Week #5 Character Development – Respect, Day #30

Respect

“‘Honor your father and mother’ — which is the first commandment with a promise–’that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’” 

- Ephesians 6:2-3

Respect, as I mentioned in my last post, comes in lots of different forms.  We need to have respect for God’s laws, our elders, our peers, our belongings, this planet, ourselves, etc.  Today we went to our church library and picked out some books.  One of the books was a Berenstain Bears book called, “Show Some Respect.”  It focused on respecting our elders.  I wanted to talk about that today because we were also going to a family gathering with aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents,  and great-grandparents.  That environment is a great learning experience for respecting elders.  So, before we left, we read the book.  It focused mostly on how we speak to adults and how we should respect adults because they have more wisdom and experience.  I also told them about how we should give our chair up for adults, let adults get their food first, open doors for adults and obey people in authority.  Before we headed out, we practiced with some role playing.  We pretended like all of the chairs were full when I entered the room, so Abby stood up and politely said, “Would you like my chair?”  Role playing is great practice for kids.  There ended up being few opportunities for the girls to practice while we were there, but I did applaud them for the polite way they were speaking to people.  This will be something that will need to be continually practiced until it comes naturally.