Back to School? Be Respectful!

Every August when I was a kid, as I headed out each morning to start yet another year of school, my parents commanded me to “be respectful.” My teachers were to be respected, my coaches, the principal, the nurse, the school staff, and yes, even the crossing guard – all were to be treated with respect by me.

Never mind the kids, my parents told me. The ones who taunted and bullied me at the bus stop, or beat me up behind the gym, or threw bits of food at me in the lunchroom, they were “just kids,” and didn’t know any better, so they didn’t deserve my respect. But the adults did, and that was final.

I’m guessing there are millions of kids all over the country right now who are being told the same things.

But here’s the problem: our social media feeds, our news feeds, our TV shows, video games and movies, our Sunday sermons, and just about everything we watch and consume, even Nike commercials during the Olympics, they’re all filled with people being deliberately disrespectful to each other. Over and over and over we are seeing high profile people with power and authority -who most certainly know better - labeling their political opponents with infantile, disgusting nicknames, denigrating their military service, their intelligence, their disabilities, the people they love, the families they’ve created (or not), their choices for their bodies, their dreams of citizenship, success, or peace and justice in the world.

And kids these days? They are not stupid. They see all of this rampant public disrespect and hear their parents’ exhortations to be respectful and they say to themselves, “Wait, what?” Why, they surely wonder, am I required to be respectful when so many adults are anything but?

It’s a damn good question.

As we send our kids off to school with orders to be respectful, shouldn’t we be walking our own talk? Aren’t we adults supposed to be role models for our kids? Or do we give ourselves a pass to disrespect someone just because we don’t agree with their politics or their beliefs, or because we want to call out their hypocrisy (while completely justifying our own)?

The truth is that these days being respectful to others isn’t easy – especially when so many others in public life can’t be bothered. But I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t want to be respected. Have you?

In fact, respect is what makes the world go round. Every single day, when we say, “good morning,” “please,” “thank you,” and offer a genuine apology, we are being respectful. Every time we let someone go before us, or offer to lend a hand, or stop ourselves from gossiping, we’re being respectful. Without respect, so many of our ordinary interactions would become extraordinarily difficult. Respect is the WD-40 of every successful relationship when things are going well, and the duct tape that keeps them together when tensions are high.?

I realize we say this every four years – but it feels especially true this time – we are about to embark on the most important and consequential presidential election in our lifetimes, if not modern history.

Are we going to elect people who are repeatedly acting like infantile, disrespectful schoolyard bullies, who threaten violence if they don’t win (and retribution against their enemies if they do), who attack anyone who doesn’t agree with them, to highest offices in the land?

Shame on us if we do. Because that means that our parents have been advising us incorrectly at the beginning of every school year. Instead, they should have been saying, “If you want to get ahead, be as disrespectful as you possibly can.”

And yet we know in our hearts that that isn’t right. Don’t we?

by Gregg Ward | Founder and Executive Director of The Center for Respectful Leadership