Every child will test the waters at some point to see how far they can go. It’s part of the growing process where they learn what is appropriate behavior and what is not. While you may not be able to be there at every moment a child is with an adult, you can certainly teach your child the proper respect they should show.
We are very aware of how kids these days are being very disrespectful to their parents, their teachers, to neighbours, even to random adults on the street… We all think that our children won’t do that, but do we teach them how to show respect to people around them?
Here are some tips on how to deal with disrespectful children and how to teach them to show respect.
How to handle disrespectful children
Respect Is A Two-Way Street
One way to teach your disrespectful children respect is to give respect to them. Respect is a mutual thing and not something they will get just because they are older or because of their status. It is important to teach your child that respect is earned, not given and the way to do this is be respectful yourself so they follow in your footsteps.
They can’t learn anything about respect, if you don’t give it to them.
Don’t Be Afraid To Discipline Disrespectful Children
When your child is being disrespectful, it is important to call them out on it. You don’t have to embarrass them in front of others by pointing out their mistake but sometimes it is a good idea to take them aside later and explain to them what they did wrong. This way you will have their full attention, they can ask questions and you can explain fully how they were disrespectful. Depending on your child this could be a great learning opportunity for them and they probably won’t make that same mistake again.
Don’t Reinforce the Behavior
If your child is screaming at you and being disrespectful don’t engage in the same behavior. Ignore the child until they are able to speak to you in a calm and relaxed voice. Go over the boundaries and if your child starts again with the complaining, simply ignore them again. Soon they will see the only way for them to get their message across is with a respectful tone. When they realize that disrespectful tone will just make them not heard, next time they will think twice before they start with yelling and screaming.
As you can see, life doesn’t have to be a struggle when your child pushes the limits. How we react is often how our child reacts so it’s important to keep calm and collected. Speak to your child with respect and they will show the same respect back to you as well as other adults.
I know it’s sometimes hard to keep our cool, but we need to remember one thing in these situations – we are the adults, we are the example, we are the mirror.
How do you teach your child respect? I think this is one of those life lessons we should teach our kids. They will not learn respect by themselves. Share your thoughts in the comment section.
You are right, respecting each other should be a wonderful thing we can do as human being.
Yes, that is so true – and we should all teach our kids that.
It’s never to early to start teaching kids these lessons. Make them part of every day life and it makes things so much easier as they get older.
Thanks for linking up to Marvelous Monday on Smart Party Planning.
This is very important to us. Our son takes Tang Soo Do and it’s be so helpful in teaching respect for one another as well as displine. Great post. (found you on Marvelous Mondays)
This is something we’re working hard on with our pre schooler currently. Thanks for the encouragment!
I agree. Everyone deserves respect.
Great post, and so very true. I love that you mentioned that children should be called out when they’re disrespectful. It doesn’t have to be done in a mean way but we have to let them know being disrespectful won’t fly. Stopping by from The Mommy Monday blog hop.
I didn’t hear of Tang Soo Do – sounds really interesting, I need to check it out!
What a great article. I always felt respect and manners were so important and were one of the first things I taught my child. Thanks for sharing this at the This Is How We Roll Link party. Your post was one of our favorites and has been shared on 4 bloggers social media. See you next week.
Wow, thank you, I am so happy you liked it 🙂
AMEN! Great post. Too many parents are allowing their children to be disrespectful. I am so glad you shared this. I hope that this makes it viral. I am scared to think about what kind of world we will be in if all these disrespectful, overindulged children become our future! AAAHHHH!