Article Posted On Helium.Com

Hello.

As we all know I'm starting to branch out and get some basic writing gigs.

Here's an article I wrote today about earning respect as a parent:

http://www.helium.com/items/1543950-how-to-get-respect-from-your-child

Lets be honest, we should not live in a country where there is a need for such a thing as “national respect for parents day”. With that said it’s very easy to go to a Wal-Mart on a Saturday morning and you will see that kids not only don’t respect their parents, most kids outright hate their parents.

I personally think the rules are bent so far in the children’s favor that parents can’t get into a situation where they can earn respect. If you really look at the patterns, I feel that most parents are afraid to impose some semblance of authority at home for fear that they’ll be carted away.

It is wrong to beat your children. It should not be wrong however, to discipline a child accordingly. You spank a kid and you’re a kid beater, you yell at a kid and you’re verbally abusive, it just makes no sense. What happens next; you take your child on a vacation they don’t want to go on and cross state lines, and you’re accused of unlawful imprisonment and child abduction?

So what have the laws done to protect our kids? They have done nothing. The laws have made friends out of parents, well here’s a news flash for you- friends can choose not to respect friends. Friends can use guilt to get what they want, a friend can outright choose not to listen to you.

I think a good family activity for National Respect Your Parents Day would be to make your children do all of the things they don’t want to do: Clean up the dog poop, take out the garbage, mow the lawn, and actually clean AND VACCUUM your room. There is no room in a house for a parental friend.

A parent shouldn’t have to set aside a day to be treated with respect and admiration. A parent should have rules in place, which provide a looking glass into why they deserve that respect.

I remember talking to my friend a long, long time ago about why he and his mother didn’t get along. I remember him telling me that he didn’t respect her because she was a waitress.

This was a woman, a single mom, who never had a vacation, who had a kid she provided for (he always had cooler things than I did), always fed me because I was dirt poor, and HE didn’t respect HER. These parents should come home to a clean house with dinner made every night.

Sadly, we as Americans have fallen into our own trap, in the valiant attempt to make everything equal for everyone, someone slipped up and made it OK for an 11 year old to yell “I hate you” in Starbucks because she’s not allowed to have a Macchiato.

Seems odd, but having a fun filled day with your family will not earn you the respect you need and enforce the rules your child will need to be successful in life. Creating a child, raising it correctly, and having it achieve more than you did; well, that deserves all the respect in the world.