Raising Kids Who Respect Themselves - Parents

I am the mother of four great children... seriously they are wonderful!

Sure we've gone through the bumps and bruises of relational-learning but, I will say without a doubt, I'd claim them as mine hands down any day of the week.

Now back to where I was going with this thought before I chase something else shiny. I have four children ranging in age from 33 down to 15, so it goes without much explanation, I have experienced the ups and downs of raising children. My oldest two have children of their own, one is out on her own and my 15 year old son is still in the coop.

Raising children to respect others, begins with them respecting themselves. I will be posting my thoughts on this matter as the weeks go by. But here is a thought I’d like your thoughts on.

Is it just me or do you agree that raising children has become more challenging today than for those of us in our forties to fifty somethings? Actually, I'll increase the range to include thirty somethings... here it is, I think girls are more aggressive and boys need stronger reins. What do you think, is it just me?

I mean, I have two of each, so I don't easily jump out there to criticize, but why have our girls gone off the deep end when it comes to dating? I was talking the other day to a young lady who said, "I like a new guy, he's great and he's 16." "Well, that's not too bad" your thinking, but she's only 13 and a young 13 at that. Goodness!

I looked her in the eyes and said, "You have to be kidding me, you're dating?"

"Well", she started off, "It's not like we go out a lot of places or anything, but I like him so much."

It must have been pretty obvious with my mouth wide open and deer in the headlights look that I wasn't leaning her direction any time soon to offer positive feedback to this discussion, I mean "Really!" A thirteen year old should not be thinking about the opposite sex, they should be keeping up with the latest and greatest cartoons, learning how to cook under mom or dad’s teaching and watching Veggie Tales videos!

I guess that's asking too much from the youth of today, right?

Wrong... whatever it takes, especially today, we must preserve the innocence of our young people, not with coercion and threats but through active day-to-day participation and sound guidance from mom and dad.

I had youth advocate, Sean McDowell on my show some months ago and he quoted an incredible statistic, "40% of families across America had no father in the house." Imagine, neighborhoods filled with girls who have never had a daddy say, "You are beautiful and special" or boys learning how to "be a man" from peers who don't have a clue. Is it any wonder, we have babies birthing babies and young people taking their own lives... all because they think sex is LOVE, but we all know, they’re not getting the results they desire when they give in to the worlds lies.

All my research shows, kids do not care what we know until they know that we care. I guess this can ring true for all of us, but our young people today believe they are to give respect where it is earned not out of obedience to position... slightly different than when I grew up.

Time to take a stand... what do you do to empower your teens in the area of respect?

One of the things we do is set healthy boundaries in and out of the home... a healthy boundary is one that stands firm but is based on love.

Every young person needs to be in a quiet, dark, and cool room for them to receive a sound sleep. No night time radio playing, head phones, cell phones, ipods or computers in the room either - make computers a family element (if it’s already in their room... move it!) family elements are available to everyone at anytime so they need to be in an open central location. Just like the dinning table, you don’t have one of those in the bedroom, do you?

At least one meal a day is spent around the dinning table - this allows for communication, face-to-face time, we are family time, big brother mentors younger brother time, dad shares his thoughts about the family time, mom shares her concerns about other happenings in the lives of extended family members(grandma, grandpa, aunts, and uncles, etc) time... LOVE is spelled T.I.M.E. Togetherness: It Means Everything.

This is the first post on respect. Let me know what you think, this is your place to ask questions or give your thoughts.

I leave you with a question: How do you let your kids know you really love them?