Teaching kids about respect to property can be tricky sometimes. We teach them about how not to hurt people and they can relate to that. They understand that if they get hit, bit, kicked or pushed it doesn’t feel good and so they shouldn’t do that to others. This knowledge doesn’t always stop these things of course, but they can relate and empathize with it.
What about inanimate objects though. “The couch doesn’t get hurt, so I can jump on it all I want”, “the walls are prettier with colors all over them”, “I am tired of this toy so over the second story balcony it goes because that might be more fun to watch”. Your kids interact with more non-alive stuff everyday than they do living things. The car doors swinging open hard enough to ding the other car in the garage or a strangers car in a parking lot or the drawing that a sibling is so proud of that is made into a “snowball” by another sibling moments later show a disconnect. The kids are not trying to be bad they just don’t understand to respect things as they do people.
Respect of property here folks! This is actually one of the five respects that are taught at my daughter’s school and I love that they stress these respects. This respect is easy for a child to forget when they are not repeatedly reminded.
Since children understand how things affect them, one of the tactics I use is to bring it back to them. Make the connection for them.
“Yes, that couch doesn’t feel pain, but you could get hurt easily doing that and if the couch breaks we have to get a new one. Couches cost a lot of money and if we have to spend money on that then we can’t spend it on other things for this family that you enjoy or give as much in donations to other families.”
The smaller things I just relate to someone, somewhere, put work and money into that and you are hurting that…hurting their creation.
Art is beautiful, but the walls are not the place for it. My husband and I were the unfortunate owners of a home that was rented to a family with children that had apparently never heard of this respect before. They turned the home we built, brought our first child home to and kept in great condition to garbage. It was a main dish of horrible with a great big side of disappointment in the situation and the couple as parents to their children. There were more things broken than in tact anymore in the house.
(Our Family room bustling with energy before we went out for Skyla's first Halloween)
(The carpets that had stuff growing on it, the cords hanging out and the dented, nicked and colored walls. Every wall of the house was colored)
(Our beautiful nursery that Brian and I hand painted months before our little girl would be born)
(The animals were all colored on and scratched out. The kids were there while I was painstakingly trying to scrub walls and things while they were being evicted. The 9 year old girl asked me why we were cleaning and when I told her it was because she wrote and colored on all the walls, she replied with "So?". I had to use restraint. She really was oblivious though and this was after the mom told me, when they rented, that they had 3 very respectful children that respected their own, and others, property very much. Ummmm... yeah.
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