Today is a rare(ish) ranty post from me following a comment I saw written somewhere by someone (note the vagueness here ;-)) about how little respect children have for their elders these days – a comment that I totally disagree with and take offence on behalf of my children. Respect both works and we all need to give children the respect they deserve!
I agree that the person in question had a poor experience with a teenager bad attitude, aggression etc) but to say that all teenagers have a lack of respect for either their elders or their peers is ridiculous. So many people agreed that there was a problem with children these days and blamed everything from the parents to video games that I felt compelled to write this post to share what I think!
Should I say that all women are all bad drivers just because I know of a few who are? Nope, because not only would it be sexist, it would also be completely wrong as there are just as many male bad drivers out there as there are women bad drivers.
Should I say that all men are too proud to stop and ask for directions when I know that’s not the case as Mr Frugal would rather stop and ask someone than have us drive around in circles?
My two are far from perfect and believe me when I tell you they have their moments but I have never witnessed them being disrespectful to anyone (unless you count backchatting me which is a different thing in my eyes).
Master Frugal ALWAYS holds the door open for other people and the number of times that he’s not been thanked or someone has just shut the door in his face rather than hold it open is amazing. He doesn’t let it bother him and certainly won’t let it stop him from doing it in future as the respect we’ve taught him to have for everyone he meets shines through. He goes out of his way to be polite to people and doesn’t do it for the thanks, but you know what? People should be thanking him and repaying a little of the respect he’s giving them with a thanks or a smile.
Miss Frugal isn’t quite as polite and respectful as her brother but she’s still polite and when an elderly woman literally pushed her out of the way to get to the reduced section in Tesco she didn’t say a word until she was far enough away that the woman wouldn’t hear her. Just like she wasn’t rude or disrespectful when the lady with the pram rammed the back of her leg and didn’t apologise, despite having to pull back about and steer around her as she was holding her leg in pain.
I’m not writing this to be smug about how respectful my children are because I don’t think that they’re an exception at all. All of their friends treat me with respect and I am pretty sure that your children are the same. We teach our children respect and and yes, there are children who don’t show respect but it’s these children who are the exception and not the well behaved children like ours.
So please don’t judge all children by the few whose behaviour isn’t ideal.
Let’s give children the respect they deserve!
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