Where would we be without our parents?
Where would we be without our parents and family?
1 of 10 in the series ‘Children Home Rules - It’s Not Just for Kids’
Here at W. Kim Tae Kwon Do, we have a set of rules that we give every child that joins our program. They are called Children Home Rules. Basically, it’s a set of rules that aren’t any different from the rules that parents already have at home. They aren’t new, but it serves as a handy tool for reinforcement.
Children Home Rule #1 -
Children must show respect to their parents and family members at all times.
I won’t say that it’s always easy for me to enforce respect in my classes. But I am different from mom or dad, and martial arts is different from any other sport. As commercial as it has become, there is still an air of mystery that seems to surround it.
On more than one occasion a parent has asked if I could come home with them because they say that their child listens to me better than them. We laugh together at that, but there is an underlying current that shows that maybe they are only half joking.
Respect is HUGE in martial arts. It’s one of the reasons that parents enroll their kids in it. Kids are comfortable at home and they know mom and dad’s buttons so well that it seems that parents get frustrated even faster.
In the context of the first Children Home Rule, what does respect mean? We teach that it’s looking at mom and dad when they are speaking, doing what they say the first time and doing it with a happy attitude.
Unbeknownst to them, this is not only helping them with respect but also helping build a stronger rapport with their parents.
As we get older the term respect takes on a more mature meaning. Each family dynamic has its own quirks but how respect evolves is virtually the same. We look at our mothers and fathers in a different light and sometimes, unfortunately, there are times where the respect needed has eroded. That’s where reinforcement from outside sources can play a bigger part in a child’s development and the events where respect sometimes erodes are fewer and further between.
One thing that is good to remember is that our parents will always be our parents. Sure, as we grow up and become adults ourselves there is a different kind of interaction with our parents. They will always be our parents and as such will always have a different perspective on their relationship with us than we have with them. That is to say, until we have kids of our own… then we have a better idea what they went through with us.
That being said, we will never have the exact experiences our parents had, whether it be from the era they were raised in or the various socio-economic landscapes they cut their teeth on as young adults. But we can respect what they went through for us.
And while the attitude of doing what they say, the first time, with a happy attitude may no longer apply, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have that foundation influencing how we continue to interact with them as we grow older.
Photo Credit: Caleb Oquendo
