Leading Your Child to Respect Authority

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By Dr. Tim Riordan

It was raining outside, so my physical education class had to stay in the gym and go through a list of exercises. This was disappointing to a group of eighth graders, but since we could not control the weather, we simply made the best of it. I completed my assigned routine, and I stood in front of the window staring out at the rain. Suddenly, I felt a blinding pain as my body slammed against the wall. At first, I didn’t know what had happened as I felt like my backside was on fire. When I recovered from the shock, I turned and saw the coach standing there with his paddle, and he had this look of smug superiority on his face.

“What was that for?” I said in shock while trying to keep from embarrassing myself by allowing tears to roll down my cheeks.

“You’re supposed to be completing your exercises – not staring out the window,” the coach replied in a huff.

“I did complete my exercises,” I retorted with disdain in my voice.

I was royally ticked off. That coach had crossed the line. He spanked me for no good reason, and now he was going to get it. He did not even apologize, but rather, he just turned and walked away. My mom was going to hear about this, and she was going to eat him for lunch.

I went home in triumph knowing that my mother would surely be on my side this time. That coach had spanked me hard, and I had done nothing wrong. When I arrived home that day, I unloaded on my mom knowing she would be enraged.

My mother calmly replied, “I bet you have gotten away with things before that probably deserved a spanking. This one can just count for one you should have gotten before.”

I could not believe it. My mother was siding with the coach. He had practically abused me, and I was totally innocent. I was so angry at my mother for not coming to my defense. What I did not realize at the time was that she was giving me a very important lesson: always respect authority.

I see authority undermined all the time by parents, so they should not be surprised when their child eventually grows up to disregard the law, disrespect their teachers, and dishonor their parents. For example, when a child does poorly in school, the parent sides with the child and blames the teacher. Now, it may be true that sometimes the teacher is at fault, but the parent is doing a great disservice to his or her child when the teacher is blamed in the presence of the child. My smart mother knew that if she criticized the coach to me, I would no longer respect him as an authority in my life. This disrespect could slowly be channeled to other authority figures in my life. My mother may have called the coach when I was not around and given him a piece of her mind, but I never knew about it if she did.

Parents, beware. Always look for ways to support the authority figures in your child’s life. If you have to correct these authorities or criticize them, contact the person personally without letting your child know you are doing so. Leading your child to respect authority will help him or her avoid all manner of heartache in the future.

What are your thoughts about helping children respect authority? Will you share your experiences below and share this blog with your friends by clicking on the icon below?