RESPECT: How to Get It, How to Instill It In Your Kids ... For Good!

Teaching good manners builds foundation of self-control and confidence.

As we read the classic Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder, my 10-year-old daughter gasped in surprise at the good manners expected of the children. During dinner, the characters Laura and Mary were to be seen but not heard. “Did that really happen?” Rachel asked.

“Yes,” I responded with a laugh. “A lot has changed since then.”

“Many children today have lost respect for their parents with good reason,” says Rita Woodard, a certified etiquette instructor at Southern Grace in Murfreesboro. “Children are being raised on fast food and microwave meals. Families are not sitting down together at the dinner table as much as the generations before them.”

Why? “Many modern parents declare it old-fashioned and turn up their noses at the importance of teaching manners — an antiquated ritual, super uncool,” says Aaron Cooper, co-author of I Just Want My Kids to be Happy: Why You Shouldn’t Say It, Why You Shouldn’t Think It, What You Should Embrace Instead (Late August Press; $15.95) . “What well-intentioned moms and dads forget is that acquiring manners is one of the earliest ways to help kids develop self-control. And self-control, experts agree, is a key element in paving the foundation for a happy life.”

“Quite often the typical family is going in many different directions with sports, electronics, social lives, church, etc.,” says etiquette consultant and advisor Roxy Blomstrom, founder of Manners Matter School of Protocol in Franklin. “Often we are busy with the stuff of life and need to diligently make time for our children regarding meals together, play, games, vacations or just sitting down and enjoying each other’s company.”

It makes the kids unhappy when parents insist on manners — and today, parents just want their kids to be happy, Cooper says. “After one or both parents have worked all day, it’s harmony they’re looking for, not the inevitable struggle when they insist on manners,” he says. Parents now would rather be “friends” with their kids than authoritative limit-setters, and friends don’t insist on manners, he says. But manners are not the same thing as respect — yet the two go hand-in-hand.

“Children must be taught parental respect from an early age,” says Carol Holland of First Impressions Consulting in Franklin. 
“Cultural and lifestyle changes in the past few decades have reduced the time and attention to such teaching.  In turn, parents have lower expectations for children’s show of respect.”