Thanks for sharing this advice and I so agree with you and believe respect has to be taught.

Regards Janice

yeah I agree its not the children fault it is there parents . They just  cant be bother. It is so annoying. I have 4 boys and 1 girl and I would like them to show respect.These children are our future.

I find your 'advice' very interesting as I had a similar conversation at church the same weekend you wrote this.

I look at it this way- how do young people learn respect? Respect is learned throughout a child's up bringing. We learn respect most often by others showing it to us. When I see disrespectful young people, I wonder about their lives. I wonder at how disrespectful people were to them. I wonder about abuse or neglect in their lives. I wonder about bullying, gang involvement and addiction. 

I don't disagree that what those youth did was wrong, and very rude. I often go out of my way to help people, and could experience exactly what you did. And I even agree that at times, it can be a result of poor parenting. However, I don't veiw the parents as lazy or don't take the time to discipline their children. I've noticed that a number of the parents I work have very few rules and limited structure in their homes for a reason. Many are intentionally doing this as a result of overly strict, controling parenting when they grew up. So now they're parenting their own children and vowing to not do what their parents did. Many people think their doing the children a favor, or doing a good thing for their children when they don't impose limits on them. They don't realise the harm that they cause. They often belevie their showing their love to their children by doing what they do.

I am also a little concerned about your comments about ADHD being used as an excuse or justification of bad behaviour. It sounds like this is a sore spot for you, and like something specific happened to anger you regarding this.

I work with a little boy who has severe ADHD. I support his foster parents, and they do an amazing job with him. However, his behaviour is not within his own control, and he has another diagnosis that makes it difficult for him to learn impulse control. People could say the same things about this child. He can be aggressive at times, runs away from his parents, and is generally a very difficult child to parent. His foster parents supervise him as closely as possible. Truely, more vigilant supervision is not really possible- there are two adults supervising just him most of the time when he is at home. ADHD is not a condition that discipline will fix. Shear discipline is not the real solution for ADHD. It takes specific skills to help these children control their own behaviour, and specific strategies to help them focus on a task. I suggest you read some of the articles on ADHD on this and other sites. You may find that a little more understanding changes your perspective a little.

As I told the lady at church. Respect is earned and demonstrated. If we treat children with respect, they will learn to respect in turn. I believe that children should be encouraged to show respect where they feel it is deserved, but should not be forced to show respect to people who may not really be deserving of that respect. To me, the idea of 'respect your elders' is a little limited now. It is now widely accepted that wisdom and age are not always connected. I would teach a child to show respect to every person worthy of it, regardless of their age. I would not force a child to show respect to someone who was disrespectful to them. I would leave that up to them.

So, I've shared my thoughts on your expereince, and I pray you are not offended. I know you were having a bad day and that they really angered you. It sounds like you felt taken advantage of and insulted, which makes perfect sense. What those kids did was rude. however, your emotions came accross very clearly in your article, and so many people chose to comment with their silence. I thought you might like to know the kind of responce that moved many people to silence.  Please, accept this as it is- the comments of a calm, neutral proffesional who deals with rude kids every day, and please, forgive me if I have offended you. 

I Am's Child.