Can We Rethink the Concept of Respect?
By Kristin L. Daley, PhD, FSBSM
Respect is a word that comes up a lot in therapy, particularly in the context of family therapy. The most common way that I see it used is in parents setting expectations for behavior from their kids, e.g. “They will speak respectfully.” This request typically then moves into an interchange between parents and kids about who first demonstrated respect/disrespect and how such a construct can be shown. The temperature in the room quickly goes hot as members in a family system try to demonstrate why another member of the system is responsible for the problem that everyone has with respect. This construct tends to be a relational flashpoint.
When we process it, the big thing that I always want to understand is what respect actually means when people bring it up. Respect as a noun has two meanings: 1) A feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements OR 2) Due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others. Obviously, the first definition is clearly not something that can be demanded of someone else, regardless of how much a person might think that they deserve it. Imagine ranks in the military- someone can be highly decorated in their post, but their reports may not necessarily experience feelings of respect for them. The second definition is really what is usually being desired- regard for the feelings and traditions of the family system. To boil it down further, many families are often confusing the concept of respect with the concept of obedience. Obedience is compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another's authority, something that can be expected in family systems. Obedience is observance of the rule, while respect is something that develops through relationship and holding values.
Everyone has heard it before, “You have to give respect to be respected.” I would challenge that you have to demonstrate the qualities that earn respect for it to develop. I always place much more pressure on my parents with this one- kids do not have fully developed brains and can lack the executive functioning to regulate their emotions and outbursts, but people with fully developed brains should have this capacity. When kids are acting in ways that can be viewed as disrespectful, e.g. name calling, it is essential that parents try to understand the bigger picture of what might be happening in that moment. Is your child particularly distressed? If so, you will need to wait for things to cool off before you try to engage with forcing obedience. Do you understand what preceded the outburst, and what they are trying to communicate within the outburst? There was a fantastic article (here) many years ago about eye rolling in teenage girls. It stated that eye rolling is actually a sign of acquiescence to authority of another person, while many parents view it as an act of defiance or disrespect. If you can try to pull back and view the behavior from what caused it, conflicts in households tend to go down.
Another key element in working with obedience is the fact that the brain tends to be less capable of taking in information when we are in a state of heightened emotion. An article in Harvard Business Review, “The Feedback Fallacy” demonstrated that most people feel incredibly defensive when they are aware that they are receiving criticism. That defensiveness tends to allocate brain resources to the body, rather than activating resources to our cognition, the part of our brain that would take in and incorporate feedback. This reaction is particularly amplified in important relationships, which is why it can be very hard for teens in particular to receive guidance from their parents when they are experiencing heightened emotions. The truth is that most parental instructions will feel like control to teens, which interferes with their biological drive toward autonomy and independence. It is important that parents place their emphasis on obedience in the areas that really matter to them, and maybe try to back away from obedience in the areas that are less crucial.
In sum:
Don’t confuse obedience with respect.
Consider the emotions behind the behaviors that leave you feeling disrespected.
Wait for emotions to reduce before you try to give corrective feedback.
Keep expectations for obedience simple and allow some room for autonomy.
It has been my experience that the less I worry about the words my teens are saying to me, and trying to tune into the underlying emotion, the better our discussions go. Overall, I challenge parents to try to use their frontal lobes to model how they would like to be treated.
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