Our duty as parents is to practice radical honesty with ourselves and show profound empathy to others, while still holding rock-solid boundaries against harmful actions. We can validate someone's basic humanity while firmly rejecting their destructive behavior.

Admittedly, in the mundane, repetitive, everyday tasks of parenting, it can often feel like we are doing nothing at all. Comforting an upset child, managing tantrums, and repeating yourself for the hundredth time doesn't feel like activism. But in fact, every single time we choose respect over control, and kindness over harshness, we are doing something deeply profound.

It is all these small, invisible actions and daily choices that add up to something much bigger. That realisation gives me immense hope that we have the power to change the world for the better.

If we want to create a more peaceful world, we must stop trying to shout down our enemies. We must start doing the hard work of understanding them. That revolution begins at home, by ensuring our own children feel seen, heard, and valued.

If this article resonates with you, but your daily reality feels more like chaos and crowd control, I would love to help. If you are ready to do the inner healing work that brings presence, connection, and alignment to your parenting, I invite you to take the first step with me. Let's explore how Dr. Gabor Maté’s Compassionate Inquiry approach can support your family.

Why Parents Demand Respect From Their Kids

When a child talks back, ignores a request, or uses a rude tone, many parents feel the urge to say: “Show me some respect!”

But what we often mean in that moment isn’t respect, it’s obedience. And if we’re honest, sometimes what we’re really asking for is compliance through fear.

Respect vs. Obedience: What’s the Difference?
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• Obedience means doing what you’re told, often instantly, without question. It can be enforced with threats, punishments, or the fear of losing privileges.
• Respect is a mutual relationship built on trust, kindness, and connection. It cannot be forced. It grows when both parent and child feel seen and valued.

When we confuse obedience with respect, we risk damaging the trust between us and our children.

Why Kids Seem Disrespectful (Rude Behaviour Explained)

When children ignore us, refuse to tidy their room, or speak rudely, it can feel personal. But beneath that behaviour is usually something deeper:

• Unmet needs – hunger, tiredness, need for connection, or desire for autonomy.
• A dysregulated nervous system – stress, overwhelm, or sensory overload.
• Big feelings without skills – children often don’t yet have the emotional regulation tools adults expect.

If we only focus on the behaviour, demanding “respect” through compliance, we miss the chance to understand what’s driving it.

How to Teach Respect Without Fear

Inside my Peaceful Parent School, we encourage parents to build respect through connection, not control.

Here’s how:

• Listen with curiosity – What might your child’s behaviour be telling you?
• Hold boundaries calmly – You can say “no” firmly and kindly without shame or threats.
• Model respect – Speak to your child the way you’d like them to speak to you.
• Support regulation – Help your child calm down before expecting respectful communication.
• Repair after conflict – Apologising when we lose our cool shows children that respect works both ways.

The Parenting Shift That Changes Everything

The next time you feel like saying, “Show me some respect,” pause and ask yourself:

• Am I asking for respect or obedience?
• Do I want my child to fear me or to trust me?

Respect isn’t something we can demand. It’s something we nurture and model every day. When children feel safe, connected, and understood, true respect naturally follows.

Build Respectful, Connected Relationships With Your Child

At Peaceful Parent School, I help parents move beyond power struggles into calmer, more connected relationships with their children. If your child’s “disrespectful” behaviour is leaving you frustrated, you’re not alone and there is another way forward.

👉 Learn more about Peaceful Parent School here and discover how to raise your child with respect, without fear.

Parenting lays the foundation of who our children become and how they will interact in the world.

Imagine if parents could be supported to heal their collective trauma and create a generation who could change the world. 

Imagine a parenting approach that gives parents the emotional resources and practical tools they need to align their parenting with their values.

Imagine if parents and children could heal from their past hurts, build emotional resilience and strengthen the parent-child relationship.

Imagine if this enabled parents to prepare their children for the challenges of our times and give them the tools to make a better world inevitable. 

I was delighted to take part in the Imagine Festival of Ideas. Below is the recording of the full workshop. 

What kind of limit setter are you?

I invite you to think about what your default limit setting approach is. Here are a few I came up with. 

1. Explain 20 times, run out of patience when no one listens and then snap.

2. You set limits harshly or with a very stern tone, sounding exactly like how your own parents set limits with you.

3. You workaround your child's big feelings and upsets to avoid conflict at all costs. That means you often go to great lengths to keep everyone happy, even when it starts to get ridiculous.

4. Maybe your parents were super strict and you are determined to do things differently. So you don't set any limits at all through fear of upsetting your child or being unfair to them. However, maybe that means life is a little chaotic and you aren't getting your own needs met.

Of something else? 

I definitely bounce between all of these strategies from day to day and moment to moment.

But when I step out of my "auto-pilot parenting" I use the Hand in Hand Parenting approach to setting limits:

Listen - assess the situation, is the limit necessary, is your child's behaviour off-track?

Limit - bring the limit with connection and warmth

Listen - This is the crucial bit, listen to any feelings that come up. This will allow your child to release emotional tension and get back to being relaxed and flexible.

​No to the behaviour, yes to the feelings.

This will allow you to set limits in a way that builds relationship and emotional intelligence.

Find out more in this week's podcast Epidsode 21 of Peaceful Parenting with Pam.

Listen: Five Simple Tools To Help You Meet The Everyday Challenges of Parenting by Patty Wipfler and Tosha Schore is an excellent introduction to the Hand in Hand Parenting approach. The book clearly outlines the five Hand in Hand listening tools: Listening Partnerships, Special Time, Playlistening, Staylistening and Setting Limits. 

These simple yet profound parenting tools give parents the strategies they need to implement the theory of gentle, attachment-based parenting in their families. 

When mealtimes feel hard, try these kind ideas to help. They work even if your child is super strong-willed or very picky. 

​When my sweet toddler moved from her high chair to sit with us at the table, I shared her excitement. I felt proud at how grown up she had become. But then she discovered freedom and our mealtimes changed. 
No longer stuck in her high chair, she began jumping down from her seat at will and running around the table. It was cute and fun at first as she made laps of the table, full of giggles. 
But before long, more time was spent roaming the kitchen than sitting at the table. She insisted she needed to:

• Find that special toy right now
• Peep inside the washing machine 
• Chase the dog

Trying to remain calm, I encouraged her, on repeat, to take her seat and eat her food. A memory of the rigid mealtimes of my childhood, when we did not dare leave the table until we finished eating, nagged at me. I didn’t want that same experience for my daughter. I wanted to avoid power struggles and enjoy mealtimes together as a family.

So, my negotiations and pleas continued and soon she wouldn’t sit at the table at all. Food would go uneaten yet twenty minutes later she was begging for snacks. 
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Clearly, mealtimes were not working but I didn’t know what to do about it. 

​A few year’s back when my daughter was about four years old, a new family moved into our neighbourhood and their two children started to play in our back garden. One child was the same age as my daughter and her big brother was about four years older. 

The trampoline in our garden was a big attraction and the three children started bouncing on it happily. 
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I noticed that the older boy was jumping quite aggressively, diving on purpose into his sister and pinning her to the ground. 

She shrieked in protest but he refused to get off her and laughed at her attempts to free herself. 
He was the only one enjoying the game. 

Before I had time to intervene my own daughter took matters into her own hands. She got down to the boy’s level and shouted “No means no. If someone says “STOP” you have to stop.” 

My first year of motherhood felt a bit like trying to stay in control of a runaway train. Breastfeeding did not come easily to me and so I was delighted to reach the milestone of feeding my daughter for a full year. 

But I had grown to hate breastfeeding. 

My daughter was feeding throughout the night almost every hour, sometimes more. She breastfed only occasionally during the day but as soon as nighttime came the 24-hour diner was very much open for business. 
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We were co-sleeping and she seemed to be permanently attached to me. I had forgotten what deep sleep felt like. ​