Q: I get very upset both with my husband and my children when they don’t show respect to me. It is as if they don’t know what the word means. I think it means being considerate. What do you do when you don’t get respect?
A: One way of looking at what respect involves is understanding each letter of the word.
Responsibility: This means taking responsibility for your actions and their results. It is acknowledging the past and accepting blame when it’s due.
Equality: You show equality when you spend at least as much energy listening to a person as in trying to convince him of your ideas.
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Sharing: If you practise equality, you will also share the responsibilities of the household fairly with other family members, adults and children. This means dividing tasks according to each person’s abilities and workloads, not in ways that suggest that one sex should do certain tasks.
Patience: You need patience with yourself and other family members. This includes listening to someone until he or she has finished speaking, and not cutting in whenever he takes a breath for air.
If you have been disrespectful to others in the past, then keep in mind that it will take time for you to change and for others to realize that these changes are real.
Empathy: Empathy is the ability to feel for what your partner or child might be experiencing emotionally. It involves trying to understand what the person may be going through, yet not analyzing or diagnosing him.
Communicating: Respect involves communicating your thoughts and feelings in an open and honest way that is also caring and non-threatening.
It involves exploring, recognizing and expressing feelings while finding ways to express them without attacking or putting the other person down.
Taking time to look after yourself: Respect has to begin with you. This involves catching yourself when you only think bad things about yourself and recognizing your strengths and good points.
This takes time and conscious effort. When you take care of yourself, you are in better shape to relatepositively to others around you.
Respect is not a word. It is a way of life and takes self-awareness and discipline to practise.
People can’t demand respect, although some falsely believe they can. You earn respect when you stand up for yourself, but also respect others. You need to challenge disrespectful behaviours from others, butin a respectful way.
Sometimes the respectful response will wake others up to an awareness of their own disrespect.
Peter Griffiths is a mental health counsellor based in Prince Albert, Sask. His columns are intended as general advice only. His website is www3.sk.sympatico.ca/petecope.
