Teaching Our Children Respect: Why?

Introduction

I don’t know how many of y’all know who W. R. Jones is. But he’s the gospel preacher back in Texas. I think he’s just been preaching forever. He probably would resent me saying that, but it’s about as long as I can remember. And before that. But he wrote a little piece in his uh bulletin one time about a visit he and his wife made to the doctor’s office. I want to share it with you. He said, Recently I took my wife for her annual medical checkup. She went to the third floor, but I stayed in the lobby on the first floor. A good many mothers were getting on and off the elevator near where I sat. Many of them were carrying little babies, and in some cases other small children were following along with them.

There was one mother in particular who captured my attention. She came off the elevator carrying a young baby, a large bag, and leading a little boy between three and four years old. I don’t know what triggered the outburst, but I knew that the little boy was having the ultimate intantrums. I knew they were coming, because I could hear the screaming as they were leaving the third floor. At this point, it’s just important to remind you that he mentioned earlier he was in the lobby on the first floor. As she left the elevator with the baby in her left arm, she was dragging the little tempest in a teapot with her right hand, and he was fighting her and beating her with his baseball type cap. About the time they were in front of me, he dropped the cap, which teed off another unbelievable demonstration.

The much disturbed mother asked, now what’s wrong? To which the boy loudly replied, I dropped my hat. She responded, then pick it up. And his reply, while kicking and screaming, was, no. You pick it up.

One of those defining parenting moments. Guess what happened? She picked it up. As they leave the front door, he went into another equally severe tantrum and said, and she said, Now what’s wrong? And his reply was, can you guess? I wanted to pick it up. As they left, the first question to come to my mind was, who’s in charge? You’ve seen it before? In the park, waiting room of the doctor’s office, the grocery store, children. Who all too frequently seemed to have no respect for their parents.

We see it in our public schools with children who seem to have no respect for teachers or school officials or school property. Several years ago in Houston, I remember seeing on the news that there was a big uproar at one of the high schools. Some of the administration had passed some new policies that the students didn’t care for, and so they just walked out of school one day. Just walked out against the authority of the school officials. But what was disturbing about that scene was not what the students had done, but the parents who came and defended what their children had done. No respect for authorities. No respect for other adults at all, even in very young children. Back when we were living in the Chicago area, we had a little park up the street from us, and one afternoon, me and Heidi and Todd and Jonathan were down playing in the sand at the park.

And there was another little boy there, whose mother wasn’t paying close enough attention to him, who came over and kind of was playing where we were playing, and he started throwing sand at the boys. And Todd or John one of them came over, I don’t remember which, and was crying because he’d gotten sand in his eyes, and so I kept looking at that mom, waiting for her to do something. And she didn’t. So finally, I kind of walked over and under my breath, so she couldn’t hear me, said, You better cut that out. To which he responded by throwing sand. And we tried moving away, and he would follow. And so I said, I can fix that problem. So I just kind of moved my body between him and my kids so he couldn’t throw sand at them.

And you know what he did? He threw it at me. At which moment his much to his benefit, his mother saw what was going on and took him away. I can’t fathom as a child ever having done something like that. Can you?

And yet that happens all the time today. We see children with no respect for other adults, no respect for civil authorities. In fact, we’ve been disturbed in this country by young people who seemingly have little or no respect even for human life itself. It would be nice to think that we’re immune from that problem. That is Christians are.

Sometimes we see signs of disrespect that ought to be disturbing to us. Even among Christian families, sometimes you will hear young people speak defiantly to their parents. Or fail to respond to the instruction of their parents, and that without correction. And that’s disrespectful. Or to hear older teenagers speak contemptuously of their parents. That’s disrespectful. Young people disobey their Bible class teacher. Don’t do the work for Bible class, don’t behave in Bible class, despite the exhortations and the warnings of the teacher. My brethren, that is an indication that we have a respect problem with our young people. And even sometimes to hear young people speak contemptuously of older people. Even sometimes church leaders. It is an indication that we have a problem with respect. Respect needs to rank as one of those key values that we labor to get into the minds of our children.

And yet in the world generally, and sometimes even among ourselves, it doesn’t seem that the message is getting across. And that needs to concern us tremendously. Because there are some tremendous negative consequences that follow for children who grow up who don’t learn respect. I want you to think with me for a little while about that tonight. We’re talking all this month about family and pulling our families closer and back to the Word of God. And certainly a key part of that involves teaching them respect. I want you to answer two questions with me this evening. I want to talk to you, first of all, about why it is so important for our children to learn to be respectful. Why is it so critical that as a parent I get this message across to my kids?

1. Why It Is So Important to Learn Respect

That’s the first question we want to tackle this evening. And the first way we want to answer it is by saying this. I need to get that message across because it’s one of the things that God expects parents to instill within their children. Over and over again, we have emphasized in lessons the responsibility given to moms and dads to train their children and to prepare them for successful life as an adult. In Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 4. I know I’m citing a passage that we’re all familiar with, but let’s look at it together again. In Ephesians 6 and verse 4, and fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but listen to this. But bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Our job is to bring them up, to prepare them in every realm of their lives for adulthood. To bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. Let me ask you a question. What else should that include? What else should I be teaching them? What instruction should I be giving to them? Well, let me make a couple of suggestions. Shouldn’t parents be teaching their children to obey and honor them? In Ephesians chapter 6, in verses 1, 2, and 3. Paul would say, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. Children are supposed to grow up knowing that parents are to be honored and valued, respected and obeyed?

Where are they going to learn that? How are they going to learn that? Well, it gives the answer in verse 4. The parents instill that within their children. As well, we’re to be teaching our children to respect and honor all older people. It’s interesting if you go back to Leviticus chapter 19. The people of Israel were instructed by God to teach their children respect for the older people in the community. In Leviticus chapter 19 and verse 32, the law said, You shall rise up before the gray headed and honor the ages, aged, and you shall revere your God. I am the Lord. You catch that? In fact, it’s interesting to note the things that are put together there. You shall rise up before the gray headed, honor the aged, revere your God.

Question, where are they going to learn that? Who’s going to teach them that? Isn’t that part of our training as parents to instill within them? Or to teach them to respect those in authority over them, to respect church leaders. You know, in 1 Timothy chapter 5 and in verse 17. First Timothy 5 and verse 17, Paul would say, Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. Where do people learn to honor church leaders, to honor those in authority over them? Isn’t that something that we as parents instill within them? In fact, where do they learn to honor and respect God? But at the feet of their parents. We are the ones charged by God with the duty to train our children.

And that training includes instilling within them this respect, this sense of value and esteem for other people, particularly for God and his law. That’s our job. We’re supposed to be getting that message across. We need to do it because it’s our God-given responsibility. But let me say, secondly, there’s a reason God gives us the responsibility. We need to be teaching our children respect because it is so essential for their future happiness.

If they don’t learn from the time that they are very small to honor their own parents, then folks, they’re not going to respect anybody. And we are condemning our kids to a miserable existence as adults when they don’t learn to respect. Kids that don’t respect their parents don’t respect their teachers at school. And as a result, the education process breaks down. Your children are going to struggle to get a good education. Because they don’t have any respect for the teachers at school, because they never learned at home how to be respectful toward adults. And it’s sad to say, but there’s a lot going on in public school today that is a little more than crowd control because teachers are being forced to handle or to deal with rebellious little monsters rather than teach.

Because kids have never learned how to be respectful at home. It’s a big problem in education today. And if they don’t learn to respect us, they won’t respect the teacher at school. They’re not going to respect those in authority over them. They’re not going to respect their boss at work. I had a young man back in Chicago. That told me he got fired from his job. He was about 18, 19 years old and trying to get started out. We were trying to help him. He’d had a lot of problems. And he told me, he says, Well, I got fired from my job. I said, Why’d you get fired from your job, Daryl? He said, Well, well, you know, my boss told me I had to sweep the floor.

And there was another employee, and he didn’t tell him he had to sweep the floor, and I just didn’t think it was fair. And so I just told him I wasn’t going to do it. He got fired. I said, Well, man, don’t you understand that when he’s the boss, he can tell you to do that? Well, I just didn’t like it. That’s a young man who never learned any respect at home. And he had problems getting and holding a job. Kids that don’t learn to respect have problems with civil authorities. They have trouble keeping the laws because they weren’t made to keep the laws at home. Those who grow up in Christian homes and in the church sometimes have trouble respecting church leaders, which leads to problems in congregation.

Fact is, if they’re not taught to respect our word when they’re children, they’re not going to respect our word when they get older. A disrespectful child at eight is irritating. At eighteen, he’s a tragedy. You see, there’s going to come a time in the life of our kids where we’re going to want them to listen to us. When respect isn’t about the little things that go on at home when they’re seven, eight, nine years old. It’s about the big issues of life when they’re 18 years old. And we’re going to want them to hear us. But if they haven’t learned that respect, they’re not going to listen when they’re 18. The ultimate tragedy is they’re not going to respect God. You know, that’s where it starts.

Respect for God begins with what children learn about respecting their parents at home. If they never learn about minding and keeping the rules and submitting to those in authority and dealing honorably with them. How are they going to learn to deal that way with God? It forgives with what we as parents do in the home. I said in the beginning of the lesson, there are few values that are of greater importance and that impact our children’s life more than teaching them respect. How do we get that message across then? That’s the second question I want to talk to you about this evening. I hope that you’re impressed with the importance of this and how much it impacts our children’s lives. But how then do we teach them this respect?

2. Teach Respect by Showing Respect to Them

I want to talk to you about five things tonight, five specific things I think we can do to help get the message across. First of all, I think we teach our children respect, number one, by showing respect to them. What’s the golden rule say? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s the old rule of parenting that we talk about over and over again that says our children learn far more from what we do even than from what we say. And so if we want our children to learn respect, we need to set the right example for them. If we want them to be respectful, we need to show them respect in our lives, particularly by treating them respectfully. Someone says, Well, Dave, what do you mean by that?

Well, first of all, I think we need to speak respectfully to our children. You know, respect essentially carries the idea of value and esteem. We need to treat our children like they’re valuable and worthy of our esteem and consideration. I think that needs to be reflected in the way that we talk to them. If we want our children to say, please and thank you, I’m sorry. Excuse me. Doesn’t it make sense that it would be appropriate for us to talk to them that way? Well, we want our children to do something. We need to ask them, please, just like we want them to ask, please. And when they’ve done something like we wanted them to, to say thank you. What better way for kids to pick up on courteous talk than to just be surrounded by it in the home by the conversation of their parents?

We need to talk respectfully to them. The second thing I think we can do is to be willing to explain why to our kids. I know I don’t want to get in trouble when I say that. I know sometimes kids need to do things because I said so. In fact, that’s part of respect. But you know, kids don’t always just need to be told because I said so. Sometimes, really, that’s disrespectful of them. Sometimes we need to take a child’s feelings into account and stop and take the time to explain why. Let them know why they have to do something, or why we have to go somewhere, or why they can’t do something that they want to do. Take the time to explain why. Show them that we honor and esteem them and are concerned about them.

3. Showing Respect to Others Ourselves

One way we teach our children respect is by showing respect to them. But let me give you a second thing we need to think about this evening. Secondly, we teach our children respect by showing respect to others ourselves. Again, getting back to the example that we set. To be specific about that, husbands and wives need to treat each other respectfully, particularly in front of their children. You need to appreciate that to a large extent, guys, your children’s attitude toward your wife will be shaped by your attitude toward your wife. And ladies, how your kids feel about your husband will largely be shaped by how you feel about your husband and the way that you treat him. I think husbands and wives need to be especially careful when it comes to managing conflict in the home.

Remember that Paul warned us in Ephesians 4 and verse 26 to be angry for what? And yet do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. We need to be careful in managing our conflict to not treat each other disrespectfully. We need to be careful not to lose our temper and wind up treating our spouse badly in the middle of a conflict. Because remember, little eyes and ears are watching and listening. I had a friend of mine tell me one time, he and his wife were having some big marriage problems. And they were always at each other or not treating each other very respectfully. In fact, he’d get kind of put out with her, and he just kind of throughed his arms in a huff and just turn around like this when he’d get mad at her.

And he said, he really hadn’t thought about that until one day his wife was getting on to their son, and you know, you shouldn’t do that. And he looked up at him and he went, and he turned around and he saw himself in the eyes of his seven-year-old son. That’s just what where did he learn how to do that? Just watch a daddy do it tomorrow. I’ll tell you something. Guys, if you find your kids don’t respect your wife very much. Maybe what we need to do is look at how we’re treated. And ladies, if you find that your children don’t seem to respect your husband very much, maybe that has something to do with the way that we treat each other. I think just as a rule, it’s better to avoid settling conflict in front of our children as married couples.

But if we’re going to do that, we need to be sure that we treat each other appropriately. And let me add that when we don’t, then we need to respect our spouse and our kids enough to do what? To go back in front of our children and apologize and say, I’m sorry. That’s not an appropriate way for me to treat your mom or your dad. We need to teach them respect by showing it toward each other in the home. And let me suggest, secondly, that we need to show respect toward our own parents and even our in-laws. You know, children don’t have to be very old to begin to pick up our disrespect we might show toward our own parents and toward the parents of our spouse.

Now, what does that teach a kid? If he hears dad talking bad about grandma and grandpa and speaking contemptuously about them, what’s he learned about that? Kids don’t have to be respectful to their parents? Or at least by the time you turn 18, you don’t have to anymore.

Even if as we get older we have disagreement with our parents and in-laws over important issues. They are our parents, worthy of our respect. And we ought to treat other adults generally with respect if we want that message to get across to our children. I remember when I moved to Joliet, before going there, there had been some real problems in the church, and there were some people in the church who really had issues with our elders there.

And they said some really some critical and inappropriate things about our elders. But I’ll tell you what was interesting about that. About six months after I’d been there, I went in and started teaching the high school kids. And I started hearing from the high school kids how they felt about things. And guess what? Some of these little ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth grade young men and women, started saying some of the very unkind things about the elders that I’ve heard their parents say about the elders a few months earlier. Isn’t it interesting how they all happen to come to the same conclusion about the elders? Where do you think they learned that? Well, I’m suspicious that they learned it in the back seat of the car on the way home from worship.

As they listen to mom and dad talk about, well, kid, you believe, and they did, and I can’t believe, and I just these guys, and can you see what I’m saying?

4. Insist That Our Children Treat Us Respectfully

If we want our children to respect others, older people, then we must treat them respectfully, keeping in mind that what we do carries a whole lot more weight than what we say. Let me suggest to you, thirdly, tonight that we need to insist that our children treat us respectfully. Like the incident described in the introduction, many children today are allowed to be belligerent and even abusive to their parents with little or no consequence. Let me be specific about that. It is disturbing to see even preschool age children who will yell at their parents and throw tantrums that are allowed to go unaddressed. Or to see children who defiantly resist their parents, who tell their parents no, and who are ignored with no consequences. The problem is that such parents are not insisting that their children treat them respectfully.

And when they don’t, their children never will. Point is if we want to learn, want our children to learn respect, it begins with the way they treat us at home. And we must be clear that we will accept less than respectful treatment from them all the time.

But I can still remember her saying to me, well, she said it more to the other kids in the family than to me. I can still remember these words, they’re burned permanently in my memory. Your behavior is rude and disrespectful. Those words were always linked in our house. And this is my house, and you can’t treat me that way in my house. Not here. May I suggest that that is what every one of us should insist from our children. This is our home. And when you’re living in my house, you will speak to me respectfully, because I’m your mom or I’m your dad. Don’t allow your child to defiantly say no to your instruction without some serious consequence. Listen, if the kid will even say it, there’s a problem.

But if they do, mom said, Dad, that’s a call to action. We need to be moving. If our kid looks up at us and says no to some instruction that they’re given. Don’t let your kids ignore you. Y’all ever seen that? Here’s a parent, maybe in a room of people, and a child across the room is misbehaving, and the dad says, Now don’t do that. Now, now cut that out. And the kid just goes right on. Like nobody was saying anything? You know what that is? That’s disrespectful. If you give an instruction to your child and he ignores you, folks, that’s a call to action. That means to say to every parent, move. Give up and do something. If a child speaks disrespectfully to us, we need to stop right then.

5. Teach Our Children to Respect Our Word

And correct them and say, you can’t talk to dad that way. You can’t speak to mom that way. That’s rude and disrespectful. Now let’s stop for a minute and find a better way to say that. That’s appropriate for who you’re talking to. And make them repeat it correctly. Burn it in their brain as to how they’re to treat and speak to their mother and father. Along the same lines, let me add to you, fourthly this evening, that we need, and this is really just part of the third one, we need to teach our children to respect our word.

Be rebuked by a parent only to have them go on like the parent said nothing? Heidi and I were out eating at a restaurant the other night. And just a short way across from us was this group of four or five or six people, but there was a mom and a dad there, and they had a little girl. I guess she’s about two or three years old. And at one point during dinner, she kind of ran away. Kind of up the dining room a little bit from the mom, and the mom says, Now, sweetheart, I want you to come back here. And the little girl looked at her and just smiled and waved and kept right on. And she got a little more urgent. She said, No, I want, I’m serious.

I want you. Folks, it’s bad when we’ve got to say I’m serious. We’re missing something. I’m serious. Come back right now. And she just waved. She just stood there. And so, as that’s going on, I mean, I wouldn’t try to eavesdrop, but I was getting interested to see how this is going to come out. And so, and so then they started the counting part of it. Says, now I’m going to count to three. And you better come back. One. And she just waved and smiled. Two, and man, I’m captivated by that. I’m just waiting for three to see what’s going to happen. Three. And she just stood there and waved, and nothing happened. And finally, after a few more hesitations to come back, she kind of got up and walked over and grabbed her.

And the little girl giggled and played, and they came back and laughed about the whole thing. And I leaned over to Hide and says, Want to know what that little girl learned tonight? That little girl learned that mommy doesn’t mean what she says.

It seems like I have to complain to them or get on to my kids four or five times to get them to do anything. And they looked at me and said, Who’s fault is that? Who’s asking four or five times? Folks, when we have to ask our kids to do things over and over and over again. Whose fault is that? Why should they respond? When moms and dads warn and threaten without following through, what’s to respect? If I know dad will ask or will ask at least ten times before he’ll do anything, why respond the first time?

Children learn something from that. They learn they don’t really have to respect what mom and dad say. Our children need to respect our word. When we speak, our children need to know that we mean what we say. When our child is given a warning, we ought to follow through. If you say to your son or daughter, if you do that one more time, then one more time ought to do it. And then there should be a reaction from mom and dad. We’ve got to follow through. We need to get their attention when we give them instructions. I know kids get off in their own little world, and we can yap, yap, yap, and if we don’t get their attention, they’re not picking up on it. Stop and get your child’s attention.

6. Teach Our Children to Be Courteous and Mannerly

Look them in the eye and say, here’s what I want. Would you please do that for me? And if they don’t honor the request, then there needs to be a consequence. Now, I didn’t say spank your kids every time they don’t do what you ask. I said there needs to be a consequence. When kids don’t honor our request. They need to know that mom and dad mean what they say so that they’ll respect our word. We also need to keep our word on the positive side as well. When we promise to do something, we need to do it. Let them know that we’re going to do what we say we’re going to do, that we mean what we say so that they’ll respect our word. And finally, let me suggest to you last tonight that we need to teach our children to be courteous and mannerly.

It is disappointing to me to see so few parents today who are bringing their children up without some of the basic manners that many of us were raised with. I don’t know about you, but it just really grates against my nerves to hear a child say to a parent, I want a drink. Doesn’t that just bother you to hear a child demand from his parent like that? Or give me that toy, or take me outside. What’s even more disturbing is to see a parent who is unresponsive, who is responsive to that kind of rude talk. A child comes up and says, I want a drink, and dad says, Okay, what do you want? It disappoints me to hear, or no longer hear children saying, Yes, ma’am and no, ma’am, and yes, sir, and no, sir, to their mother and father.

Culturally, that was for a long time an indication of respect. And I don’t know about you, maybe, maybe it’s a sign I’m even starting to get a little bit old, but it just bothers me to hear kids who look at mom and dad and say, Yeah, the courtesy isn’t there. I know that a big part of the problem with that is time. You know, it takes time to stop and make a child say please and to train him to be courteous. It’s just faster when a kid says, Give me a drink to give him the drink so we’ll stop whining, right? It’s a whole lot more difficult to say, wait a minute. How do you ask for that? Say it the right way. But you know, folks, quicker isn’t always best.

Courtesy and respect, I think, go in hand in hand. Respect ultimately is caring about the feelings of other people, treating them with esteem and value. I think that’s what courtesy is all about. And so I think a big part of teaching our children respect is teaching them to be courteous. Specifically insist that children say please and thank you and don’t give in until they do. If you see your child pushing through a crowd of adults out there in the lobby, stop for a minute and go over and grab them by the hand and say, you ought to say, excuse me, when you move through a group of people. Don’t let children interrupt your conversation with someone else. And especially don’t give them what they want when they do that.

You ever seen a child come up, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, when you’re trying to visit with someone else? That’s discourteous. It’s rude. And we need to teach our children. There’s an appropriate way to address me. First of all, wait until I’m finished. Or teach them an appropriate way to get your attention when you’re talking to someone else. And then have them wait until you’re ready to turn and address their need. That’s teaching them respect. And make them go back and make them apologize when they’ve acted rudely. That teaches them to treat others with respect and esteem. And most important is to be absolutely consistent in doing that. You can’t do it every once in a while and expect the message to get instilled. That’s you know, that’s maybe the greatest challenge we face as parents.

Conclusion

It’s not knowing the right things to do, and even sometimes doing the right things, it’s consistently doing the right things over the long haul. But I would remind you that we do a terrible disservice to our children over the long haul when we don’t teach them to be respectful. Take out your song books, if you will, please, and turn to the number that Genus selected as the invitation song. And when you’ve done that, if I could have your attention back just for one more minute. It would just be to remind you that the days of youth are much like the beginning of a long journey. And that as parents, you and I possess the awesome opportunity to greatly influence the nature of the journey that our children will take.

We have an amazing opportunity to affect, I didn’t say determine, but to affect our child’s future. If we want it to be a good one, then we need to teach them how to be respectful. Let me ask you tonight. Do you want your child to respect God and His Word? Have you respected His Word in your life? Maybe there’s someone here in the audience even this very night. You know what the Word of God teaches. You know what God would have you to do. You know it’s just a step to making your life right with God. Do you respect God’s word? Do you honor and value and esteem what he says? Then show that tonight by responding to Him. If you’re subject to His invitation, come right now as we stand inside.