BY ANONYMOUS
English 9/Mr. Davis
Los Alamos High School
“You will respect me.” “You are so disrespectful.” “What did I do to lose your respect?” “Kids these days don’t know what respect is.” “When I was your age, I would be beaten if I acted like you.” “I expect you to respect me.” These are the kinds of things teenagers and children are told nowadays. Adults are constantly demanding respect, either when they have given no reason to be respected, or have given plenty of reason for someone to not respect them. Adults and teachers should not demand respect.
Teenagers aren’t the most respectful people, or maybe that’s just how it seems. Teenagers are emotional, messy, and weird. They roll their eyes, slam doors, isolate themselves, and often push people away. While this can be seen as disrespectful, oftentimes they just need space. Teenagers have such a high demand on them: get good grades, turn in every assignment, take AP and honors classes, take extracurriculars, learn an instrument, play a sport. On top of that, go to school for 7-8 hours and then come home and do hours of homework, go to bed late due to working on homework, or not being able to sleep due to stress, wake up early and start the cycle over. You could tell them to look forward to the weekend, you can sleep in, relax, and spend time with your friends. However they lost all their friends because of the workload. It’s okay, spend time with your family, but their family makes them more stressed. Besides, on the weekend you have to do chores, and yard work, and homework, and exercise, and extracurricular activities. What do teenagers not do on the weekends? Or school days? Or any and every day? And on top of all of this, you want us to keep a smiling face, not get stressed, have perfect mental health, and respect all the adults and teachers. The adults and teachers who gave them homework, deadlines, pressure, and stress. The adults and teachers who yell at them for sleeping in class, who tell them that they should’ve slept at night, even though they were busy doing homework. The adults and teachers who have insane expectations of their students.
How can respect be expected and demanded after all of this? Teenagers are told that these are going to be the best years of their life, but then take away their chances at having that good time. Teenagers are told that the friends they make right now are the most important to your life, but then take away their time to have a social life. Teenagers are often seen as someone who wants to run their own life, and they want no help from parents, teachers, and adults. Is this so bad though? The author of “Teenagers…” wrote that:
One of the most important human needs is autonomy, and autonomy is never more important than during the teenage years. When you have autonomy, you have the freedom to act out of your own volition, to “own” an action yourself. Teens are more likely to feel autonomous when they feel successful managing a part of their lives, when they’re allowed freedom of choice and action, when they’re given responsibility, and/or when they see that their actions are meaningful and that they matter. Feeling autonomous contributes to feeling respected, and it helps teens know that they’re on the road to adulthood.
Earlier in the article, the author said that:
research is revealing an important truth: Respect is a two-way street, and it becomes especially important during adolescence. Shifting focus from how much respect you feel you’re getting, to whether or not you’re showing them respect, is critical. Leveraging respect for teens is key to helping them stay engaged, in relationship, and in collaboration.
How do these relate? In order for someone to respect you, usually you have to understand them first, this includes teenagers. And in order to respect a teenager, they need a sense of freedom, responsibility, trust, independence, and autonomy.
A number of changes conspire during adolescence to make autonomy more important than at any other time. The hormonal changes that come with puberty act on the brain to bias teens’ motivation in certain ways, perhaps in preparation for adulthood. One of those changes is in testosterone; its rise in both boys and girls in adolescence is correlated with respect-seeking. … If you take a long view of adolescence, this sharp turn toward needing respect makes sense: As adults, we all need to solicit respect or status among our peers in order to make things happen and function effectively in a group. But to a parent, the sudden change can feel jarring, and parents are often unprepared. (“Teenagers…”)
Teenagers may seem to shut down when their freedom, respect, and autonomy is threatened. This may seem emotional, but is that so much of a problem? Teenagers are seen as messy and emotional, but shouldn’t that be expected with all the hormonal changes they’re going through?
The author of “Emotional…” says:
Adults sometimes expect adolescents to keep their emotions from interfering with performance in school, work, and other activities, but doing so may be challenging in a complex environment. … Factors that affect how well adolescents navigate this process include: Hormones. These critical chemicals in the brain that bring about physical changes also affect adolescents’ moods and heighten their emotional responses. These characteristics together mean that teens are more easily swayed by emotion and have difficulty making decisions that adults find appropriate. Adolescence also is a time of rapid and sometimes stressful changes in peer relationships, school expectations, family dynamics, and safety concerns in communities. The body responds to stress by activating specific hormones and activities in the nervous system so that the person can respond quickly and perform well under pressure.
Under these pressures from our surroundings, we should not be pushed to be perfect. How can we be expected to put hard work and effort into the things we have to do on a daily basis without burning out and giving up sooner? It is not just our surroundings though, it is also hormonal changes that we cannot control. Teenagers are stressed from their environment and work load, but also because their bodies produce stressors.
Now here is the problem with demanding respect. Steve Legler quoted Dr. Christian Conte in his article “The Problem with…” who said, “To demand respect is to tell others, “You will respect me!” or otherwise threaten or punish those who do not act according to your wishes. To command respect is to have others observe and admire your actions of their own volition.” Forced respect is not the same as actual respect. You don’t truly respect that person, you might talk about them behind their back or have bad thoughts or intentions towards them. Legler said that forcing respect would likely not work, and backfire. He later quoted Christian W. Zust, who said, “The only way to command respect from others is not to demand it” (Legler).
Di Tran says something similar to Legler:
Many people demand respect from others, thinking that it will bring them validation and a sense of worth. However, what they may not realize is that demanding respect from others is often a sign of a lack of self-confidence. … When we demand respect from others, we are essentially saying that we don’t believe that we deserve it, and that we need others to give it to us in order to feel good about ourselves. It’s important to understand that respect is something that is earned, not something that is given.If we want respect, we have to show respect to ourselves and others, and have self-confidence in ourselves. As Dr. Maya Angelou once said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Simply because teenagers are messy and emotional, they’re going to make mistakes, that’s how you learn and grow. There are so many highs and lows that you’re going to have throughout your entire life. Some of the ones you experience in high school will be very important. However, teens are pushed to have this lifestyle of waking up and working all day, to the point where they don’t eat and they only sleep a few hours a day, just to wake up and do it all over again. The whole time people just say “we’re preparing you for the future,” “college teachers won’t be as nice as I am,” “you’re really going to struggle if you don’t get your act together,” when truly, all we’re being prepared for is to be burnt out. Teenagers shouldn’t be forced to respect older people, simply because they’re older. Since the first day at school we’ve heard teachers say, “respect is something that is earned.” Then that same teacher will turn around and say, “I expect you to respect me, it is your privilege to be taught by me.” Only after a few years do we learn that often school just cares about your grades. Coaches just care about your performance. And your instrument teachers only care about how well you can play. Teenagers also deserve respect, they aren’t children, they don’t need to be micromanaged, they don’t need someone constantly holding their hand.
Instead of telling teens they must be respectful, forcing commands that must be immediately obeyed, pushing them to a point of exhaustion, and expecting them to keep on a smiling face, adults and teachers should recognize that teenagers are going to mess up, and begin by showing by example. You cannot expect to be respected without being respectful. Teenagers need a safe place, a place where they’re comfortable talking about their problems, a place where they can be upset or happy but they’ll have someone behind them, but also a place that knows boundaries and when to back off. Teenagers are put through so much stress and problems, they have so many demands asked of them. Teachers and adults should not add to this by expecting their respect.
Annotated Bibliography
“Emotional Development | HHS Office of Population Affairs.” HHS Office of Population Affairs, https://opa.hhs.gov/adolescent-health/adolescent-development-explained/emotional-development. Accessed 10 May 2024.
This article talks about the hormones that cause teenagers to be emotional, the reasons why teenagers process emotions differently. It says that teenagers are changing a lot both mentally and physically, which affects their emotions and decision making. It explains exactly what is changing and some outside factors that affect them, and later it includes what adults should do to help.
Legler, Steve. “The Problem with Demanding Respect vs. Commanding It.” Family Wealth Library, https://www.familywealthlibrary.com/post/demanding-respect-vs-commanding-it/. Accessed 10 May 2024.
In this article, Legler explains the differences between commanding and demanding respect. He says that to command respect you have to do something that will make others want to respect you. To demand respect, will most likely backfire “like using a rope to push something.” If you expect respect, it is likely that you will actually not be respected.
“Teenagers Might Have a Problem With Respect But It’s Not the One You Think — Developmental Science.” Developmental Science, 30 November 2017, https://www.developmentalscience.com/blog/2017/11/29/teenagers-might-have-a-problem-with-respect-but-its-not-the-one-you-think. Accessed 10 May 2024.
In this article, the author says that teenagers aren’t the problem when it comes to respect. She mentions that autonomy is important for every human being, but especially teenagers, because of the changes that they are experiencing. Teenagers are starting to become adults so they need to learn how to be independent, that is why it is important that teens have autonomy. This is why helicopter parenting, or other things like that, are not good for a teenager.
Tran, Di. “The Demand for Respect: Understanding Why it Often Means a Lack of Self-Confidence and Not….” Medium, 28 January 2023, https://medium.com/@ditran/the-demand-for-respect-understanding-why-it-often-means-a-lack-of-self-confidence-and-not-91db3761f198. Accessed 10 May 2024.
The author mentions that people who demand respect are usually seeking validation and they are not self confident. The article says that often you believe you don’t deserve respect, but think you deserve the upper hand just because, when you expect someone to respect you. Respect is earned, not something you can just ask for, it is important to show respect before you expect it of others.