The Wellness Universe Quote of the Day by Cheryl O\’Connor

The Wellness Universe Quote of the Day by Cheryl O\’Connor

Enjoy The Wellness Universe Quote of the Day by Cheryl and find more inspiration on her page. Here is her expanded thought…

How often do people make or read the statement “Children have no respect these days”?

Children are quite simply a product of their conditioning and their environment, until they reach an age where they either sort themselves out or not. My Grandmother always said when referring to children “Monkey see, monkey do” which was her way of saying what children see and experience is what they will do regardless of what they are told.

Once upon a time, when I was growing up, respect was a given which was usually fear based and derived by physical abuse and threats. Don’t show it, or don’t behave how you were told to and you’d literally cop a clip around the head or whilst at school if a child did not behave in a way that was expected they were caned. For those too young to know what I am referring to, the Principal at the school had a long, usually bamboo piece of cane in their office and the standard was known as six cuts of the cane, delivered with great force by the Principal onto the palms of your open hands. Much of the physical abuse many of us in my generation and before me received as children is now not allowed to occur legally. That does not mean some of it still does not occur though, simply because many parents and other adults in children’s lives haven’t yet healed their own childhood wounds which children trigger and because they have not yet learnt adequate coping, communication or boundary skills. In an attempt to eliminate the type of abuse which myself, my peers and those before us were subjected to we now have a situation where in some countries it is illegal to even smack a child on the backside.

I don’t know how many times though when I am out and about I witness total disrespect for little ones via their parents by way of verbal put downs, insults, name calling, swearing and yelling at them due to what appears to me to be a total lack of Self-awareness along with a total lack of awareness of what is going on for a child, combined with a need to control behaviour, whilst seemingly not having the skills to cope. So what is worse I wonder, long term verbal abuse or a quick smack on the backside?

It’s like we have gone from one extreme to the other in how we deal with what we find to be challenging and unacceptable behaviour by children and our whole conditioning in relation to “respect” and doing what we are told to do is still geared along the lines of reward or punishment, rather than digging deeper, finding and healing the true cause of the behaviour which we find unacceptable or challenging. Just as a physical symptom occurs as a reaction to something deeper that is not balanced, so too does how a person behaves. Who a person truly is, is not however their behaviour.

These days we have the “naughty corner” for dealing with children’s unacceptable behaviour along with the taking away of privileges if necessary and in schools, detention. Many are told they cannot come out of the “naughty corner” until they say they are sorry for their behaviour and perhaps many just say they are sorry so they can come out. This is so very similar at a very basic level to our jail systems. The only lesson I see learned with the “naughty corner” or the taking away of privileges is – do what the adult who wants to be in control of a situation says or you will be punished which is no different to how I grew up, it’s just thankfully not as violent. When is the time truly ever taken however with a child or anyone else for that matter to actually find out why they behaved like they did?

How is it even possible for children to have respect when for so many of them they are shown none? Not just in their immediate home environment in many situations but also within schools and via the media we are all exposed to? Most of the news is about fear based behaviour that is downright ugly and a lot of the time unfathomable behaviour is occurring by adults that is being reported about which little folk also see or hear as parents sit down to watch the news or watch movies that are geared towards violence, abuse and many fear based scenarios. Many of the so-called leaders in this world seem to occupy a lot of their time being disrespectful towards each other whilst also attacking and blaming each other for whatever, meanwhile journalists are chasing people around, not respecting others privacy and are often very much in other people’s faces with their questions and judgements. Where is there respect in any of that? When are children, generally speaking, really taught by adult behaviour to have reverence and gratitude for all life and to have Self-respect? Much of the time all they seem to witness is a total lack of respect not only for others but for the planet and all other forms of life. They are not, generally speaking, taught respect for the Earth, as the adults around them treat the Earth like a dumping ground, throwing our rubbish everywhere, poisoning air, land and water, nor are they generally speaking taught Self-respect, respect for other people, respect for property or respect for the animals they share the Earth with. So perhaps it’s time we all stopped blaming children for having no respect, stopped complaining that they don’t have any and instead we all started teaching them Self-respect by healing our own childhood wounds, finding Self-respect within ourselves and subsequently behaving in ways that display it because when you gain true Self-respect you contain within you reverence and gratitude for the miracle of your life, all life and all that sustains life. You see that all life and all points of view are Sacred and valid and that all life, including the planet we live on is a gift, not a given to be disrespected, taken for granted or abused. You also see that whilst yes your perception of things will never be exactly the same as another’s, for each of us is miraculously unique, that gives none of us the right to inflict onto others or blame others for our own lack of Self-respect.

Many say respect must be earned, it is not an automatic right and perhaps that is true. Firstly though it must be found within if it is to be given freely to others because the more we respect ourselves, the more we respect what is external to us and the more respect we receive from others in return.

Visit and see more from Cheryl at www.facebook.com/cheocoenterprises

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