Our Family, Our Strength - Principle #18: Respect - Rabbi Yirmiyahu Abramov

you callum we continue discussing the twenty five basic principles of child rearing as I said this is based on the book that we have written our family our strength we are now on principle number eighteen respect something so sorely lacking and missing today the roots of respect are very deep in the early in one's early childhood children have feelings and they very deeply sensitive and therefore they always have to be treated with respect they may appear to be very immature to be clumsy to have a lack of sophistication a lack of motor skills but they have a sense of dignity even a toddler has feelings and these feelings have to be respected the most basic and minimum respect that we can show a young child is that we take him seriously and we really listen to what he has to say even if it's an inarticulate even if it's accompanied by crying sometimes even if it's accompanied to our by high emotions and he's trying to tell us something we have to listen we have to respect what he's got to say and that's the basic courtesy of giving a child a fair hearing a parent should not conduct himself like a dictator rather he should be respectfully questioning listening listening is a magnificent skill it says in the Talmud that it is one of the most important skills that a man can acquire in his life is the ability to really listen it requires a certain amount of humility because we very much feel for our opinion and we want to make our opinion heard but it's a great skill to develop the skill of listening and listening when we listen seriously to a child's view and by this we are demonstrating our respect for him in turn he will respect us we don't demand respect we command respect we command respect by virtue of our respecting others we become a fantastic example of how one conducts oneself in man-to-man relationship to be open to listen and it's the least we can afford our children and if parents bring their children up in this manner where they really are showing respect to the child there really are listening to them they are taking them seriously they are questioning with dignity a child's judgment sometimes but they're showing respect this child will begin to respect others he will learn from his muddle role figure the parent that you take others people seriously you listen to them and you Accord them respect so it goes without saying not only listening but certainly we need to conduct ourselves with all humility we need to be very careful about reprimanding a child or shaming a child in public and thinking oh he's just a little kid what does he know when a little toddler is wandering around and bumps into an object and falls it's very cute and adults laughs he has been deeply hurt he's been laughed at so let's show us kids respect Envy assertion they'll show others and ourselves that you respect you