I grew up in an environment where the act of giving respect was reserved for elders and by the time I was a teenager I had already experienced the wrath of adults who perceived me as a disrespectful child.
I remember one day my father came home furious because a neighbor had informed him they saw me kiss a boy. I was probably 13-years-old and he said he didn’t want an extra plate to feed ( He was afraid of me falling pregnant), he also said I was disrespectful to him and the family's reputation by kissing a boy. .
He felt very strongly that my adolescence and attraction to a boy was ruining his reputation as a disciplinarian and my aunt agreed, she further suggested I was probably already having sex.
At the time I didn’t know much about sex and nobody had told me much about it. I had a crush on a boy who also had a crush on me so we kissed. I did not even notice anyone see me.
From that day my privacy was violated, they would read my diary and confront me about what’s in it and developed a general disregard for my feelings and opinions.
They were teaching me that respect is reserved for them and what I was experiencing was insignificant compared to the respect they required from me as someone younger than them. That respect for authority was more important than the supported I needed from them at the time.
I understand they didn’t know better, for the most part, were parenting how they were parented and out of fear. Today I’m able to engage the importance of respect for myself and others, respect for my time and theirs, my body and theirs, my choices and theirs and the general idea of respect for me now has less to do with respecting authority.
Respect has more to do with; “Due regard for the feelings and rights of others” and "a deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities or achievements, and accepting people for who they are“.
My children and my childhood have forced me to interrogate what respect means because I want to raise children who are respected and give it where it’s due.
We demand and expect children to respect us and the rules we make but don't talk about the value we get when we lead by example and respect children first.
For instance, I was recently helping my son with homework and I give him a stern instruction because I felt he was being difficult, he was very irritated and responded to me by saying “nywe nywe nywe” which is equivalent to “blah blah blah”.
That took me from 0 to 100 real quick and I had to take time out because I felt disrespected by someone who I was helping and who is younger than me, I mean who did he think he was?
But I did some reflection and realised my son took those words in that tone from me. I had said that to him in the recent past and he gave me a moment of “you get what you give”- because children learn from our actions.
The importance of respecting my child before I expect him to respect me hit me in the face. I had to apologise and do better.
Children need to be respected to thrive, but more importantly for their relationship with us their parents, and others to flourish.
Here are the few things I’ve found to be the main reason why I believe that we need to respect children before we expect them to respect us.
Love- respect is an expression of love. When I respect my kids it’s an extension of my love for them
Learning - Children are not born with a concept of what respect is, they need to learn, by respecting them we are modeling what it looks like. They learn what it means to respect others and not just an authority figure. This helps them navigate relationships with others better.
Protection- Children are vulnerable because of their age and development. When we respect them regardless of their stage of development we lessen the chances of harming them. We also teach them that we can respect each other despite our differences.
Safety - I was taught to respect adults because they are adults. That also meant respecting people who didn’t deserve it because they prey on children and harm them. Such a person is not worthy of my children's respect. Especially in a world where children are abused and sexually abused-respecting their bodily autonomy is important.
Accountability - When we respect children it teaches us to be accountable for our actions and does the same for them.
Building healthy relationships- I child who is respected, like you and me will respect others and build better relationships with people. When we operate from a place of respect, conflict resolution also becomes healthy and much easier.
Kindness - We talk a lot about how kids are mean to each other, its true. There are many reasons why kids become mean to each other and one of them is that more often than not, bullied kids bully others. When we respect children we teach them kindness, they become very considerate to others.
All the above will not happen overnight, it takes time, consistency and effort, here are some ways I believe we should respect children that take nothing away from us;
We watch what we say to them and the words we use.
We apologise when we are wrong.
We let them voice their opinions and listen attentively when they speak.
We are gentle and empathetic.
We allow them to voice their concerns about the way we parent them and give them room to guide us on how to parent them better.
We don’t interpret every behavior from a child as a sign of disrespect to us. We find the root of why they behave the way they do and work through it with them.
We don’t attach our children’s behavior to our reputation regardless of who we are. This means there is no contest for the parent of the most well-behaved child. That’s not why we raise kids, we raise them to be their own persons, with their dreams, ambitions, and healthy relationships.
We respect their feelings.
We respect their bodies, if our children don't want to give their uncle or auntie a kiss, lets respect that.
We give them age-appropriate information on sex and sexuality so they have the tools to make a better decision.
Essentially we treat children the way we want to be treated.
Let me know how you are learning to respect your children and how it has added value to your lives in the comment section.
Comentários