by Brittany Stewart

Created on: February 17, 2010

Everyone has a different parenting style; no one can tell you the right way to raise your children. Whatever your chosen method is, however, you can always incorporate mutual respect into the fold.

By giving your children the benefit of the doubt and allowing them the respect to make their choices, you are giving them a chance to blossom on their own. This initial respect is important for building a lasting and meaningful relationship with your children.

It's true what they say; raising children is definitely a labour of love. You put so much of yourself into it that it can become stressful and overwhelming, and that's before you take into consideration the fact that you also want your children to respect you. It doesn't need to always be highly stressful and constantly demanding though, you can have a wonderful civil relationship with your children. If you can treat them with genuine respect, they will be much more likely to treat you with the same. This mutual respect is important for the lasting bonds connecting parents and children throughout later life.

Although your children are young and quite often naive about a lot of things, they still have their own personalities, ideas and opinions. You need to treat their point of view with respect and allow them the room to make mistakes. You may not agree with every choice they make, but by giving them the freedom to make those choices you are showing them that you respect their individuality.

This doesn't mean that you are required to let them do as they please, or that you should give in or bend to their will. Keep firm to your rules. Discipline as you see fit when they have broken the rules or done something to let you down, but do it in such a way to show them how they have lost some of your respect and trust, and need to earn it back.

This respect goes both ways. Children need to be respectful and honest with their parents as well. If that doesn't happen, then the whole system will fail. How can you have respect for your child's decisions if they won't give you the respect and honesty you also deserve. Children will often listen to their parents more when they have respect for them. They won't want to let you down, and will follow your rules and be honest with you because of this respect. A mutual respect between parents and children means that communication will be open, issues will be discussed and disagreements will be dealt with through cooperation.

It doesn't need to be difficult to teach them this concept. As long as honesty and respect are a value that you consistently practice in your household your children should easily pick it up. It's a very old and warn out saying, but as long as you do unto others as you would have them do onto you, you should be fine. Putting that into perspective in this situation means that you can't expect your children to respect you and your decisions if you can't do the same for them.

Mutual respect is possibly one of the most important qualities of a strong and open relationship between parents and children.

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