Teaching Respect
By Andy Mishkin In InsightKarate and other martial arts are unique amongst children’s activities because they overtly focus on teaching life skills. No one has ever come into our studio asking us to teach their child how to break boards or perform a jumping kick. However, parents come in every day expressing an interest in having their children learn discipline, focus, and respect.
Respect is the backbone of nearly all martial arts styles and practices. There are specific ways to demonstrate it and reinforce it, and it is at the heart of nearly all activities that take place on or off the training floor in any studio. Our goal as martial arts teachers is to influence young people to be respectful outside of the dojo. Bowing to your instructor is important, but that alone does not teach kids about respect.
At Centerpoint, we teach and model respect to others.
The first thing children learn is what respect means: to treat other people the way they want to be treated (the good old “Golden Rule”). We ask them how they would like to be treated. Children know the answer is “well”. It is easy to set this as a base-line, and it is inspiring to see how even the youngest students really grasp the Golden Rule, and really work to live up to it.
The next thing we do is model respect. We ask our students to call our instructors “Ma’am” and “Sir”, and show them the same respect by calling them by these proper names as well! I’ve gotten some confused looks from four-year-olds the first time I called them “Sir” or “Ma’am.” The thing is: respect is a two-way street. If I can show a First Grader that I respect them, it is a lot easier to get them to respect me back. We all start out as strangers at Centerpoint; it takes a while before we know each other well. So, instead of asking for respect first, before they know us, we give it first, just like so many other people in their lives do. The children grasp the concept very quickly and start to give it back right away. From there, they learn to show respect to the other children in the class.
Finally, we strive to show children how to respect themselves wherever they go. This is a difficult thing to instill and doesn’t happen overnight. But Karate is something that we carry inside of us, that helps us understand who we are and how we should live. When a child works hard and earns a stripe or belt, they learn to respect the effort it took to achieve their goal, to respect themselves in the process, and appreciate the accomplishments of others. They can’t walk around in their Karate uniform all the time, but they can carry the feeling of achievement with them wherever they go. If they respect themselves, they’ll respect others as a natural extension of their character.