<p>What are your thoughts about teaching kids to respect authority?</p>
<p>My kid has had several encounters where respect was expected even though the authority has acted in a way that did not deserve respect.</p>
<p>The kid has not handled this well; how best to teach that it is in our best interest to respect authority even as we question it?</p>
<p>I taught my kids to question authority, respectfully. :)</p>
<p>My kids learned from their hippie private grammar school (not kidding) to question authority where authority is unfair or illogical. My kids have learned from me that it will happen with some regularity that the person in charge will not be someone they respect and that they have to learn to deal with it anyway. In other words, yes, your boss is stupid. Now cope. However, if your boss is unfair or unethical, look around, take a deep breath, make sure you have support, and question away.</p>
<p>However, in all circumstances say please, thank you, and no thanks. That’s the upper class WASP core value that no matter my politics I can’t jettison.</p>
<p>My son, first day in daycare, age 3… Was painting at an easel when storytime was forming in another area. Teacher asked if he’d like to join them. His response, “No thank you, maybe another time.” Teacher said she was speechless, felt she had no choice but to let him continue painting. Respect and politeness have always taken him far.</p>
<p>I think it’s important to stress to people–not just my own kids–how important it is to be able to sleep nights. Thus, it’s time to question authority–even if it might get you a lower grade, a demotion, fired, etc.–if what you’re being asked to do would keep you from sleeping. Shouldn’t the Enron subordinates have “questioned authority”? Dpn’t you wish Hitler’s minions had “questioned authority”? (I’m not trying to equate Enron’s traders with Hitler’s murderers–I just don’t know how any of them sleep peacefully.) </p>
<p>And to hell with “respect”–you need to earn respect, and some people haven’t earned it, whether they are bosses, teachers, or parents. Politeness is not the same thing as respect. I concur with jasmom that politeness can get you farther than rudeness.</p>
<p>That said, it can be VERY important NOT to react immediately. When my son came home and said his 5th grade teacher hadn’t taught any math in two months, I verified it before I agreed with him that her math skills deserved no respect… and then pulled him out of school for extra math two days a week.</p>
<p>There’s the military approach: you respect the position if not the person in it. There’s the pragmatic approach: pick your battles and make sure you know when to fight, when to go with flow…I’m afraid that might be responsible for fostering cynicism…there are worse things. </p>
<p>I’ve been mulling lately a parent I know who routinely lies to their child. I’m sure that at some point the child is going to figure this out. What the parent is doing is teaching the child that it’s okay to lie, particularly if you don’t get caught. Bad lesson. Unfortunately, the geometry of the situation is such that I can’t say too much…I employ this parent and it would be overstepping my bounds. And the parent seems perfectly ethical in every other way and in dealing with adults. It’s easier to have awkward/unpleasant conversations with people you don’t know very well.</p>
<p>JasMom, what a delightful story.</p>
<p>Without a doubt, I believe that all children should be taught to respect authority. With my children this has been laid out as an EXPECTATION, pure and simple. In most instances, regardless of “rightness” or “wrongness”, the word of an authority figure goes, so they may as well learn to accept that. I have never cared for impertinent children…I find them quite offensive.</p>
<p>That said, we all know that there are many, many authority figures who do not DESERVE respect. With a sort of spiral-method teaching model, I have sought to bring my kids’ experiences in to use as examples when the lessons about authority figures began to become more complex. In this way, my kids have had at the very core the very simple notion that authority was to be respected…period. But, as they have gotten older and have become aware of the fact that authority figures, like everyone else, are imperfect, they have learned how to deal accordingly, but like I said, always at the core is the basic notion that basically anyone older than they are is to be treated with respect.</p>
<p>There are some experiences I could relate by way of example, but I feel that I would be betraying the privacy of my children. Suffice it to say that both they and I have had some serious run-ins with authority figures, but my children have ALWAYS conducted these encounters with the utmost respect. In fact, they have put me to shame on more than one occasion. We are LONG past the days of the simple message 'you MUST respect authority", but they still embrace the idea that if you DO question authority, it must be in the most respectful way.</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
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<p>My ex-best friend was exactly like this…she lied to her kids, to me, to the schools, to EVERYONE. She was incapable of telling the truth. We are no longer friends because she even lied to HERSELF about her daughter’s anorexia and suicidal writings. Her kids are now major liars too. Recently she and her dh declared bankruptcy 'cause they lied to the IRS about their earnings and now owe about $50,000 in back taxes…OOPS!</p>
<p>Well, he who is without sin, etc. etc. etc.</p>
<p>And while I’m very wary about pop-psych, self-improvement, and all of that ilk, I have to admit that I sometimes catch Michael Josephson’s “Character Counts” syndicated radio “column” while driving around and I think he makes a good point: you maintain good character by keeping it exercised. You build good character by exercising it, one step at a time. I would hope that my character is a lot less flabby than my body.</p>
<p>My husband and I feel that all people deserve my kids’ respect - older, younger, and peers, unless they show themselves unworthy through dishonesty or poor character. Whether or not one “obeys” an authority figure is a different matter and depends upon the circumstance, but basic respect is a given.
How one learns to handle disagreements with a person in authority is one of the most important lessons in life. Some people never learn this and come across as abrasive and uncooperative. Others learn to question in a way that is helpful and appropriate. ( Some people can do this so effectively that the authority figure may even change his or her mind!) All of us need to question someone in authority at some time or another - and we also need to listen to others when we’re in a position of authority. I don’t think blind obedience is ever called for outside of the military, and even then, I wonder.</p>
<p>fendrock - now off my smug soapbox, I thought I’d ask you to give a little more detail:). What sort of circumstances have your kids come up against? Are they needing to learn to bite their tongues more when a dopey teacher gives yet another mindless but unavoidable assignment? Or how to mount an organized campaign against a real injustice…</p>
<p>Sorry for the previous smugness. just crabby today I guess.</p>
<p>The basic premise of this question feels worrisome to me. If it is in a school setting, I really believe kids should respect teachers. Period. </p>
<p>If something comes up that is so egregious that a child would react disrepectfully, well maybe that’s a circumstance that needs a parent involved.</p>
<p>I don’t know, I’m always shocked by how REALLY disrepectful some kids can be. I always suspect they sound like their parents. (I’m not talking about anyone here – I’m thinking of a few particularly obnoxious kids at my sons’ high school. I worked there for a year in the library. Some of them come from wealthy, “influential” families – and they can be the very worst.)</p>
<p>Side note: I’ve counseled my D that, when checking out a guy she’s Intersested in, watch how he treats people he doesn’t “have” to be nice to: waitresses, postal clerks, children, and the like.</p>
<p>Weenie, as a public school substitute teacher, I will assure you that there are many situations in which students should not respect teachers. I have seen teachers belittle and ridicule students, demand obeisance even when wrong, and in general thoroughly abuse their position. I will repeat my position that respect should be earned. </p>
<p>As a substitute, BTW, I have never been treated less than respectfully. This may have something to do with my personal realization that every student deserves MY respect, something many teachers don’t practice.</p>
<p>In our home we have tried to teach that being polite is a reflection of basic respect, and that each person is worthy of that respect. It is important to us that our children treat everyone they encounter with basic politeness, particularly as we are ‘guests’ in a country other than our own with a different cultural set of norms. Beyond that, we have tried to stress that regardless of the job/wealth/status of that person, the person is to be treated with politeness. </p>
<p>This is different to the ‘respect’ one pays to an authority figure, such as a teacher, with whom one has a personal or ongoing relationship. Our children have been taught how to ‘respectfully disagree’, ‘challenge in a respectful manner’ and how to advocate for themselves, all from a framework that you do not get anywhere unless you maintain a degree of awareness of the other person as you do so. As a result, I think, our older children can have very substantive disagreements and discussions on a wide range of topics with very productive outcomes. The youngest is learning!</p>
<p>The dominant culture where we live is strongly non-confrontational in its orientation and adults are generally highly respected . One enlists the help and support of others by appealing to their good will and desire to be of service, not by confronting them about what is not satisfactory. When this approach is used in testy situations, it can be quite successful, in fact. We often will cue each other to ‘go Javanese’ when it would appear that this sort of problem solving would be helpful.</p>
<p>I’m, more or less, with TheDad and Berurah on this. As a general rule, I expect children (mine and everyone else’s!!! LOL) to behave with courtesy and respect at all times. This includes figures of authority, peers and ESPECIALLY those who may be in a position with less power or authority than themselves i.e. younger students, less affluent, less privileged in general. I find almost no excuse for rudeness or disrespect. </p>
<p>That said, I also made it clear to my kids that if anyone told them to do something wrong or immoral, they were expected to think for themselves. Going along with something bad, just because someone said so, is not okay in my book. I am troubled, though, with the idea of frequently questioning authority. I think that there is something to be said for going with the flow, or doing what is in the best interests of the group, as opposed to constant dissent. I’m not saying that those who believe in questioning authority are promoting this, but I’ve occasionally encountered people who just disagree for the sake of disagreeing. Sometimes in life, we have to do things which we think are stupid, but which are not wrong. Group situations don’t work if everyone has to have his own way.</p>
<p>We’ve taught our kids that they’re free to decide for themselves whether anyone, in authority or not, DESERVES their respect, but that they must BEHAVE respectfully toward everyone - and we do mean everyone. </p>
<p>There is a way to question authority respectfully, of course - privately, quietly, without anger or sarcasm, etc. (I like what robym had to say about this in her post.) Unfortunately, it seems to me that those in a position of authority often don’t cope well when they are challenged in any way, even respectfully and with cause. </p>
<p>I would personally find it exhausting to have to earn the respect of everyone I met - fortunately, I have a very tolerant circle of acquaintances.</p>
<p>I think perhaps several different kinds of respect are being discussed in this thread.</p>
<p>Do we teach our children to approach those in authority–teachers, administrators, supervisors, etc.–politely and with some deference when they first meet them? To say please, thank you, and appreciate their efforts? To assume, until proven otherwise, that the person has their best interest in mind? That’s one kind of respect.</p>
<p>But then, there’s another kind of respect. That’s the long-term kind of respect, that due to a teacher will always make an extra effort for a student who’s struggling but never allow a student to get away with slacking off, for example. The kind of respect due to an employer who makes an extra effort for his employers (the owner of Malden Mills comes to mind as an example–he paid his employees as long as he could after the factory had a devastating fire, during the rebuilding <a href=“opi-inc.com)%5B/url%5D”>opi-inc.com)</a>. The kind of respect that Eugene McCarthy and Rep. John Murtha have earned by standing up for what they believe. </p>
<p>I think there is a huge difference between the first “positional” respect and the second kind of earned respect. I think it’s important to teach students to behave appropriately toward teachers, family, and others.</p>
<p>HOWEVER (yes, I’m shouting), I don’t want to see people saying that the <em>person</em> can’t be questioned, politely or otherwise, because the <em>position</em> deserves respect. The conservatives on this board feel that Clinton lost their respect when he dallied with Lewinsky; (some of) the liberals feel that Bush lost our respect when he invaded Iraq against the UN’s guidance. However, I feel certain that both the conservatives and the liberals agree that our nation’s President deserves respect based on his elected position. </p>
<p>I don’t want my children to be sheep, following a path blindly because an “authority figure” says it’s the right way to go. I want my children to determine their own path and lead others, thoughtfully. That will require that they “question authority” at some point, I expect.</p>
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<p>sjmom~</p>
<p>The above is just BEAUTIFULLY stated IMHO and mirrors my sentiments EXACTLY. Very, VERY well said. </p>
<p>Hands down, THE MOST IMPORTANT lesson my son learned between the ages of 11 and 14 was how to pick his battles and how to detemine which ones were productive and which ones were futile, which ones were worth it and which ones were not. By high school, he had this lesson down pat, and mastering it served him well as he was able to get along with nearly every single teacher there, despite the vast differences in personality and temperament. </p>
<p>If I had not presented him with the expectation at the youngest of ages that he was TO RESPECT AUTHORITY NO MATTER WHAT, I fear that we may have had a rough ride due to his strong and confident personality and his belief that being “right”(<-----not talking morally here, because I do think THAT is unquestionable and worth fighting over) overrode all else. </p>
<p>Dissent simply for the sake of argument can get tiresome and annoying.</p>
<p>I believe the simple lesson of respect for authority must come first…the more complex nuances come after. ~berurah</p>
<p>Just have a minute now to respond – thanks for all the thoughtful responses.</p>
<p>I like TheDad’s idea of respecting the position if not necessarily the person in it, because it is a useful explanation of how authority works, and why it makes sense to be respectful even if one has doubts about the authority figure.</p>
<p>I can think of two situations that are problematic for my kid. One was in an instructional situation where the teacher clearly favored a few in the class (not an academic situation, but an EC where there are VERY high expectations for the kids). Kid showed displeasure by copping an attitude. This did not go over well, kid got a lecture (from the school director) about respecting others and then maybe they will respect you (note: director did not take action or acknowlege to kid that teacher was acting inappropriately).</p>
<p>The other is when the kid does something wrong, is in trouble, and instead of taking the lumps, becomes defensive. Being upset, the kid does not have the self control to remain respectful during the disciplinary tirade.</p>