"Most adults treat kids like we are worth less than they are - like they can talk to us however they want because our brains aren't fully matured and they think it won't hurt, but it does." - 11 year old boy
Worth less. Worthless.
The kind and respectful treatment of children is something that I have spent years advocating for. I get the sense that we equate buying their Nike shoes and feeding them meals to “kind and respectful” treatment. Yes, adults do a lot for their children that is to be commended, yet it is our attitudes, tone of voice, and choice of words toward them that convey a troubling lack of basic respect, and the kids are noticing.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time volunteering at school. I’ve been involved in sports, martial arts, performing arts, and Cub Scouts. I’ve seen plenty of adult/child interactions and here’s the bottom line: We talk down to children. We don’t show them equal kindness, patience, and respect as we show to other adults and a question worth asking is why? I believe the answer is we think that doing so would compromise our authority. We believe that we have to talk down to them so they’ll understand that we are higher up in the ranks. I don’t think we necessarily mean to do this. I don’t feel that we are making a conscious choice to disrespect kids; it’s just what we have grown accustomed to. It is so commonplace that no one bats an eyelash when a child is told, “I said put that down NOW!” or “COME ON or I am leaving you here,” but if my husband said that to me, it’d be rude.
Honestly, it’s still rude, even when you say it to a little human.
In a school lunchroom recently, an adult told the children “Hey, you all are acting like animals in here! You are too loud! Tone it down or there’ll be no talking, period!” How are rooms filled with noisy adults handled when someone needs to speak? Are they called animals? Scolded? Or does someone generally get their attention with a hand raised in the air or a polite “excuse me?”
Last year, when my son forgot his water bottle at school, it was placed in a “box of shame.” Last month, when I left my purse at a hotel, they politely gave it back.
No one yells at me for knocking over my drink. They hand me a towel.
When a mom confesses “I yelled at my kid today,” she is met with empathy. “It’s okay. Everyone yells sometimes. Parenting is hard. You’re doing a good job.” When a mom confesses “My kid yelled at me today,” she is told “Don’t let her get by with that. She needs disciplined.”
We are treated differently not based on our behavior, but on our age.
In an article I wrote for Boston Parents Paper last year, I said, “As a parent, I’ve lost my temper and yelled at my kids. I’ve ran to my room and slammed the door. I’ve yelled at my spouse, hung up on telemarketers and said negative things under my breath to the person who cut me off in traffic. I’m not a bad person. I’m a human person. Our children aren’t bad kids. They’re human kids. They make mistakes. They get angry. Sometimes they’re rude or grouchy. It’s never OK to treat others badly, and of course they should be taught that, but when we correct them, let’s do so bearing in mind that we, ourselves, are sometimes guilty of the things we are correcting them for.”
Kindness and respect doesn’t diminish our authority, it strengthens it. Let’s remember that we aren’t so perfect either, and that our children are people, too. They deserve the same patience, graciousness, and courtesy that we offer to grown people.
Why does it matter? If it’s so commonplace, why change it now?
The major problems we face in society from crime to racism stem from a lack of respect and kindness to our fellow human beings, and if we continue to grow children with disrespect, this will never change. When we set the standard so low in those early years for how young and vulnerable humans should be treated, we can’t expect humanity to rise above those standards. The cycle of disrespect just keeps repeating. Kindness isn’t as important as power, and we keep seeing that play out over and over again, because the kids who were treated as worth less grow up to treat others as worthless.
Kindness isn’t only measured by how much we buy them, how many places we take them, or how much we do for them. It’s also (and more importantly) measured in how we respond when they cry, correct them when they make a mistake, hold them through their fears. It’s in how we regard them each and every day – in our actions, words, and attitudes. Peace on earth begins in how we treat the littlest humans today.
“Kindness to children, love for children, goodness to children – these are the only investments that never fail.” – Henry David Thoreau