I've spent much time thinking about child development...We are expecting to have children and my wife asked me what I felt was the most important trait a parent could have in the hopes of helping to develop a well adjusted child. Well I believe the trait should be respect. See I believe children learn by copying and mimicking the adults they spend time with... And wouldn't a child who learned to respect people because he or she believed in respect, instead of only respecting those who respect you, be way ahead of the game. I am referring to parents who model the "I will respect my child because I believe in respect model, and not the one that revolves around the I will only respect you when you are respecting me model."... What does it mean to respect someone? or to have self respect, or to be respectable?...people will do any and everything to get respect, most people know what it feels like, but almost all have difficulty defining it..I asked teachers at a job, what their biggest challenge in education is? and they said respect...i then asked them what it meant to respect someone and all had difficulty answering, they could describe the feeling of getting and giving it, but defining it was another story...how can we expect something without understanding it? fear...ok my simple definition should be appearing in dictionaries soon...to respect is to listen to understand someone based on the person you are listening to... self respect is to listen to understand oneself...a respectable person is someone who is deemed worthy of being understood...people who respect because they believe in respect, control their ability to understand and grow...all living things grow, if we control our growth, we control our lives...Is that not the most important gift a parent can give to their child...the gift of freedom!

I once asked a group of 8th graders to reply respectfully to this belief of mine. I told them that I believed all objects are black...they were immediately commenting, are you racist?, are you depressed?, does your life suck that bad? I think you get the point...only one kid said, I don't see it that way, why do you? I said are you trying to understand me based on me? he said yes I am...I thanked him for being respectful...and I replied, take away light all objects are black, feed light through a prism and you can separate color, my contention is that color comes from light...most people listen to judge others based upon their own understanding, but that does not help us grow... when we listen to understand people based on their understandings, we can grow through increasing our understandings...as a parent who wants to help their child grow their understandings, so that the child will be able to make understanding decisions when the parent is not present, raising a respectful child is important...