
we will probably feel some remorse or we hope that our children will feel some remorse. And this can be a tricky thing. In fact, we might have to do an entire episode on this because obviously you can't force someone to have remorse for something. The best thing you can do is try to teach them, try to put themselves in someone else's shoes, right? Oh my goodness. It looks like you destroyed her puzzle. That's very sad. She took her a long time. Think for a minute about something you've worked on for a long time and a sibling came and broke it. Do you remember your Lego?
00:28:24
Speaker
that somebody came and broke, that was really hard, huh? I wonder what you can do to make them feel better. And again, there's some balance there between, you know, you don't want to shame your child, but to try to develop that natural feeling of empathy for your children is really important. Okay, guys, so to sum it up, five steps you can use to teach
00:28:45
Speaker
Your children respect is number one, basic obedience.
Summary of Respect-Building Steps
00:28:48
Speaker
That is so tightly interwoven with respect. Number two, teach them the value of something greater than them and then you. And then number three, teach reverence and honor, basic respect for things.
00:29:01
Speaker
that are lower than God, but outside of you and your home. Number four, you know it. Teach by example. Where are you lacking in respect? And then number five, enforce the consequences with love. You can't just talk about it and not follow up on it. So we hope these five steps really help you guys and your families in obtaining a little more respect. So that's it for this week, you guys. I'm Audrey. I'm Bonnie, and we're outnumbered.
00:29:30
Speaker
Thanks for listening friends. Click the link in the show notes to subscribe to our email and never miss another episode. Show us some love by leaving a review on iTunes or sharing the podcast with a friend. Thanks for all your support. We'll talk to you next week.