As I’ve traveled the world over the last two decades, exploring the dynamic of healthy family relationships, one thing has become abundantly clear.
A boy needs his mother’s respect.
Not only her love but also her respect. That’s the message of this book, and I believe that it will transform your relationship with your son in ways you’ve only dreamed about. It won’t be because of my writing. In fact, I’ll try hard not to get in the way. It will be because the principle is life-changing in its simplicity, and it cuts straight to the deepest part of a boy’s soul.
When it comes to respect between a mother and son, the point that most make is that a mother needs her son’s respect. And to this point, I wholeheartedly agree. A boy does need to be respectful. In fact, I wrote a whole book about the need of a father and mother for the respect of their children, called Love & Respect in the Family. But it’s only half of the equation, especially when you move from the parents as one unit into the highly unique and beautiful relationship between a mother and her son.
I explored this relationship briefly in “Parenting Pink and Blue,” one of the chapters of Love & Respect in the Family. There, I briefly tell mothers that their “blue” sons need respect in the same way their “pink” daughters need dad’s love. Yes, sons and daughters equally need love and respect, but I show that the felt need during stress and conflict differs among males and females. Research bears this out. Males filter their world more through the respect grid.
Fascinatingly, moms zeroed in on this teaching immediately and began sending me hundreds of stories and testimonials surrounding this revelation. With great excitement, they applied respect talk to their sons, whether they were four or forty. Judging from the letters, many of which you’ll read in this book, they experienced astounding results.
Let me share one such testimony with you in this introduction to set the stage. This mother read the “Parenting Pink and Blue” chapter and applied it to her daily interactions with her son. Here is the Respect Effect.
She wrote:
I had finally concluded—although I wasn’t ready to completely believe it—that my seven-year-old son just had one of those moody, depressed personalities, and I had better just accept it, instead of wanting him to be happier. I should try to teach him to be grateful for all his blessings.
But after applying respect in the way you suggested, he changed. For example, he came up to me the other evening, with an unusually happy, calm demeanor, and said, “I feel so happy,” in the most contented, almost sentimental tone. This was profound for me! This was my child, who according to his consistent behavior since birth would have been labeled melancholy/choleric. He would often tell me—and this breaks my heart—that he was “sad and didn’t know why.” I would try to talk to him about things, work through things, and prayed for him and with him regularly. But he usually only seemed really happy when something exciting was going on, a trip to the zoo or if he went with me to visit friends, but then on the way home would say he was “bored” (I think he was just trying to express unhappiness).
When I began the respect principles, he seemed calmer, less frustrated, less internally agitated (my respect seemed to release his internal tension), and more loving. . . . He has been coming up to me, and instead of acting out for attention, he will hug me, look right into my eyes, smile the sweetest, happiest smile, and say, “You’re the best mom in the world!” Wow! Nothing quite that wonderful has ever happened between us before. Being respectful to him has triggered his affection for me. . . . [I am] seeing beautiful and meaningful results.
He has come up again recently and said, “I don’t know why, but I’m so happy!” And I thought, I know why, my little sweetheart. Because I have learned to show you the respect you didn’t even know you were crying out for, that I didn’t even know you needed. He has been far more calm and content. He has been more willing to mind and has had little or no talking back to me. His affection for me has increased greatly; he comes up to me throughout the day and hugs and kisses me. I am beginning to enjoy the rewards of parenting on a much deeper level. It’s like we are friends now, instead of always in a power struggle.
I long to be able to learn even more practical ways on how to show him respect. I am navigating unfamiliar waters . . . stepping out and doing what the book says even though it makes no sense to my “pink” brain. . . .
It has been much more challenging learning how to show respect in parenting because I still want my strong-willed, type A, firstborn little man to know that he is not the boss.
I have also been trying to take time each day to stop what I am doing and look at him and really listen to him, giving him my undivided attention when he wants to tell me something, rather than multitasking so much.
It’s like a little miracle—the connection and affection I longed to have with my son have finally come. He finally feels respected (oh, how I wish I had known how to do this sooner!) and his happiness shows. I can’t mourn over the many difficult years we had; I have to “forget those things which are behind, and press on” because God has many more good years ahead for us and our blossoming relationship.
My mom commented on how much calmer my son was when we went to visit a few days ago. She told my sister, who has five sons, about the wonderful transformation my son and I are enjoying. I will keep spreading the word! God bless!
Is this testimony too good to be true? You will have to decide as you read this book. I can tell you this: other moms chime in with equal enthusiasm. You will hear from them throughout as we proceed with the following:
• Why This Book?
• Understanding What Respect Looks Like to Boys
• A Game Plan: Mom G.U.I.D.E.S. with Respect
• Seeing the Man in the Boy: His Six Desires: C.H.A.I.R.S.
• Conquest: Respecting His Desire to Work and Achieve
• Hierarchy: Respecting His Desire to Provide, Protect, and Even Die
• Authority: Respecting His Desire to Be Strong and to Lead and Make Decisions
• Insight: Respecting His Desire to Analyze, Solve, and Counsel
• Relationship: Respecting His Desire for a Shoulder-to-Shoulder Friendship
• Sexuality: Respecting His Desire for Sexual Understanding and “Knowing”
• An Empathetic Look at the Motherly Objections to Respecting a Boy
• Forgiveness
Sarah, my wife, has said for many years, “If I had known this information when my sons were little (they are now in their thirties), I would have been a better mother.”
This does not mean Sarah’s love was insignificant. Mother-love is vital. In fact, mother-love is the epitome of altruism.
“But, Emerson, I have to ask: aren’t love and respect synonymous? Using the word love should work just fine, right?” No, it won’t work just fine. These are not two words with the same meaning. A husband doesn’t give to his wife a card that says, “Baby, I really respect you!” These words are not synonymous. A mother can love her son but not respect him, just as a mother works outside the home for a boss that she respects but does not love. When a mother thinks about it, she knows these words differ.
I can tell you this: a boy knows his mom loves him, but he can lack assurance that she respects him. Sarah, along with me, has observed the Respect Effect among hundreds of mothers who stand in utter amazement, like the mother of the seven-year-old boy. Here are some quotes that I’ve pulled from letters in the last few months:
• What a difference.
• I was totally amazed.
• It kind of blew me away.
• To me that was awesome.
• He has never initiated saying, “I love you.”
• It was life-changing.
• It spoke to their hearts.
• My relationship with my son improved overnight.
• These things make my son smile like I have never seen.
• I was slightly in a state of shock and euphoria at the same time.
• I could hear in his voice and see in his e-mails that he seemed to be more confident in his maleness.
• No lie! He saw me taking the trash out of the can, and he took it from me and said, “I’ll take it outside for you, mommy.” Then he came in and offered to pick up the toys and take them to his room. I about fell over.
Are you ready to find out more? Sarah wants you to know, “As a mother, it is never too early and never too late to apply this message of respect. A boy is never too young and never too old.”