Dealing with respect, boundaries and rules

In order to develop my own sense of how to deal with respect, boundaries and rules, I have always found it helpful to have examples, to exchange ideas with people I like and to reflect on my own actions in a cool moment. For this reason, I don't want to give you any advice in this article, but simply share some personal experiences with you.

«I would never dare say something like that to you»

I can't remember my parents ever explicitly setting rules or consequences for me and my brother. Nevertheless, we were always aware of what was «ours» and how to treat each other. When I shouted a swear word at my mum in anger, she turned round, looked at me sternly and said: «I would never dare say something like that to you!» That settled the matter. When I wanted to go out, my parents asked me when I would be home. I was free to choose the time, but I knew that I really had to be home so that they wouldn't worry.

I can't remember my parents ever explicitly setting rules. Nevertheless, we children were aware of what applied «in our house».

Now you could argue that this might work if the children are sensible and easy to look after.

However, my mother also managed to ensure mutual respect in more challenging situations. She was a passionate kindergarten teacher until she retired. In the last years of her career, she ran a kindergarten that was also attended by many foreign-language children and those from educationally disadvantaged families. Many of them brought with them a backpack of difficult experiences, spoke poor German and sometimes behaved conspicuously. In the first week, she said to the group: «There is only one rule here that we all stick to: We have respect for ourselves, others and things.»

Transgressions became an opportunity to return again and again to the question of how to act respectfully.

In one class, swear words were a matter of course when dealing with each other. For example: «Castrate your Aids bacilli» and «Fuck your mum!».

My mum called the children into the circle: «Now, say all the swear words you can think of. You can say the really bad ones quietly.»

She wrote all the answers on strips of paper. She then placed three circles on the floor: green, orange and red. She read out one swear word after the other: «Shit: what do you think?» «Wow, bad!» came from the children. «I don't think it's so bad - let's put it in the green circle?» Then she said «Fuck your mum» and the children said «I'm fine», to which she replied that it was pretty bad and that it could be dangerous to say words whose meaning you don't understand. All the unknown words went into the red circle for safety. One by one, the swear words were distributed.

«Fuck you ... Mrs Grolimund, did we burn this?»

The green ones were kept in the kindergarten. For the orange ones, they went into the cellar and said them out loud on the cellar stairs, before leaving them down there, true to the song «Chällerstäge» (cellar stairs) by Pauli and Bardill. The red ones were recited aloud again in the garden and then burnt.

«Fuck you ... Mrs Grolimund, did we burn that?» asked the children a little later when they wanted to start an escape tirade. «Yes, it's burnt! Look, you can choose one of the green ones,» my mum replied and read out a few swear words until the child had found a suitable one.

In many cases, she was able to develop a common understanding with the children of how to interact with each other, including children who were used to a very different approach at home.

The issue of respect takes on a whole new dimension in adolescence. Teenagers react much more sensitively to being treated with disrespect than younger children. For our new video project «And what do you think?», Stefanie Rietzler and I interviewed over 20 young people. Almost all of them said that they were most annoyed when they weren't taken seriously or were put down by adults.

Almost all the young people
told me that they were most annoyed when they were not taken seriously.

On the other hand, they wanted adults who engage with them, take an interest in them and at the same time «are strict», «have the class under control» and represent their position as parents. Some of them emphasised that it is of course «sometimes annoying» when parents ask questions, don't allow something or critically question their point of view, but at the same time it shows that they are important to them and that parents are there for them.

I expect a lot from you - because you are important to me

These statements reminded me of the way my father taught. He was a teacher at the district school and at a commercial vocational school and refrained from handing out tally marks for forgotten homework or misbehaviour. Instead, he was good at making it clear at the right moment: You are important to me and I expect a lot from you. For example, when a 15-year-old pupil was absent from his first lesson several times, he called him at home. His mum said he wouldn't get up and swore at her when she tried to wake him up. My father kept the class busy with quiet work and 15 minutes later was standing in the pupil's bedroom: «You'll be dressed in five minutes. I'll wait downstairs in the car.» Without a word, he drove him to school, they both entered the classroom in silence and that was the end of the matter and the pupil was punctual from then on.

Children can also demand respect from adults. My four-year-old eats at lunchtime childcare once a week. She doesn't like it at all: «There are only two carers I like. The others are stupid.» Of course I want to know more about this and ask what they do. She tells me that she wants to sit next to her brother at mealtimes, but isn't allowed to because the children are sorted by class. And that the «stupid carers» scold her when she has to cry about it. «They scold you? They don't comfort you?» I want to know and get the answer: «No, Dad! They're such shitheads!»

This is perhaps one of those examples where people react very differently depending on their view of what respect means. Perhaps someone would reply: «No swearing! You don't say words like that!», someone else: «If that's a rule, you have to stick to it». It was important to me that my daughter could say in her childlike, direct way: «I'm allowed to be sad and cry and I don't have to feel wrong if an adult scolds me for it.»

Fabian Grolimund

is a psychologist and author («Learning with children», «From procrastinator to learning pro»). Together with Stefanie Rietzler, he runs the Academy for Learning Coaching in Zurich. The 40-year-old is married and father to a son, 6, and a daughter, 4. He lives with his family in Fribourg. You can find the best of these columns in the new book «Geborgen, mutig, frei - wie Kinder zu innerer Stärke finden».
www.mit-kindern-lernen.ch, www.biber-blog.com
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Read more about respect:

Learning good manners without pressure
Decency and good behaviour make for pleasant interaction. But how do you teach your children manners? And what should they be today?
Empathy instead of a power struggle
A child who rebels and doesn't respect authority puts their parents to the test. And holds up a mirror to them: It has usually copied their behaviour.