Robert: Have you ever lamented the fact that your kids don’t seem to respect you the way you feel that they should, or that they don’t accept your guidance or authority the way that you did your parents? Well, what are the root causes of respect and a parenting relationship? What has changed that makes respect so much harder to get from our kids? And what exactly can you do today to start earning your children’s respect without resorting to yelling, hitting or intimidation? This week on Just Seven Steps. 

Intro: Welcome to the Just Seven Steps podcast with Robert Schramm, a board-certified behavior analyst, educator, author and developer of the Seven Steps to Successful Parenting. For more than 20 years, Robert has been teaching parents and professionals how to support children and developing the values and priorities necessary to live a successful life. In this podcast, you’ll hear from some of the biggest experts in the fields of education, parenting and behavior analysis. So buckle in and get ready for a wild ride where you’ll learn to be your best in just seven steps. 

Robert: Hi. My name is Robert Schramm. I am a behavior analyst, education specialist, author and dad. And I’m also the developer of the Seven Steps to Instruction on Motivation. Each week, I provide you with helpful information based on the Just Seven Steps approach. So if you haven’t already subscribe to my YouTube channel, take a second. Do it right now. You’ll be glad that you did. Welcome to this. The next exciting episode of the Just Seven Steps podcast. In today’s episode, we are going to delve into the topic of respect. What is respect? How is it earned and what can we do to keep it? Many parents I speak with usually fathers, but not always ask me about how I can get their kids to show them more respect for their authority. They believe that respect is important in a parent child relationship, but they don’t know how to get it. And all their attempts to develop better respect have fallen flat or just plain failed. So today I’m going to spend a little time with you, and we’re going to go through the definitions of respect, talk about the history of how respect was earned in parenting relationships in the past, and what you can do now to be able to develop or earn that respect that you so desperately require from your children. Let’s start with a couple of basic definitions. First, the definition for authority. What is authority, who has it or who should have it in a relationship to a child? According to a quick Google search, the definition for authority means the power or right to give orders, make decisions and enforce obedience. Wow. There is a lot to unpack there. When looking at this definition, I wonder how much does this term really belong in a child rearing relationship? For instance, do we as parents want to be seen as giving orders? Is it our intention that we should be able to order our children around to do whatever it is we want from them? Worse than that, as even the phrase enforce obedience, what? That certainly is not the type of language I would normally want to use when talking about helping and supporting a child. I do see the idea of having the power or right to make decisions related to my child as a reasonable expectation and a parenting relationship. But even that power or right needs to have its limits and can be a moving definition based on the child’s age needs and the current parental relationship. So if authority is not a great word, maybe we shouldn’t use it in parenting and we certainly shouldn’t be trying to develop it as it’s defined here. 

Robert: But how about the word respect? Respect is defined as a feeling of deep admiration for someone elicited by their abilities, qualities or achievements. Now, this sounds like a word I can get behind if you want me to help you to earn your child’s respect. This is something I’m comfortable with because it is a process of helping you to demonstrate to your child your value as someone deserving of admiration elicited by your abilities, qualities or achievements. Secondarily, it is defined as having a due regard for someone’s feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions. Again, this is something I could see myself helping a parent earn from their child. I mean, who wouldn’t want their kids to have a high regard for their parents feelings, their wishes, their rights, or their traditions? So let’s move ourselves away from the discussion of developing, demanding authority and focus on the development or, as I like to call it, the earning of respect. The problem with respect is that it’s best served when it truly is a two way street. Giving someone respect often is the fastest way to earn their respect. But with the power dynamic and the experience differences in a parent child relationship, we’re likely going to have to do more than just give respect to our child in order to get it. Respect for them is important, especially when considering the second definition, having a high regard for their feelings, wishes, rights or traditions. I mean, the more we can demonstrate that we care about our kids and what’s important to them, the more they will likely demonstrate care for us and what’s important to us. But there has to be more involved here than just that, because many of you have shown great respect for your kids and their wants and desires, but haven’t been seeing that respect. That respect reciprocated. So what more does it take? Well, let’s look into the past a bit to see how our parents or grandparents used to gain control over our behavior and previous generations. It wasn’t uncommon for parents of yore to use anger, physical intimidation and even physical pain as a way to gain and maintain control over their kids behavior. Moms would often use the line. You just wait till your dad gets home. And you knew that that meant there was going to be some yelling, chasing and possibly the introduction of a switch or a paddle. I remember that my own mom, who seldom resorted to violence, was once so frustrated at my behavior that she told me to go upstairs and wait for her. She came up. She put me over her knee and she spanked me. I think I was maybe ten at the time, and I remember looking back at her with a smile on my face, like, Do you really think that this hurts me? I remember the concern in her eyes when she realized that she had played her trump card and that it was no longer going to work. But even if it did still work, is that really what we want our kids to do or to deal with? Do we want them to behave out of a fear of physical violence from us? Maybe that sort of discipline seems to have worked better for you than what you and your spouse are getting from your kids now. But that is by no means a good reason to start resorting to violence with your children. I’ve even recently seen so-called parenting experts recommend not hitting your kids necessarily, but a little like spanking. To get your point across again by changing the name of what we do, are we really changing the outcome in any way? What if a light spanking doesn’t work? What’s next? Do you have to begin to hit harder and harder? What if a slap on the butt doesn’t work? What’s next on a slap on the face? No, honey, I didn’t slap you. I just gave your face a high five. And then what? A boxing match between dad and son in the garage. Now, I’m not going to bore you with all the data and study jargon, but it has become quite clear in the research that children who are hit are more likely to show violence to peers as well as use it against adults. And kids who live in constant fear and intimidation from their parents are often the first to leave home and never look back. 

Robert: Now maybe you’re thinking, Well, why would Robert even bring this up? I would never hit my kids. And in this day and age, you know, that makes sense. But how many times on social media have you seen someone say something like this? Did my parents used to spank me and I turned out all right? Well, my response to this is always, well, if you’re advocating for the hitting of a child as part of your parenting plan, then I would argue you didn’t turn out all that okay after all. The truth is, parents used to use these archaic tools to control their children’s behavior, and in some instances it worked to some degree. For some kids, it led to fear based cooperation and avoidance of violence as a motivator for behavior. But if you’ve seen any of my previous episodes or participated in the free workshop on my website at just seven steps dot com backslash workshop, it’s called How Do You Get Your Kids To Listen without raising your voice or nagging? If you’ve seen if you’ve seen those, you know that anything you do that makes yourself an aversive or an annoyance to get what you want may work some in the short term, but it often carries with it dangerous side effects. If you want more info on that, check out my other episodes or go to the website for the free workshop whenever you have time. But if you can’t scare, hit, spank, or intimidate your kids into making good behavior choices. Well, you can. We should. Then what should you do? That’s such a good question. I’m so glad I asked that. Well, let’s consider what principle of behavior we’re actually talking about when we try to reduce behavior through yelling and hitting. I’ll start us off with a definition for anything that happens after behavior and reduces the future. Use of that behavior is considered a punishment for that behavior. Notice we’re talking about reinforcing or punishing a specific behavior, not the child overall. You’re never going to want to actively try to reinforce or punish a child. The goal is not to change them. We’re merely using our understanding of the behavioral principles to help them make better choices while they’re growing up. But there are two different types of reduction consequences. There’s negative and positive. And when you add something to the environment after a behavior is called a positive reduction technique, positive meaning plus or added, not meaning good. When you remove something after a behavior and it reduces that behavior is called a negative reduction technique. And again, the negative stands for minus. Not bad. The truth is, when it comes to the reduction of behavior, it is better to use negative or the removals as a consequence than to use positive or additions as the consequence. Let me explain. Yelling at your child, hitting your child, giving your child more work to do are all things that you would add to the environment after a behavior with the goal of reducing that behavior in the future. And even though these positive punishers can work to reduce behavior, they set you up as an aversive stimuli that is the giver of these bad experiences. When someone is regularly giving us the bad experiences, we might reduce our non-preferred behavior in front of them. But we’re also going to begin to learn how to avoid and escape their influence. It’s just human nature. 

Robert: Now, if we were to avoid adding these bad experiences, such as yelling and hitting, etc., what can we do instead that will result in a reduction in less preferred behavior choices while we still have negative reduction techniques? A negative reduction technique is anything that is removed from the environment after a behavior that makes that behavior less likely to occur in the future. So when we see behavior, we cannot ignore. Rather than yelling or spanking or giving extra work. We can instead look for reinforcers already available in your child’s environment that we can now limit access to for some period of time. Quick example of what I’m talking about here. Your child is watching their iPad and you have a rule that says the volume needs to be low or they need to use the headphones. But as you’re talking on the phone, your child has turned up the volume too loud for you to have your conversation. So your reduction choices in the moment are many, but they fall into these two main categories of positive or bad reduction or negative. And what I would consider a good reduction. You could use the positive. You could yell at your child. You could come over and spank your child. You can make them go out and clean the playroom as a punishment. All of these would be forms of positive punishment, and they might cause your child to start listening, but they would also cause them to have negative feelings towards you and begin to avoid you in the future, or see you as just a bad guy who is making their life consistently less enjoyable. Worse yet, once the behavior has ceased, you’re still just the person who yelled or who hit. And you can’t undo that action immediately when they’ve started to show better behavior. The alternatives are forms of negative reduction techniques again by negative. We are talking about taking something away from the environment as a consequence. In this instance, we could take the iPad away and we could hold it until our phone conversation is over. Then, if your child is demonstrating positive reactions to this and good behavior, you have a way to undo the action by returning the iPad as a positive reinforcer for making better behavior choices. And with that, you can give them a reminder of why it was taken in the first place. Now it is true. With negative reduction techniques you are still an annoyance. Who is the one taking the item away from your child? But you are also in the position to be able to give it right back as soon as behavior improves. And it gives them more reasons to want to continue to engage with you positively out of a desire to have the reinforcer returned. Now, remember, we are just talking about reduction techniques here, but it’s important to keep in mind that the more we can work with reinforcement and focus on building behavior we want to see, the less likely we will need to be focused on these reduction type techniques. But again, there are many very clear and obvious reasons why you would choose negative for the removal of reinforcement procedures over ones that add punishers like hitting, yelling or intimidation. But even without the scientific or behavioral principle reasons, morally, there should never be a reason why you would have to hit a child. And if your goal is earning their respect. Hitting truly cannot ever be an option. I think that really is all I should have to say about that. So let’s move on. So if we’re not going to use positive punishers in our attempts to get our kids to stop making less, making lesser behavior choices, then what are we going to do? And how does that lead us to or lead us back to the idea of earning their respect? Well, if a child is learning how to make good choices and you are being very clear about your expectations, but also keeping in mind your child’s current levels of ability and handling these expectations, you can begin to work in ways that helps develop respect. Let’s look back at that definition again. Respect is a feeling of deep admiration for someone elicited by their abilities, qualities or achievements. Do you think it’s possible to yell someone into having a deep admiration for you? Do you think you can get them into it? Well, obviously, we have to figure out where feelings of admiration come from. The people that I admire are people who have achieved things that I’d like to achieve or show. Qualities that I’d like to possess. Or show me respect by treating me kindly and having a due regard for my feelings, wishes and rights. So if I want a kid to respect me, I have to demonstrate qualities that they would like to possess and achievements they would like to achieve. And I have to show them that I have a due regard for their feelings, their wishes and their rights as well. A lot of this sounds just like being a good person, being an interested person, caring about more than just what I want from them in the moment. Showing the child that I’m fun, easy to be around, and someone who demonstrates the abilities. I would like to see them begin to demonstrate. I have to be someone whose main focus is on building positive interactions and the offering of reinforcement. And I can’t be someone who focuses solely on abolishing behavior that I see as inappropriate or bad in any approach to parenting or education. You have to see the child as a unique individual human being and not just someone that you’re trying to get things from if your child. I’m sorry if your goal is to be strict and consequent in every possible behavior issue, but you only notice the negative behavior and not all the positive things your child is doing. You’re going to lose their respect. On the other hand, if you’re someone who wants to always be liked and are unable to set and maintain important boundaries, you’ll likely lose the child’s respect as well. Like anything in life, the development of respectful relationships with your kids, it’s going to require balance. It will need you to be firm and follow through at the right times, but also open an understanding of your child’s goals, their needs and their desires. 

Robert: One thing is for sure. If you’re not likable, you’ll truly never be respected. However, if you’re not able to follow through or be contingent, you’re probably going to befall the same fate. One has to have the ability to remain positive and fun as an influence, while also being able to set boundaries and when necessary, show the fortitude to stand by your convictions, even in the face of some potentially angry backlash. The best way that I have found to do this is by following the Seven Steps to Instruction Motivation. It pushes you towards a focus on the positives and giving reinforcement to behavior that you want to see more of. It teaches you a clear and uncomplicated set of guidelines about how and when to give instructions to your kids and then teaches you how to follow through without the use of negative reinforcement or positive punishers like nagging, yelling or hitting. If your goal is still to establish your authority over your kids, meaning the power or right to give orders or demand obedience, then I’m probably not the guy to help you. Not by those definitions that we discussed here today. Why would I? Why would you want your kids to blindly listen to everything you or anyone else says to them? The goal is to earn their trust and respect and then to allow that respect to be the reason why you can help guide and support them in all of their learning and behavior development. If I’m going to focus on developing respect, I’m going to make sure that I give respect. I’m going to focus on the behavior. I want to see over the behavior. I want not to see. I’m going to avoid using those positive punishers that will push my child away from me. And I’m going to follow through with my expectations using the removal of unearned or forfeited reinforcement whenever necessary to make my point. This will also give me an opportunity to return that reinforcement as a giver of good things as soon as I’m seeing better effort or more positive engagement. 

Robert: Okay. So I’m going to end this episode with another story about my own childhood. Remember I told you about the time my mom tried spanking me and it didn’t go her way? Well, it was a number of years later, and I had gotten my driver’s license. I was going out for the night, and I was given firm instructions about when to be home, where I could go, etc.. At one point my mom stopped and looked at me and she said, I’m so glad you have the ability to drive now. And I asked her why and she said, because for the first time in a long time, I actually have something you care enough about not losing to start listening to our rules. Back then, I was able to prove to her that positive punishment, like spankings, were never going to work again. It was me that was smiling and confident in my position, but it was now her who was able to look at me with a smile, knowing that she had figured out the secret of negative reduction procedures. The ability to remove access to a reinforcer for a period of time depended on my behavior. And in doing so, she had truly earned my respect. And this was evidenced by my improved behavior and cooperation. So in reality, she had always had access to things I would have worked hard to gain and keep access to if she had only seen them for their value as tools to support her in getting her parenting needs met at tbe time. Favorite meals opportunities with friends free time to go outside my bike, access to the park after school, game time, movies, trips to the store for a snack or a toy ride to school instead of taking the bus and many more things I could sit down and recount. If I was being honest, all of those could have been things that I was earning or not dependent upon my behavior. And it all would have added to my parents feelings of success, as well as my own development of more respect for them as my role models and guides. Okay. Don’t forget to check out WWW dot just seven steps dot com backslash workshop for that free workshop I was telling you about how to get your kids to listen without raising your voice or nagging. It’s free. It’s OnDemand and you will learn so much. Thank you for taking the time to join me today on the Just Seven Steps podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please take just a moment to leave me a comment. Give a thumbs up. Share the video with others and subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you won’t miss out on any of our Just Seven Steps videos designed to help parents of children with challenges. Find your family’s path to progress. See you right here next week.