Teaching Children Respect

Weekly Parenting Tips - How to Teach Kids Respect
by Jennifer Shakeel

Respect is an amazing thing. I believe that respect is something that has to be earned, but I also believe that in order to be respected you have to show respect to others. If you take a look at our youth of today you can’t help but notice that they are the most disrespectful group of children this world has ever seen. Before you start pointing fingers or offering up excuses as to why children are this way I want you to stop and look in the mirror. What are you doing to teach your child/children respect?

I ask this because one of my favorite pastimes is people watching. I don’t mean that in some sick sort of way, I simply mean paying attention to the way people interact with one another and towards one another. This includes children and adults. I believe one problem is that parents do not respect their children and therefore children not only don’t respect their parents, they have no respect for anyone including themselves. Wait, before you get upset, I am not saying that you don’t love your children or that you are a bad parent. I simply saying that maybe parents aren’t paying attention to the way they interact with their kids and that is leading to a severe lack of respect. I am far from a perfect parent, and many times find myself guilty of this also. What is important in my opinion, is that we think more about how we interact with our children, and how our children interact with us and others.