UNDERSTANDING WHAT RESPECT LOOKS LIKE TO BOYS
What Is Respect?
A mom expressed,
I live with a house full of male testosterone, and we even have a male dog. I am having conflict with my almost twelve-year-old and it is driving me nuts. My other two are fifteen and thirteen. . . . How do I show my boys that I can see [with] blue glasses and [hear with] blue hearing aids? . . . I am trying to figure out this respect thing and am finding it kinda difficult. Getting a handle on this is something I want to do, but I am not sure how. I even had to look up respect to see what it really meant. I am in prayer about this.
Mothers are humble and teachable. They long to give the best to their priceless boys. Yet they stumble about in the dark on the definition of respect. They echo what this mother mouths: “What in the world does respect look like?”
Here’s a simple definition: a mother’s respect is her positive regard toward her son, no matter what he does.
“But Emerson, how can you say no matter what? Everyone knows respect must be earned. My son needs to earn my respect. In fact, he needs to respect me! Besides, how can I have positive regard when I feel so negative about him because of his disobedience?”
I hear you loud and clear. But please hear me. I am not saying that your son deserves respect. I am saying he will not respond to your negativity and disrespect—not in the long term. He will resist or rebel against what he perceives as your contempt for him.
Sadly, some conclude, “Since respect must be earned and my son has not earned it, I have license to show my son disrespect when he disobeys.” But no human being feels love and affection toward a person he thinks despises him. Who responds to a rude person?
My Son Does Not Deserve Respect
“Well, Emerson, I guess I agree that I don’t have license to be rude. As you said, no human responds to contempt. But he doesn’t deserve respect. Is there a middle ground here?”
No. Either a mother will show respect and positive regard toward the spirit of her son while confronting his wrongdoing, or she will show disrespect and negative regard toward the spirit of her son while confronting his sinful choices. There is no third option.
The secret here is recognizing two dimensions in your son. Do you recall what Jesus said to His disciples who fell asleep on Him in the Garden of Gethsemane? “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:41). Jesus expressed disappointment at the disciples falling asleep. He did not sanction or honor their failings. But He honored the disciples for their deeper desires to do what was right. He honored their willing spirit. Jesus did not show disrespect toward their spirit while disapproving of their weak flesh.
There are two parts to your son: the spirit and the flesh. In your son’s flesh he fails, and you must address his unrespectable conduct. But that’s a separate matter from saying to him, “I have contempt for who you are as a human being—for your inner spirit. You are despicable.”
Understand this foundational truth: showing respect toward the spirit of your son does not sanction and respect the sin of his flesh. A mother can say, “I do not respect your wrong choices. I am angry about those choices, and you will be disciplined for them.” But then she can add, “I believe in your deepest heart. I respect the person God made you to be, and we will get through this moment.”
Do not step over a line and condemn his spirit because he failed due to the weakness of his flesh. Imitate how Jesus responded to the disciples. Respectfully confront the inadequate behavior while showing positive regard toward your son’s spirit, no matter what he has done.
Mom’s Look
“But Emerson, I never speak words of disrespect to my son.” Excellent. But what do you look like to him when you are displeased with him? Does he interpret your “look” to mean you have scorn and loathing toward him? I am not saying that you in fact do. I am asking, “Does he feel that you do from your ‘look’?” Though you never intend to communicate disrespect toward the spirit of your son, do you unintentionally?
Admittedly, I am generalizing a bit here, but when upset, a woman can appear disrespectful to men. Her eyes darken. Her face turns sour. She rolls her eyes in disbelief. She sighs with disgust as she shakes her head. She scolds with her pointed finger. Perturbed, she puts her hands on her hips as she stares down the culprit. And when she speaks, her voice is shrill. As estrogen kicks in, her words of disrespect roll off her lips so quickly she surprises herself, and some of those words could sober a drunken sailor. Her weapon of choice is verbalized contempt.
Though much of this erupts from hurt, frustration, and fatigue because she gives, gives, and gives, she cannot excuse the look of contempt any more than a dad can excuse a look of anger and hostility toward his daughter. A mom must maintain positive regard toward the spirit of her son no matter what.
Common sense tells us that a contemptuous look never energizes, motivates, or influences a son’s heart. Even secular humanists recognize the importance of unconditional positive regard.
Scholarship
Scholars on the topic of respect found, “Relational success is often dependent on being able to communicate respect and avoiding the communication of disrespect. Sometimes communicating respect is simply viewed as a means to an end, but the key is for the respected to perceive an unconditional respect rather than feeling manipulated.”1 Though it may be complicated to convey a message of unconditional respect, the result is almost always positive when the communication is successful.2
When secularists get this, all the more must a mother who loves Christ. After all, Jesus loved us while we were yet sinners and intends to glorify us throughout eternity as an absolute gift, freely given (Rom. 5: 8–11). This is respect on steroids! More than anyone else, Christ-followers should appreciate and apply unconditional positive regard. We have an eternal and substantive reason. Every mother should see the image of God within her son and honor that image. Every mother should see her son as Jesus sees her son: a willing spirit but weak flesh.
Unconditional Positive Regard
Unconditional positive regard does not come naturally. Who naturally desires to be respectful while confronting a disrespectful son? What mom enjoys putting on positive regard toward the spirit of her son when he negatively disregards her heart? This is not about doing the easy or fair thing but the right thing. Kids are immature and obnoxious. But this is the way forward.
Some mothers prefer the easier way, especially when it accomplishes their goals. Many mothers have seen firsthand the power of their disrespect. That’s why it’s so dangerous and misleading. It works! When a boy feels his mother’s disdain, he does what she expects. She comes to adhere to the Disrespect Effect. But long term that is as effective as a dad who believes in harshness and anger toward his daughter as the method to motivate her. Even though it may work short term, he loses her heart long term. The same thing will happen with your son. Hostility and contempt eventually lose the child’s heart.
Bottom line, unconditional respect toward the spirit of a boy is the moral equivalence of unconditional love of a father toward the spirit of a daughter. The dad does not love his daughter’s sinful, fleshly choices. He loves her spirit in spite of that behavior. So, too, a mom does not respect her son’s sinful, fleshly choices. She respects his spirit in spite of that conduct.
What About Trust?
Does this mean you should unconditionally trust your son? Absolutely not, given he has broken trust by lying, stealing, or cheating. Respect is not blind trust. That kind of blind trust is enablement. When a boy does wrong in this way, he must suffer the consequences and re-earn trust. But mom can show positive regard toward the spirit of her son while enacting discipline.
A mother must confront the unrespectable transgressions and have the courage to do so. She is not running a popularity contest with him. But she shows respect toward the spirit of her son while informing him that he is grounded for three weekends due to doing things behind her back. She says,
“I respect who God made you to be. I respect your deepest heart. You are my son. But when you break trust you must reestablish trust. Through this grounding you will become wiser, and I hope you will make the decision to stay true in the future. Men of honor stay true.”
She lives independent of his behavior and opinion of her. His bad behavior cannot coerce her into becoming a contemptuous and undignified woman. Her response is her responsibility. But neither does his bad behavior manipulate her into passive silence. She confronts and corrects him.
Is Unconditional Respect a Biblical Idea?
The apostle Peter set forth the idea of honoring and respecting other people regardless of their behavior. Just as we love people independent of their unlovable actions (Matt. 5:46), so we are to put on respect in our demeanor toward the spirit of others regardless of their unrespectable actions.
Peter penned, “Honor all people.” He continued, “Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable” (1 Peter 2:17–18).
Respect an unreasonable person? Yes. He even instructed wives to put on “respectful behavior” to win a disobedient husband (1 Peter 3:2). Clearly this means showing respect toward a person who does not deserve respect.
Such respect is not toward the wrongdoing of the other person but toward the spirit of the person doing the wrong. We are to act honorably though they are not honorable. We are respectful though they are not respectable. We do not lose our dignity though they lose their dignity.
Unconditional respect means there’s no condition, situation, or circumstance that can force us to show contempt. In the case of a mom, her son cannot turn her into a disrespectful woman. That’s her choice for herself. He cannot control her inner spirit. God made mom free. This does not mean she loses all feeling. The range of amoral emotions pulsates in her heart, from grief to sadness, to gratefulness and happiness. But disrespect and rudeness is her choice since her response is her responsibility. She will never say to her boy, “You make me a disrespectful person.” This is about mom being in charge—in charge of her tone of voice, word choice, and demeanor as she interacts with her priceless progeny.
Anger
What about anger?
A mom can say with controlled anger, “I love and respect you, but what you have done is not lovable or respectable. I am angry at you, very angry. But I see this as a teaching moment for you. I don’t say this to shame you but to challenge. There are consequences to what you’ve done, but this is part of helping you become an honorable man.”
Let him know in your anger that you are not seeking to show him disrespect. Go on record about having respect for him, for believing in him. Never assume he knows. This is Respect-Talk with anger. Demonstrating positive regard does not run at odds with anger. You can show positive regard while you show anger. The Bible says to be angry but do not sin (Eph. 4:26).
There is a line over which a mom must not allow her anger to step, and that would be when her anger causes her son to feel disrespected. A mom wrote, “I have found with my boys that anger and control enrage them, and bottom line, they feel disrespected. Even though they are at such an early age, I can see that this is what they have asked of me. When I am encouraging, patient, accepting of their mistakes, and gentle in correction and building them up in character, I have a much more peaceful home. . . . I am trying not to tear my house down with my tongue.”
What Are Boys Experiencing When Respect Is Applied?
1. Research tells us that boys filter their world through the respect grid.
I am not arguing that girls do not need respect or that we can treat them with disrespect. I am highlighting the mind-set difference between men and women. We’ve never heard this line in a movie, “I’m just a girl . . . standing in front of a boy . . . asking him to respect her.” Furthermore, there is not one card in the whole greeting card industry from a husband to a wife that says, “Baby, I really respect you.” There is something in the female that speaks a different language—the language of love—and she wants to hear that language spoken to her. In the same way a male speaks a different language—the language of respect—and wants that language spoken to him.
I am calling you as a mother to become an expert in the language of respect that your son speaks. Not only because it will bless and energize your son but also because it will enable you to show him how to be a respectful person. How odd that so many mothers tell me, “I have no idea what this respect thing looks like,” yet they expect their sons to treat them and others with respect.
How can a mom demand of her son to display respect while she pleads ignorance of what Respect-Talk to her son looks like?
I suppose the explanation is that, to her, respectfulness toward others can be reduced to two words: be nice. “Be nice, like I am nice.” For some mothers, that is the extent of her mastery of respect and the basis of her moral appeal. I am not trying to trivialize the mother’s acumen related to respect, but I want to accentuate where her depth resides. Her sophistication of the language of love knows no limits when it comes to eye contact, listening, empathy, care, burden-bearing, saying, “I am sorry,” writing notes, sending cards, buying flowers, bringing gifts, talking about relationships, thinking of the person all day long—the list goes on. For this reason, she struggles with my teaching that a mother must learn the language of respect. That’s not her mother tongue.
She does not process human interaction through the respect grid, not in marriage and not in the family. It feels unnatural to go beyond the idea of niceness to an expansive view that entails a gamut of information she never imagined.
But her love for her son compels her to find out if this is true. I believe it is important to help her discover this truth and give her the information that enables her to develop a proficiency in Respect-Talk. When she becomes proficient, she positions herself to lead her son in becoming a respected man of God.
Of course, she must decide if she will stay the course and keep this as her second language. Will she decide that her son must be a man of love who loves others and speaks the language of love, or will she accept another side of her son that he feels deeply? He intends to be a man of honor who honors others, and he speaks the language of honor.
Will she subscribe to the idea that God made her son a clean slate, and she can write on his being the language she wishes for him to speak, like the literal languages we learn? Indeed, English, French, or Spanish is learned from the mother. Allegedly the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the thirteenth century deprived infants of human interaction to discover the natural language a child would speak. Would it be Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic, or what? He never found out. As legend has it, the infants died due to lack of loving interaction.
You and I know children learn their mother’s tongue. But what many of us do not consider is that deep in the soul of a boy is the XY chromosome, there by birth; and it has nothing to do with his mother’s conscious and willful input. A chromosome is found in the nucleus of the cell and is an organized package of DNA. When I look at the sophistication, complexity, consistency, predictability, sequence, order, rhythm, and language of the twenty-three pairs of chromosomes in humans, one pair of which is the sex chromosomes, I worship in wonder at God’s majestic design.
Though her words model a literal language, a mother’s speech with her son has less to do with putting information into her son and more with drawing that information out of him. Language ability is already there in the DNA. It is a combination of imparting a literal language to him while discovering the language within him.
Boys and girls are equal, but they are not the same. Genetically, they differ. Neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, who is both a researcher and a clinician, wrote in her book The Female Brain, “Out of the thirty thousand genes in the human genome, the less than one percent variation between the sexes is small. But that percentage difference influences every single cell in our bodies—from the nerves that register pleasure and pain to the neurons that transmit perception, thoughts, feelings, and emotions.”3
Inherent in your son are Respect-Perceptions, Respect-Thoughts, Respect-Feelings, Respect-Morals, Respect-Volitions, Respect-Interactions, and a Respect-Soul. Your son will have thoughts and feelings about respect and disrespect where you do not. He will have moral convictions about the honor code that cause him to react to dishonor in ways you do not imagine. He will have a willful determination to pursue issues of honor and avoid dishonor in ways that are outside the scope of what drives you. He will interact with people based on matters of respect and disrespect in a way you do not filter socially. He will have a spiritual bent—matters of the soul—toward God’s honor and glory and being a respected man of God; whereas, you lean toward loving God and seeing your son become a beloved man of God. He will have moods, a temperament, a personality, a disposition, and motivations based on respect and disrespect when your life revolves more around love.
Am I pushing this too far? Think of the sentimentality of women. Most men are not as sentimental as women, and the card and gift industry knows it. Or think of women’s nurturing nature and the ongoing caregiving they provide within the family and among friends. Yes, men also care, but it differs as blue differs from pink. Look at the tears shed among women when happy, sad, or frustrated. Men do not cry the way women cry. Observe the fears women express that men do not have.
Generally speaking, neither of you are wrong—just different. Yes, there is crossover due to our common humanity, created in God’s image, but this very same God created us male and female.
Will there be moments when your son feels disrespected even though no disrespect was remotely intended? Yes. He will misinterpret just as you have. You feel unloved at times, only to find out later that you felt hurt and offended over something that did not happen as you felt. Though your son will be imprudent in his interpretation, it is the better part of wisdom to give your son the benefit of the doubt. You can defuse his mistaken thinking by saying, “Hey, I can see why you felt disrespected, and I feel bad for you, but no disrespect was intended, okay? I apologize. No disrespect was meant.”
What happens if mom replies, “Grow up! That’s ridiculous and arrogant. No one was trying to show you disrespect”? She will provoke him. She will lose his heart. She is unwittingly cursing in his true mother tongue. She crushes his heart in a comparable way a father crushes the heart of his teen daughter when he screams, “Stop crying like a big baby! You get too emotional. Who cares if you lost that note that boy at school wrote to you? Have him write another note.” Of course, she runs to her room crying; whereas, the son clinches his fists in frustration toward his mom and purses his lips. Later the daughter seeks reassurance from her dad that he loves her, but the son keeps his distance with his mother.
2. Boys tend to personalize the appearance of disrespect.
Girls need respect but do not personalize maternal conflict through the respect grid, generally. When a mother complains and criticizes, her daughter instinctively knows mom intends to connect because she cares even though she reacts negatively. Moms have said, “I intentionally provoke my daughter, knowing she needs to talk.” The daughter knows what mom is doing, and they end up sitting on her bed, talking for a half hour about their concerns. Women feel comfortable in the ocean of emotion.
But when this same mom provokes her son to get him to talk, he generally pulls away. He withdraws and stonewalls. Boys tend to personalize more through the respect grid, which explains why he shuts down. When a mother complains and criticizes, her son filters this through a blue lens in a way that a daughter does not see through her pink lens. This can leave mom feeling rejected, unloved, and disrespected. But she needs to ask herself: Does he filter my approach to him through the respect grid while my daughter interprets me through the love grid? A seventeen-year-old boy might say to a confidant, “My mom loves me, but she doesn’t respect me.”
Adding to the difficulty between mom and son, boys don’t cry as often, so mom can misread the lack of emotion as arrogant disregard, especially when he refrains from saying he is sorry. Between mother and daughter, mutual negative venting takes place, but then, “I am sorry” is said. The “I am sorry” brings closure. The “I am sorry” says all is okay until the next conflict.
Unlike her daughter, her son tends to steel himself against the provocations. He says, “I am sorry” far less. So mom ups the disrespectful comments to get through to him so they can talk, but he closes off more or gets really angry. In attempting to break through, she finds her female approach backfiring.
One approach when observing him shut down is to say,
“Look, I am coming at you this way not because I am trying to disrespect you. My goal is to honor you, not dishonor you. But I feel boxed out here. I care about you and want to make sure we are on the same page. My goal is not to put you down. That would be disrespectful. I’m just feeling that when you close off, you are feeling ‘dissed,’ as they say. I am only trying to address the issue, not attack you as a person.”
He may not talk, but you can remove from his thinking the erroneous impression that you do not respect him. This modus operandi better energizes, motivates, and influences him.
3. Boys are quieter about their need for respect.
Many moms have been left in the dark about talking to a boy with Respect-Talk. Girls will be more expressive about love and more responsive to love. Girls tend to openly display their desire to experience love, as seen in notes with red hearts and XOs. Love is the topic among females, and they dominate the conversation.
Boys, on the other hand, are less openly expressive about respect and less openly responsive. But that desire is every bit as real, as we have seen from the testimonies about boys beaming with joy. Despite that, boys tend not to openly display their desire to experience respect as often as girls communicate their desire for love. For one, girls know they are to be loved unconditionally and can ask, “Do you love me?” Boys risk asking, “Do you respect me?” lest he hear, “You don’t deserve my respect. You have not earned my respect.”
Does research confirm this withdrawing tendency? The University of Washington studied two thousand couples. They found the two basic ingredients for a successful marriage were love and respect. But gender differences surfaced: 85 percent of those who stonewalled and withdrew were men. The women could not imagine withdrawing, and interpreted this as an unloving or hostile act. But women did something different during conflict. They complained and criticized. The ongoing criticism that the men received led them to believe that the women had contempt for who they were as men.
I have tried to help women understand that most men and boys withdraw not as an act of hostility but as an act of honor. He seeks to deescalate the conflict by dropping it and forgetting it. He wants to move on—no harm, no foul. No big deal. I have tried to help men understand that women criticize not as an act of contempt but an act of care. Women care about the relationship and want to resolve the matter and reconcile. She wants to keep the relationship up-to-date and to make sure that he is not mad at her but loves her.
A girl has the right to ask, “Do you love me?” She can say, “Because I feel unloved, you are unloving.” But when it comes to the need in a boy for respect, he will mention this need a couple of times until he is met with flat-out rejection. From there, he’ll rarely open up again about his deepest need. Think about it. Who would allow and appreciate a son saying, “Do you respect me? Why don’t you tell me that you respect me? You need to respect me.” He could never, ever say to his mother and definitely not to a group of women, “You are disrespectful, and I feel disrespected.”
Men have an understanding when one says to the other, “You are dissing me; knock it off. Quit being so disrespectful.” A female might respond to the man who utters this, “Who do you think you are to talk to me this way? You don’t deserve respect. You are not respectable. I refuse to be a doormat.”
So if your son’s need for respect has been dismissed, do not conclude he is no longer in need of it.
4. Mom defaults to love and ignores respect.
My son Jonathan heard a mother on the radio share that her son had an assignment that involved writing his own epitaph. He wrote, “A Respected Man of God.” He envisioned those descriptive words on his gravestone. In learning of her son’s sentiments, the mother objected. She gave voice to her differing preference. She told him that he should inscribe these words on the grave marker: “A Beloved Man of God.”
Why the different epitaphs between son and mother? Why did he focus on respect and she on love?
The secret—hidden in plain sight—is that as boys grow and move into manhood, they filter their world through the respect grid. On the other hand, moms tend to see their sons through the love grid. Mothers love to love and want their sons to love to love. Mothers yearn for their sons to be loving and, thus, be beloved. A mother has a propensity to obsess over her boy’s need to see the world through the love grid far more than the honor grid. Consequently, mom may ignore what he is saying from the core of his being because it does not matter to her. For her, love alone matters.
Mom needs to be intentional about unconditional respect since she defaults to love. A woman noted, “As a mother, my tendency is to love my teenage son. What I believe to be true is that he is changing from needing unconditional love to needing unconditional respect. The trick is to be able to move back and forth as he grows.”
In becoming a mother, a woman places the child she loves at the center of the cosmos. The essence of mothering is other-centeredness, and she does not regret this. The feelings of love she has for her boy overwhelm her, especially as she walks down memory lane. The tenderness of a mother is immeasurable. But mother-love consumes her to the extent that she neither thinks about showing respect nor considers the ways she appears disrespectful to her son.
The good news is that most mothers can achieve more quickly through respect what they wish to achieve through love. A mom wrote:
I finally tried it with my almost thirteen-year-old. We were about to play backgammon. I checked the rules and realized we had been lining up the pieces way wrong. (My brother spent all day learning how to play with my son, then my son taught me. So I knew this was delicate.) My son got very agitated and down and snappy as I began to rearrange the pieces. I started saying soothing things and ideas to make him feel better. He got snappier. Finally I said, “I am a female, so when I hear you upset, I feel a need to help you fix it or at least make you feel better. I realize I can’t do that for you.” He stopped, looked up, and said, “Thank you, I appreciate that.” He unconsciously “loved” me. We both felt better, and I was in awe (and just a TAD proud of myself).
This exchange is subtle but powerful. To him, it felt too lovey-dovey when she tried to console him, tried to make him feel better. When she spoke the truth respectfully and said she could not fix it for him because she did not have that ability with him anymore, he heard loud and clear: “You are your own man.” As odd as that exchange sounds to some women, she acknowledged and honored his independence from her, and he stopped to thank her.
Yes, this takes thoughtfulness. A mom wrote, “I generally don’t understand if it’s a discipline issue, a respect issue, or what. Having a son involves all the same pink versus blue issues, except it’s with someone who can’t even tie his own shoelaces yet!”
When we understand the way God designed our boys, we can better navigate the mother-son relationship. I believe that when a mom understands a son’s need for respect, she will experience an improvement. She will better connect with him, motivate him, meet a need in his soul, understand his reactions, appreciate his boyishness, deal with conflict, and reestablish the relationship.
A mom shared her belief: “The more you respect your teen’s growing sense of independence, the more he will feel loved.”
Another mom told me,
The purpose of this message was to say you have given me hope with my boys. I’m on my fourth pregnancy with my third boy. I’ve been feeling a loss not having my second girl and thinking that I’ll never be able to relate and bond with my boys like I do with [my daughter]. That is probably true, but I have hope that if I can learn to respect those boys, there might even be a tighter bond because I’ll be the main woman in their lives, edifying who they are. Thank you for that.
One last thought. When a mom feels loved by her son, she needs to see this as an opportunity to use Respect-Talk—not just get caught up in the wonderful feeling she is experiencing from her son’s Love-Talk.
A mother wrote to me about a conversation she had with her eight-year-old boy. What we notice is Love-Talk from her son but not Respect-Talk from mom. Listen to what she said:
I was sick for about a week. He asked me why I was crying, and I responded, “Someone told me I look like a mess.” He responded: “That person is not nice. Why don’t you do your hair? I have money if you want.” I cried even more. He asked, “Did I say something wrong?” I said, “No, honey, that was beautiful, and you make sure you say that to your wife someday if she’s ever tired or sick.” He responded, “Okay, mom, and I promise never to say that other thing that was rude and hurt your feelings.” He’s only eight years old!
What is going on in this conversation? Like many mothers, she feels overwhelmed by the loving tenderness of her boy. She will never forget that conversation and will repeat it to all of his girlfriends.
But let’s interpret this through the boy’s eyes. He sees his mom crying and asks why. She tells him. He offers to help her. When he does, her emotions kick into high gear, and she cries more. His first thought? He thinks he did something wrong. Clearly, he does not understand. She tells him he did nothing wrong but did something beautiful (the closest she got to Respect-Talk). However, in a nanosecond, she jumps to a brief lecture on how her son ought to treat his future wife when she is tired or sick. The boy then promises not to hurt mommy’s feelings.
My gut tells me this boy felt more anxiety than she imagined, which is what prompted him to make a promise to his mom not to be rude. What if she had added a few more respect words? Would she have affirmed her son for certain?
“Son, your words powerfully touched my heart. I am really proud of you. Please know that I cried from my happiness caused by you, though it didn’t look like I was happy because I was crying. Many women cry when happy, not just when they are sad. Yes, I was sad about my messy hair, but your words helped me be happy. It also made me happy when you offered to give me money to redo my hair. Wow! I really respect your kindness and generosity. You are becoming a strong man of honor. Thank you. High five.”
Mothers are good at words. Words flow from the hearts of mothers. But if they do not incorporate such vocabulary words, these moms will journal such exchanges and believe that a deep connection had been made. But Respect-Talk would have made her son feel much better.
When an exchange with her son feels loving, which puts mom’s tenderness into overdrive, a mom needs to ask herself, Are there words of respect I can add to this interaction?
5. Modeling respect enables mom to request respect toward herself and others.
What is one of the side effects of using Respect-Talk with your son? A mother can appeal to her son to speak respectfully to others as she speaks to him. Does he get it? Listen to how one mom addressed this with her son. As you read, notice the boy’s inherent recognition of respect, as though this language resides within his DNA, coded by God in the womb. She stated,
I understand that respect is a core need of his. I bring it up often when discussing how he needs to relate to others. We have discussed some aspects of what respect looks like—owning our choices and failures, choosing words carefully, trusting the other person’s ability to make decisions, using a pleasant tone and attentive body language. I am able to talk with him about respecting someone even if one doesn’t agree with them or like them. We talk about respecting God, friends, sisters, parents, and grandparents. He understands this language. I also talk to him about how others should treat him with respect and how to address them respectfully if they do not do so. We talk about the need to be respectful despite one’s emotions, such as anger or frustration.
This seems to work much better than talking to him about being “nice.” For instance, if I tell him to rephrase something “nicely” to his sister, it comes out somewhat irritated with a “please” attached to the request. Whereas, if I ask him to say something respectfully, he may say it very directly (or even firmly), but it is always kinder and more heartfelt. Also, when he is whining or sassy toward me, I ask him to address me respectfully, and his tone typically changes immediately. He seems to just “get it” when I use the word respect in association with relationships.
When you feel your son is disrespectful, you can appeal to your son to show respect. You are a moral model. Putting it in the negative, showing disrespect to a disrespectful son undermines your appeal to him to show respect when he does not want to show respect. Think about it: since you don’t want to show respect to your son, why would he want to show respect?
God commands a son to honor his father and mother. Your Respect-Talk shows him how to do this. Though he is responsible to obey God’s command to honor father and mother independent of you, your Respect-Talk creates the best environment to motivate him to choose to obey God. He can imitate you.
You don’t have to be perfect. Just be honest about your disrespect and seek forgiveness for failing since that models for him how to rebound from his disrespect. A mom wrote, “As far as our sons go, they are thirteen and ten. Old enough to understand the basics. When we took the class the first time, I had to seek their forgiveness for not respecting their dad. Well, that began the journey of passing this on to them. So now they will ask if they have done something unloving or disrespectful when communicating with us. With each other it is usually a ‘Hey, dude, you’re on my air hose.’ ”
Finally, a mother shared about the periodic conflicts between her husband and son:
I have sometimes modeled for [my son] how to take his concerns and rephrase them respectfully. I have noticed that this then allows them to openly dialogue about issues. . . . I have been able to talk to my son about how to respectfully appeal to his father when he feels things are unfair or feels the need for more reconciliation or clarification on an issue. (This doesn’t necessarily mean that dad changes his position, but it typically leads to better communication.)
I have had great success at guiding my son in a conversation with his father using respectful language about difficult situations. To begin with, I have had the opportunity to teach him to apologize for not respecting his father in a given situation, if it is appropriate, and then to respectfully discuss issues with his father.
As you move forward, applying this glorious concept of respect, you inevitably will talk to other moms about your discoveries. When you do, the first question most mothers ask is, “What do you mean, respect my son?” This chapter provides the answer to that most common question.
The challenge for each mom is to realize that her default mode appears disrespectful when she corrects her son—albeit she is motivated by love. Negative regard toward the spirit of her son will not motivate him to be positive—not with her. For this reason, respect should be her positive regard toward her son, no matter what he does. A mom should respectfully confront behaviors that are not respectable. Contempt toward the heart of a son never motivates a boy (or anyone) long term to be respectful and loving but only de-energizes him. The key is for a mom to demonstrate respect while demanding respect. When she understands and lives this way, so will her son.