Loving Kids Loud Part Three - Respectful Relationships

There’s been a lot of talk in the last 5-10 years about teaching ‘respectful relationships’ in schools.  Schools now tend to bring in outside experts who spend time with the students unpacking important issues like consent and relationships. This is a good thing and I’m in no way arguing these workshops shouldn’t happen.  There are some incredible people doing work in this space, I’ve done work in this space as well. There’s just something about it that sits uncomfortably with me. I think it’s the idea that we’re taking students away from their regular lessons to “teach” them about respectful relationships which is actually something that develops from within.

In the last ten years Australia has observed with horror some atrocious behaviour in Canberra involving some politicians. In response, some of the individuals involved were provided with courses in empathy; in fact according to the media, even the former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, was instructed to participate in a course on empathy. I have the same feeling about these empathy courses that I do about respectful relationships courses.  The ideas and information about empathy and respect can be taught but empathy and respect, which go hand in hand, are so much more than information; they’re a way to be in the world.  

How did we get to a place where politicians are having to be taught about empathy and schools are outsourcing education about respect?  

According to Longmuir et al in 2024 workload and disrespect for the profession are among the most common reasons for teachers leaving the education sector. Significantly though, one of the other most common reasons was a sense of safety in their workplaces. The authors state that lack of safety within Australian schools are more common than other similar countries. In 2018, school principals were four times more likely to report intimidation and abuse from students on a weekly basis than their OECD colleagues.  Educators in Australia have higher WH&S claims for assault and mental health related injuries than for other professions and researchers propose that these official claims are a fraction of the actual number. The research also found that 80% of Australian teachers had experienced bullying and harassment from students and parents in a 12 month period.  This school principal outlined the experiences of many:

I have been physically assaulted many times, including punched, kicked, slapped, bitten, pinched, and spat on (spat in my face from close range). I have had furniture and school equipment thrown at me. I once had rocks and bricks thrown at me. I have had death threats and threats of physical harm. Whenever I have to respond to a red behaviour card, I worry about what I will be walking into. I have had to take scissors, knives, and a thick metal chain off escalated students.

I want to unpack in this blog some of the possible reasons for this pervasive attitude of disrespect and some potential solutions. I invite you to walk with me as I meander around what is an incredibly complex topic and suggest areas to consider.

My biggest concern, not only from the research but from working with families and schools for decades and hearing accounts first-hand, is the involvement of parents in the bullying and harassment of school leaders, teachers and students. Likewise, I’ve heard many stories of parents feeling bullied by school staff. If we genuinely want to change the atmosphere, we, the adults, need to challenge ourselves, sit with our uncomfortable feelings and take responsibility for whatever part we might play.

The way children learn about spelling and maths, geography and history is very different to the way they learn about cooperatively playing with other children, making friends and interacting with others. Children learn these social relationships by watching others; the adults and older children around them, by being encouraged and by being corrected when necessary.  

I don’t think the issue of disrespect is something that has just arisen with this generation.  It’s the end result of generational evolution. Generally speaking, each generation has pushed back against the previous one. I’m a Gen Xer and we certainly wanted to do things differently from our Boomer parents. Life was different; we were the post, post war generation.  We had our own issues to deal with. I grew up in the UK and so the issues my friends and I were facing were different to our Australian peers, no less significant, just different. I remember the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, the Falklands War, Chernobyl, the Miners’ strikes, the rise of nuclear armament and the very real fear that one slightly unhinged world leader could at any moment blow up the world. Having said that, the issue of slightly unhinged world leaders is currently at the front of everyone’s minds once again.

Growing up in a generalised atmosphere of fear does actually impact the brain’s architecture. There is an overload of cortisol and adrenaline when chronic fear and anxiety is present. That subconscious level of fear created within GenX-ers, impacted the way we parented our children. The fear and trauma our parents experienced as the war and post war children impacted the way they parented us, too. We all wanted our children to be safe in a world we knew from experience was not safe. I think my generation was also impacted by our parents’ desire for us to do better than they did. To be better than they were.  To take up every single opportunity made available to us. There’s a pressure in that.

In a world where generations of parents were just trying to keep their heads above water and survive, there isn’t much room for reflection. That kind of pressure tends to cause us to do one of two things; follow our parents because that’s the way it’s always been done or fight like anything to parent differently for our own children. These are both completely understandable responses and there is absolutely no judgement from me, but I think it’s what has led us to where we are. I am generalising; every single family is unique with their own additional or different challenges.  I’m considering the whole picture rather than the individual elements.

If we want our children to have it better than us and we’re pushing back on the way we were raised, then it’s actually understandable that we “look after number one”.  That we prioritise our children and our family above all others. The problem though, is in prioritising our own children, we lose sight of the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that whether we like it or not, we all live in a community.  When we live in community with others, it means we have to consider everyone.  

We all want to be the best parents we can be and that bar is slightly different for everyone.  As a specialist family practitioner for over three decades, I’ve spoken to hundreds of parents. I have never met a parent who wants to hurt their children but I have met plenty of parents who felt hurt by their own parents. It’s their own hurt that is the driver for them to do things differently but when we’re feeling vulnerable we don’t necessarily take a step back and think about the big picture. We know we don’t want our children to feel like we did and to have the same experiences that we did, but we don’t actually know what to do instead.  It’s hard to find a constructive middle ground when we’re led by our emotions.

I’m not sure about you, but when I think about myself, the most impactful lessons I’ve learned have usually come out of some kind of adversity or ‘stuff up’. We have an opportunity to learn most in the tough places but our capacity to learn when we get it wrong is impacted by whether we feel shame or guilt.  Shame is when we think to ourselves, “I’ve done something bad which means I’m a bad person”. There is no learning within shame and it has incredibly negative consequences.  Guilt however is when we think, “I’ve done something bad which wasn’t ok and I need to make it right”.  When we think about the difficult times in our own childhoods and with our own parents, I expect the majority of us will say, “My parents’ responses caused me to feel ashamed”.  We don’t understand the difference between shame and guilt so we avoid being the cause of either with our own children.  Shame is never good but guilt can be a very constructive emotion as it prompts us to take responsibility to repair.

Taking responsibility to repair is the foundation of respect and empathy.  What it does do, is help us ‘feel with’ the other person and to see things from their perspective.  To walk in their shoes.  To consider, “what would it be like for me if someone did that to me?” It is these fundamental belief systems that cause my concerns about the efficacy of teaching empathy and teaching respect.  Empathy and respect need to be felt deep within us, otherwise we’re just going through the motions.

Brene Brown is one of my favourite voices.  She is a social worker and researcher and has committed her life to understanding vulnerability.  If you don’t know of her, I encourage you to do a quick google search of her.  For now though I will link you to a clip on Empathy that I regularly show when I am training practitioners.  The thing about empathy and respect is that they are inherently part of the development of resilience.  If we want to raise confident, caring, kind and resilient kids, then helping them to intrinsically understand respect and empathy is key.

The teaching of respectful relationships is also linked with the understanding of consent.  Again, consent is something that we develop within us rather than being externally taught.  Of course the greatest teacher of consent is to model this behaviour with our children from the moment they are born. When children see and experience empathy and being respected, they understand it in a way that is far more than intellectual.  If our children are respectful and empathic, consent easily follows.  When I think about myself as a child and adolescent, I did my hardest and best work for my favourite teachers.  Those teachers were the ones that treated me with empathy, dignity and respect. Having said that, as our children develop and their experiences within the world evolve, we need to have lots of conversations in context.  Not “telling” but having curious conversations and imparting knowledge and wisdom.  

There have been many public conversations about consent, who remembers the Milkshake debacle? If you are struggling to find ways to discuss it with your children you might like to have a quick look at this not so tongue-in-cheek video from Thames Valley Police.  I am by no means suggesting you show the video to your children (although I’m sure some will love it, many will roll their eyes), it’s more about giving you some ideas. Of course my previous two blogs in this Loving Kids Loud series give you some ideas about the more complex conversations.

I want to finish this blog by talking specifically about bullying.  Bullying is everywhere.  As much as I would like to be positive, we’re never going to stop bullying so we need to be able to handle it ourselves and teach our children to handle it.

Once again children learn to bully by being the victim of bullies or by observing bullies in action.  When I talk about bullies, I’m not just talking about within the school grounds or through the use of technology.  The very first thing an adult who is around children needs to do, is to look within themselves to see if they bully others.  There are a myriad of ways we bully others.  We insult people in our conversations; either people we know or, more often, people we don’t know but are in the public eye.  We make degrading comments regarding people’s intelligence, looks or life-choices.  We think it’s not harmful, or just a bit of fun but whilst the target may not be aware, our children are watching and it’s harming them.  We take to social media and rage at and insult people from behind our keyboards.  We belittle people who have jobs we consider to be “less than”; hospitality, supermarket, delivery workers or teachers, nurses and social workers.  We might think our opinions are the ‘truth’ and loudly diminish people who have different ideas to us.  Every single time we do these things our children see it and then copy it.

In terms of responding to bullies, there are two things that do not work and will always make it worse; under-responding and over-responding.  When we under-respond we send out the message that we are weak causing the bully to think we are an even easier target fueling their behaviour.  When we over-respond we create a challenge for the bully to ‘conquer’ us and so their behaviour escalates.  Whilst it may seem that these cancel each other out and leave us with nowhere to go, there is another way; the warm but careless response.  The response that says, “Your opinion of me is irrelevant”.  There is a brilliant video from Brooks Gibbs that I think is a must watch for everyone when it comes to managing bullies effectively.  Gibbs talks about the importance of children developing their own sense of self-worth, self-confidence and self-esteem.  

For many years I chose not to engage with keyboard warriors on-line, now I’m a little more invested.  By no means do I challenge every unkind or harassing person whose comments I read.  Usually I just block or ignore the person (or bot) who is making the remarks and move along but sometimes I stop and attempt to engage.  Usually when the comment gets personal towards the person who posted something.  The way I tend to do it is by inviting the person to see things differently.  When we invite someone into our world we provide them with an opportunity to move towards empathy and respect.

I’ll give you a recent example and whilst I’ll try to be concise the back issues are a little complex.  As many people in Sydney will be aware, relatively recently a new light rail line opened linking the inner north west of Sydney with Westmead; a large health hub where there are multiple hospitals and medical facilities.  I regularly need to go to the Children’s Hospital with one of the kids who has some very specific medical challenges.  Parking at the Children’s Hospital is usually a nightmare so I was very thankful that there was now going to be another option.  Except the new Light Rail doesn’t actually connect up with any of the other public transport hubs.  The only way to get to the Light Rail if you don’t live in the vicinity of the station is to drive to the station where there is no car park or to take the bus.  

There was a social media post from Transport for NSW about the amazing new service. I made a comment about the lack of connection to other services except the bus and that to get to Westmead from my part of Sydney, people would have to get the metro or train into the city and then back out again, something that would take at least an hour for what should be a 30 minute trip.  Someone responded to me with what I perceived to be a fairly blunt, leaning towards rude remark that I could get the bus and should stop complaining.  Instead of getting antsy with her, which I could have been justified in doing because of her tone, I invited her into my world.  I invited her to make a choice towards empathy and respect.  I let her know that I use a wheelchair and my child uses a wheelchair.  I let her know that wheelchairs and buses are usually a dangerous combination.  I also let her know that there is usually only room for a maximum of 2 wheelchair spots on a bus (depending on the model, it might only be 1).  If there is someone else in a wheelchair on the bus, it means we can’t get on.  She responded by saying she wasn’t aware of these limitations.  I replied that if we think about making the world accessible for people with disabilities we make it accessible for everyone and that people with disabilities have a basic human right to fully engage in their communities.  We ended up having a pleasant and educational exchange.  

I’m sure she will see things differently now because rather than react to what she said, I responded and invited her into a conversation.  Now imagine what the world would look like if we all chose to do that and we taught our children to do that? I’m not suggesting that we all behave like doormats, but that at the very least our initial response comes from a place of respect.  If it goes nowhere then we can choose to walk away at that point, which is still a position of respect.  I’m not suggesting we will eliminate the bullies, the trolls and the bots but if we make a conscious decision to respond with empathy and respect, we’re positively impacting 50% of the problem.

As parents who adore our children, we want to protect them from the really challenging aspects of life but the thing is, when we protect them and fight for them, we don’t give them the opportunity to develop self-confidence, self-worth and self-esteem.  This is one thing we just can’t do for our children, they have to learn how to do it for themselves.  Parents fight for their children and because they are so passionate about protecting their children, they become the bully.  When parents bully teachers and school leaders, the only people who actually lose are the ones parents love the most; their children.  The children feel the impact of the parents’ bullying of the teacher because teachers are undermined in their decision making and teaching.  It ruins the parent-teacher relationship. The child feels ashamed by their parents’ behaviour and inevitably the children are the ones who miss out.  Even more seriously, it can risk the beginning of school avoidance and anxiety, the exact opposite of building resilience. In terms of the impact on teachers, when they feel undermined and unsafe in their workplaces, they can then become the bully even though their desire, like parents’, is to be the best teacher they can be.

I’ve heard school leaders talk about teachers having a right to feel and be safe in their workplaces but I’ve also heard from parents and children alike about teachers/school leaders regularly bullying children, as well as children bullying each other.  What I haven’t heard much of is schools which effectively deal with bullying.  If teachers and parents were able to take the advice of Brooks Gibbs and calmly stand their ground, the children would have a much better experience of schools.  If the adults were able to participate in respectful conversations and relationships with each other then children will inherently understand how to be respectful with each other.  If teachers and parents put in effective consequences, ultimately everyone will have a far more positive experience.  When we expect children to be ‘better’ and more respectful than the example set by the adults around them, it is inevitable that there will be a crisis of disrespect.

Respect has to start somewhere, and the somewhere is with the adults.

I feel like this blog is just the tip of the iceberg and I’d love people to (respectfully) contribute to the conversation.  You can comment below.  As I have developed these three blog posts in the Loving Kids Loud series, I’ve realised that there is something fundamentally missing; the issue of Anxiety.  I’ve decided that I need to add a fourth blog to the series to address this epidemic-like issue which will drop next week.

In terms of further reading and resources about the issues that I’ve been raising, my book Bugger Bugger Shit: my quest for resilience expands upon the topic of resilience in a really easy to read way.