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| Teaching Children Respect |
 Adults don't say, "What do you say?" or "What's the magic word?" to our friends but children hear it all the time. If we want children to always say please and thank you, we must always say please and thank you to them and to each other, otherwise we are modeling that sometimes you say it and sometimes you don't. Keep in mind, children imitate what we do. If you want your children to have manners, to share, to apologize, to be honest, kind, respectful, and loving, you must do and be those things so they will have that model to imitate.
Normally, children imitate parents, family members, friends, caregivers, teachers, and television. The more children are out in the world, the more models they will be exposed to. We can be more selective of what models we expose our children to, especially television, while we can't keep children from ever seeing models of the kind of behavior we don't want them to imitate. We must work on modeling the behavior we expect and not modeling behavior we don't want to see in them, since parents are the primary models in the early years.
You probably remember the ancient wisdom "what goes around, comes around," and, "as you sow, so shall you reap," applies to how we teach children. Moving from the disrespectful way of teaching through criticizing, lecturing and giving orders, to teaching children through conscious, intentional modeling, takes time and practice and a willingness to look at and from time to time change our own behavior.
A lot of the disrespectful things we say and do to children aren't even intentional. When our buttons get pushed, our old "tapes" just automatically play. If you want to learn to teach respect by intentional modeling, do not hesitate, it is simple; it's unlearning the old ways that is difficult. If a child doesn't behave in the ways we want, ask yourself, "Am I providing a model of the behavior I am expecting of my child?" When you don't you’re your child’s behavior, you must ask yourself, "Am I modeling that behavior?" If you can honestly answer, "No," then something else is causing the behavior.
You can train yourself to stop and think before you speak, by remembering that everything you say will be recorded and imitated. You can stop or at least interrupt those old recordings and intentionally model the kind of behavior you expect and will accept from your children. You teach children respect, when you give children the same respect you expect. How you treat them is what you teach them.
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