Week
2 of February: Respect
In
Connection with Richard and Linda Eyre
Editor’s Note: This month the Meridian Family Value of the month is RESPECT. Click here to read this month’s overview article). Each week during the month we will post an update in Meridian, illustrating a couple of the Eyres’ favorite methods for teaching Fidelity and Chastity to each age group. Remember that you can also go to www.valuesparenting.com for still more ideas and teaching methods. Thanks for your interest and participation. There are tens of thousands of parents concentrating on this value this month. It is a way of saving this disrespectful society of ours…..one family at a time!
Methods
for Preschoolers
The Definitions Game
Use this game to get respect into the vocabulary of small children so that both you and they can use the word. Tell them that respect means “acting nice and talking nice and minding.” Then tell them about Mikey. Ask them whether he was showing respect after each sentence.
- Mikey’s mom asked him to clean up his room and he yelled, “I don’t want to!” (No.)
- He picked all the flowers our of his neighbor’s garden. (No.)
- He said, “Please, may I be excused?” (Yes.)
- He looked his grandpa in the eye and said, “Fine, sir,” when Grandpa said, “How are you?” (Yes.)
- He left his friend’s toy our in the rain. (No.)
- When he couldn’t’ put the puzzle together, he said, “I’m just stupid.” (No.)
Methods for Elementary School Age
Expand the “Definitions Game”
This can help children see that lack of respect hurts someone or something. Ask the questions from the Definitions Game for preschoolers (above). Follow each question with, “Who does that show disrespect for? And how does the disrespect make that person feel?”
Story of a Great Man’s Respect for His Wife
Try to give your children a memorable example of respect. As the ninety-year-old Prophet got out of his car (driven by a chauffeur) to go into church, he needed help to climb out and to stand. Still, with a helper on each elbow, he insisted on walking around the car to open the door for his wife, also ninety years old, and to offer her his hand as she got our. Many of those who watched were impressed and overcome to the point of tears.
Methods for Adolescents
Discussion: “Why Respect, Why Manners?”
Get your older children thinking about the practicality of reasoning around the habits of politeness. Play devil’s advocate. Say, “Aren’t manners a little silly? Using little unnecessary words, opening doors for people who can open them themselves, standing up to greet people — why do formal, traditional things like this anyway?” Challenge the kids to defend politeness.
Discussion of the Application of Childhood Manners to Adulthood
Help adolescents understand that the manners and simple lessons of respect that they learned as children apply equally to adults. Read out loud together the following quote from the Reverend Robert Fulghum:
Most of what I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten… these are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people… clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
Discuss this statement. Do the simple things we learned in kindergarten still apply? Would the world be a better place if adults all continued to practice and implement these simple lessons? And so on.