How to Gain Respect from People in Your Life

We just gave birth to our second little boy named Charlie. I’m not kidding or bias when I say he is one of the cutest kids ever. Our first child’s name is Noah and he is two years old. Here’s the thing (and I’m sure many moms and dads will agree with me here)…trying to get your two year old to respect you is one of the most trying and difficult things we face as parents. I often find myself doing what most parents do these days, we go to Google. I type learn how to gain respect and every post talks about behavior. I thought this was the answer until I recently started reading a book.

No, not The Berenstain Bears, although those were some of my favorite books growing up and I probably did learn a lot about gaining respect and respecting others. No, the book I started reading is called Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp. My wife and I had been on the hunt for a good and Godly parenting book for a while, since we felt like we didn’t quite know how to handle our kid’s little temper tantrums and attitude. After asking around and searching in the web, we landed on Shepherding a Child’s Heart.

I just finished going through the first chapter and it took me about an hour, believe it or not. The concepts, thoughts and perspectives that Tedd presented was incredible. I took very detailed notes in evernote (I like to take notes of every book I read for referencing later) and went very slowly to be sure not to miss anything nugget of info.

Here’s what I learned about my search for How To Gain Respect:

Don’t focus on the behavior, focus on the heart of the child.

Ted Explains…

All behavior is linked to attitudes of the heart. Therefore, discipline must address attitudes of the heart.

This got me thinking, if I want to learn how to gain respect from my kids, I need to address the heart of the situation and not the actual behavior.

Why don’t my kids want to respect me?

I have to look at myself to answer this one. Am I giving my children a good example of a father and leader? Do I show the personality traits of a leader that should be respected?

My take away…for now

Give your kids, spouse, co-workers, boss, parents or whoever someone to respect. Live a life that is full of the fruits of the Spirits. I bet if we follow this path, we are bound to gain respect from others.