Comments on: Teaching Children Respect

By: Pat Baker

Pat Baker — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 12:30:52 +0000

Excellent article! I’ve worked in Nursing Homes and have “met” that man’s son. I got into a conversation with a son one day who rarely visited his dad. He wanted to justify to me why and his excuse went along the lines of having poor examples growing up and trying to do better then his parents had. That was a long time ago and I’d forgotten about that conversation until I read your peice. Thanks!

By: sweta

sweta — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 05:33:16 +0000

HI, i am Sweta. I am a mother of 3nhalf yr old kid. I am very happy to find this site to guide my kid and to teach him in more better way.

By: Ana

Ana — Mon, 24 May 2010 19:07:56 +0000

Wow!!! I’m surprised there are only a few comments. Thanks for reminding me that teaching is by example… God Bless you!!!

By: Anna

Anna — Sat, 15 May 2010 11:59:05 +0000

As a preschool teacher in a church-based school, I have an advantage in that I can talk to my three’s about the Golden Rule – treat others the way you want to be treated. (It’s a great rule for everyone, but somehow, it’s now seen as too religious to be taught in other places.) Children are able to get it, if you just keep talking about what it means and modeling it. After a while, you can hear them using it with each other. It takes a tremendous amount of work, but I’d like to think we are making a positive impact. Maybe it will make a difference when we get older and these children are the ones looking after us.
Glad you brought this up and for this wonderful illustration, Ellen. I plan on sharing it.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Fri, 14 May 2010 18:22:02 +0000

WIth my now 10 year old daughter who has special needs, we respect each other (which is expected).She knows that I’ll always be her mom, and that when she becomes an adult than we can bond as friends.

By: Linda Baker

Linda Baker — Fri, 14 May 2010 11:34:16 +0000

Great, and very inspiring. I had hoped you would have gone and got the old man his egg mcmuffin!

By: Breda

Breda — Fri, 14 May 2010 07:54:45 +0000

Hi Ellen,

Thank you for this thought provoking story. Some of the thoughts it provoked in me (in no particular order):

1) It seems to me that the father was trying to teach his son something of value but, without respect. As an old man in a nursing home he may well benefit from his son’s determination to get him the best care he can and his ‘won’t take no for an answer’ approach. By then too, the son may have come to realise the weakness in his father’s approach and learnt himself how to moderate his own drive to get something done with the respect missing in his childhood.

2) What’s the good intention behind the father’s behaviour – in a highly competitive and individualistic culture that determination to get what you want is highly prized as well as necessary, and is utilised by many to ‘succeed’, in the terms of the culture anyway (mercedes benz). So given his environment the father was trying to help his son to the skills that would help him not to be among the downtrodden (Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘I’d rather be a hammer than a nail’ summed this up brilliantly for a whole new generation).

3) The boy clearly had not yet lost his sense of right behaviour as the fact that the father was verbalising the lesson as well as demonstrating it suggests that the boy felt and had somehow expressed unease with the injustice of his father’s overbearing behaviour.

4) In a culture of self-help (based on the belief that I can be whatever I want to be, and i have the right, and duty, to strive to satisfy my ambitions) we need what you are offering – a way to help us connect with the good in ourselves and our children, and to connect with and respect the good in those around us. We need this to be the person we were born to be and to ‘be the change we want to see’

5) it is an illusion to imagine that we are the author’s of our own destiny, we need each other and your raising small souls initiative is contributing to helping us realise that and equipping us to play our part towards the solution to the world’s problems (all problems are human problems)

6) Thank you for your excellent contribution to bringing out the best in ourselves and in others!

7) Boy, your bus service was slow!

By: Lisa

Lisa — Fri, 14 May 2010 03:35:22 +0000

Awesome thats all I can say…..This is soo true. Thanks for the great article on this!!

By: Beth

Beth — Fri, 14 May 2010 03:20:53 +0000

Thank you for another inspirational article, Ellen, very thought-provoking. Hmmm…