Recognizing Your Son’s Need for Respect (Part 1 of 2)

Clubhouse is really edifying in every part of it. A resource that supports your values. We subscribe to other magazines and every once in a while there will be a story that questions a parent's authority or kids behave in a way that I don't like. And we never have that problem with Clubhouse. I can trust it.

Learn more about Focus on the Family Clubhouse and Focus on the Family Clubhouse Junior magazines at focusonthefamily.com slash club radio. So mother just has to affect. Is there any vocabulary word that I'm using that would cause my son to think that I don't respect him. That I have contempt toward him. That I despise who he is. That I find him unacceptable as a human being. That he's less than he ought to be.

And those are the words that we need to refrain from. Such great insight from Dr. Emerson Eggrich. He's our guest today on Focus on the Family and has some helpful advice for moms to strengthen your relationship with your son.

Your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller. John, here's a headline for us all. It's easy to forget that you're actually raising a man, not a boy. And that someday he's going to leave home and start his own life.

That's the point. As a father of two grown sons, I know how quickly the time passes and they begin making decisions on their own. And today we've tailored the broadcast for moms in particular. We want to speak to your heart and offer advice specifically to help you raise your sons to become those men you desperately want to see. We're coming back to a recorded discussion with Emerson Eggrich about mothers and sons that has provided some great encouragement and instruction to our listeners in the past.

And I know Emerson's going to help again today. He's a popular guest here at Focus on the Family. Internationally recognized as an expert on male-female relationships, he speaks at conferences with his wife Sarah around the world.

And he's the author of a number of books, including Mother and Son, The Respect Effect. This conversation was recorded not long ago in our studio. Let's listen in. Emerson, it's great to have you back to Focus on the Family.

I've been looking forward to it, Jim. And thank you, John. You are really gifted at speaking right to the heart of people, especially in the area of marriage, obviously. Love and respect has been really impactful to literally millions of people. And you now are applying those kind of principles to the area of parenting, which I think is perfect. Why did you take that message of how you relate in marriage into the parenting relationship?

Well, there are two levels of that. I wrote the book Love and Respect in the Family. And looking at everything in the scripture concerning parenting, I had the privilege of studying the Bible 30 hours a week for nearly 20 years as the senior pastor of a church. So that gave me a lot of time to think.

And then, of course, the academic bent, looking at what research said. So I waited, though, on the parenting topic until my children were grown. Jonathan, David, and Joy are now adults and out of the home.

And I waited on that. But this more recent book, Mother and Son, it was Sarah, my wife, as well as the hundreds of women who went to our Love and Respect marriage conference, who began to apply these principles to their boys and began to email me, Jim, and telling me what happened in the boys' heart in the sense of connection they were beginning to experience as they began to apply what I call respect talk. Emerson, you give credit, wonderfully, to Sarah, your wife, and the way you observed her interaction with your two sons. And speak to that observation that you had as her husband and the father of her boys.

Well, and Sarah's the one that really kind of put me onto this. As she and I were doing the Love and Respect marriage conferences, she began to realize, you know, this really does apply to sons. She was tracking as a mother there.

I was thinking merrily. She said, you know what, we need to bring this up early in the conference and say, how do you mothers want your future daughter-in-law to treat your precious baby boy? Because they feel totally different about their boy than they do about their husband at that moment in time. And so Sarah really put me onto this. And so as I began to evaluate this, this book came out of that, particularly as mothers began to write this.

But Sarah said two things that I said very quickly at the beginning of the book. She said, if I had known this information when my sons were little, Jonathan and David, two boys, she said they're now in their 30s, I would have been a better mother. And she's encouraged mothers to really think about this because every mother wants to improve.

And she feels very deeply, had she known this in the earlier years, it could have made a huge difference. But then she also encourages mothers. As a mother, it is never too early and never too late to apply this message of respect. Well, let's refresh or introduce that concept to the listeners who maybe didn't catch those programs, love and respect, or read your book on that theme. Talk about the general principle of love and respect and what you're driving at when it comes to gender and what we need.

Right. Well, the University of Washington studied 2,000 couples for 20 years. And they said, we now know the two key ingredients for successful marriages. When those two ingredients are present, the marriage succeeds. When they're not present, the marriages fail.

Many of us think that if we don't have money problems, in-law problems, health issues, work-related issues, these stressors, if we could remove those, we'd have a happy relationship. But they found out it's our attitude toward each other during those conflicted moments that really is the key. So if I come across hostile or contemptuous to the spirit of the other person, that's when they deflate.

I'm stepping on their air hose. Well, I found it intriguing that Ephesians 533 said, husbands love your wives and wives respect your husbands. And the love and respect dynamic, there isn't a whole lot of debate on that first part of that verse. But the second part, women will say, Dr. Emerson, I don't feel any respect for my husband. He's not superior to me. I'm not inferior to him. I don't want to be a hypocrite and do something I don't feel.

He has an earned, he doesn't deserve it. I'm not going to give him a license to do what he wants to do. I'm not going to return to male patriarchy and fear male dominance. I'm not going to subject myself to emotional abuse, to lose a sense of my identity or self or set the feminist team back 50 years. But other than these things, I'm really open to hearing what you have to say about this.

That's a tough intro. Well, it's what we're up against. You see, the disconnect between what women feel about honor and respect and what you and I as men feel, we serve and die for honor. We don't see it as narcissistic. We honor each other and we die for each other. But when you talk about respecting a man, then that mantra that I just went through is what women feel.

And they're not mean-spirited about that at all. Women are fearful that they're going to be unloved in that process, that they're going to be second-rate and second-class. But once we begin to unpack the power of showing respect toward the spirit of a man, not respecting his bad behavior, when you come across honoring to the spirit of an individual, no husband feels fond feelings of love and affection in his heart toward a wife he thinks despises who he is as a human being, any more than a woman is going to respond to her husband who's harsh and angry.

There are certain vulnerabilities we all have, but we've kind of removed the male need from the radar screen. And so we put it back on to say, if you want to motivate your husband, the way in which you do that is by meeting a need he has, especially during conflict, and watch what happens. He'll connect with you. He'll move toward you rather than withdraw. Eighty-five percent who stonewall and withdraw are the males. And he'll stop doing that.

He'll stay engaged with you because he thinks you're using the topic as an opportunity to send him a message that you don't like who he is as a human being. And these principles, these wives, Jim, began to apply it to their boys. Instead of these boys withdrawing and stonewalling and just shutting down, the boys were staying engaged. They were actually looking at their mother. They were actually responding.

They were actually soft in that response. And the mothers were blown away by that. How does that transform that relationship? And then we're going to get into that very specifically. But at the top level, when a mom is supplying that son with that respect, what is being achieved? How is that response?

What does it look like? Well, I define it as a positive regard toward the spirit of your boy. When you're spitting mad at him—and one of the things that I want mothers to know is not to move into shame as they're listening to this, because mothers immediately begin to think of those moments where they've stepped over the line.

And I want them just to relax here. This is just an insight. In addition to your love, I want you to think about some vocabulary words that can soften him, especially when you're trying to get through to him. But in terms of the question you're asking, it's a positive regard toward his spirit. See, the gestures of contempt that the University of Washington studied that females manifest, her eyes darkened, face turned sour, hand on the hip, scolding finger, the sigh, the roll in the eyes, the head goes back. And when estrogen kicks in, the word choice of contempt is incredible.

Women will fight with words. Okay, but I say to, you know, do you speak disrespectfully to your husband? Yes, but he should know I didn't mean it.

I will stop mid-sentence. He should know I didn't. And in unison, all the women say, mean it. I didn't mean it. And mothers don't mean it toward their boys.

But the way in which that boy is filtering that is mom is using this topic to send me a message that she doesn't like who I am, she doesn't respect who I am, and she finds me unacceptable. And I can give an illustration between how a mother would confront her teen daughter one night and the next night confront her teen son in the very same way, and show you why there is a huge difference here. Well, give it.

Let's hear it. Well, suppose Tuesday night she's upset with her 13-year-old daughter, and she's got a 14-year-old boy, and she comes and she just rips in verbally to her daughter. And they all go back and forth at each other.

And then you'll watch a few minutes later, they'll both be on the bed, legs crossed, and they're going at it, venting negatively, and then the daughter says, oh, I'm sorry, mom. I shouldn't have said that. Well, no, honey, I'm sorry. I was out of line. Well, you forgive me.

I shouldn't have said it the way I said it. Well, yeah, mom, I forgive you, but do you forgive me? Yes, honey. Then they'll hug, wipe away their tears, and then once witting, they'll say something and start laughing, and they'll hug, and they'll be good to go until that next episode, and they'll do it again. Next night, she confronts her boy on the same thing, teen boy, and she comes at him, and he just shuts down and withdraws and looks angry.

And so then what does she do? She ups the disrespect to get through to him until she sees tears in his eyes. And those tears are not there because he's finally feeling her pain. It's like he's thinking, my mom finds me disgusting.

And even though I know mom loves me, I don't think she likes me. And particularly when he moves into his teen years, where there may be some things that she's discovered that shame him, now he's filtering much of her behavior through those episodes that he feels ashamed about. Tell me what that teen boy, beyond what you just described, how does that shaming do really deep damage to that boy who then becomes a man? What is the lingering effect of that shaming?

Well, I'm always cautious in answering that, because again, I don't want that mother to feel like she has damaged her children. Mothers are very loving, very nurturing, very caring, and they care deeply, and they're very quick to go to the fact that I've ruined my son, I've ruined my family, I've ruined heaven if I could ruin it. I've ruined everything. I'm horrible.

I'm rotten. That's what she begins to feel. So it takes a lot to really get a boy into deep shame.

So what I want to do is backpedal from that. But if every week you're ripping into him over a ten-year period and basically communicating disgust, I just got an email, and we're getting all these emails, a single mother who adopted several children, and her son's great. He's very good at math, but he had a 65 percentile. And she saw the report card, and she said, on the way home, she said, I knew the barrage of words I was going to use to get him to get his grades up. But she'd just been listening to the audio on the mother and son, the respect effect. And so she came in, and she said, son, I don't understand what's going on here. I don't want to be dishonoring to you.

I don't want to be disrespectful. But can you explain to me why you have these great abilities and why you have a 65 percent here? Can you help me understand this? Because I'm not pleased, but I'm not trying to dishonor you right now, but I'm upset because I expect more from you. He looked at her, and he said, I will take care of it, mom.

And she says he studied and brought his grades up to 95 percent. And she said, we did not have yelling, tears, and regret. Yelling, which was her, his tears, and then her regret. Yelling, tears, and regret.

We did not experience it. And she said, I was absolutely blown away when I used the vocabulary word, I'm not trying to diss you. I'm not trying to dishonor you. I believe in you. I don't understand this.

Can you solve this? And she said it was over with. But see, the point there is there are single mothers as well as regular mothers out there that have father, but they're doing that kind of thing week after week toward their boy because he's not performing, so they feel they have to up the disrespect. They have to up the contempt. And over a period of time, he'll just close off before he'll probably begin to feel shame. And in so many ways, what you're doing with that approach is you're raising the bar even higher and making them feel even more like a failure, that they can't attain it. And so I love the approach. I love the thought of give them the responsibility. That's what men appreciate. That's what boys need to learn. And they'll gravitate toward it. That's what you're saying.

Well, hugely so. And we know in marriage, you know, the whole joke is women tend to be empathy oriented, but men are solution oriented. Men think in terms of solution.

They try to help by solving it. Well, you can reverse that with your son and ask him, how is he going to solve this problem? Appeal to him to solve the problem.

You're an honorable young man. This is unacceptable, I'm sure to you and to me. How can you solve this?

Rather than telling him to solve it, ask him and watch what happens. Right. And then step back and let him own it. Allow.

Allow. Emerson, you talk about that crazy cycle. You talk about that in marriage with love and respect.

You've brought that thing. You're describing it. I don't know that you've used the term yet, but make sure that we understand the vocabulary of the crazy cycle. You described it with the mom and the teenage daughter, that they're fine until their next eruption.

That's the crazy cycle, right? Well, the crazy cycle that we talk about between husband and wife is without love, she reacts in ways that feel disrespectful to him. She's not trying to be. That's how he processes that conflict. When a man feels disrespected, he ends up reacting in a way that feels unloving to her like stonewalling, pulling back. And that same dynamic happens between a mother and her son. They're not married, but it's a male-female issue far and above being a husband-wife issue. And as that boy moves into manhood, mothers and sons get on that crazy cycle.

And we're coaching mothers on how you can jump off of that much more quickly. Emerson, you mentioned this respect talk back and forth. Why do you think moms, women struggle with that concept so much? Is it the root that they're seeking love, their language is love, and you're saying your sons aren't going to understand that. Love is something not as critical to them.

Well, it is critical. Boys need love. They tend to be assured of a mother's love. I mean, you ask a teen boy, does your mom love you? Oh, yeah. Of course she does. Yeah, exactly. Like you?

No, she doesn't like me right now. And mothers will say, I love my son, but I don't like him right now. And mothers feel guilty about that. And so we need to clarify, love and respect are not synonymous. We respect our boss, but we don't love our boss. And we love our teen boy, but we don't always feel respect for him.

And so they cross over, but they're not synonymous. And what we have to look at is the fact that God has wired men to need something that mothers don't always track with in this culture at this time. But God designed mothers to love. Women love to love. You have to wound a woman at the level of intimacy to get her to stop loving. But she is this nurturer, the caregiver, and she just is energized to love. She wants to do that. But what she doesn't always understand is that she can communicate in a way that feels disrespectful to her boy. She can be motivated to do the loving thing, but it comes across very disrespectful. And that's why she doesn't always see it.

And I don't know why, as a culture, we haven't paid closer attention. Instead, we seemingly have put the onus back on the boy who is shutting down that there's something inherently wrong with him, rather than maybe just stepping back for a moment and saying, could we just say a few things differently? So, for instance, if she's really upset, and she's just spitting mad, and just, you know, I say, you don't have to become robotic or mechanical this way.

You be yourself. But you say, I'm very upset with you right now. I can't believe that you disregarded what I told you to do, and I was very specific, and I even let a note. Now, I'm not trying to say this to dish you or dishonor you. I believe in you more than I think you believe in yourself, and I see you becoming an honorable man. But for the life of me, I can't believe why you did that. I don't respect what you did, but I respect you. Now, we've got to take a five-minute timeout, because I think I'm going to kill you right now, and we're going to come back and visit this respectfully.

Does that sound like a good game plan? A lot of times, a boy will grin. If he's never heard that kind of vocabulary, he will actually look at mom, and it was the same thing if a father says, I don't know how to do this loving thing. My father didn't love, and I'm trying to be more loving to you as my tender daughter. I would die for you.

I can't believe what you did here. How do I do this loving thing? I don't know how to be as loving as I ought to be. I feel horrible as a man who doesn't know how to love, but I'm so spitting mad. We need to take a timeout.

I want to do the loving thing here, but I don't know how to do it. I'm so mad. I mean, every daughter would probably start to grin at that if he's never done that before. What's so right about what you're saying is you're affirming the child as a person, as someone created in the image of God, without embracing the behavior, which you have to deal with. Always. We do not respect bad behavior.

That's stupid. We don't love unacceptable behavior, but we lovingly and respectfully confront that behavior. Even as you're going through that kind of script of how it could be, Emerson, does a boy really hear a mom talking as you just did and think, she respects me?

Because, I mean, the tone of what you said could be taken by some to mean, she really hates me right now. I just blew my life apart. Yeah, it could be, but my experience is, no, same thing with a football coach who's being mad in a locker room that we're behind 14 points. I expect more of you guys. You guys are the greatest athletes I've ever coached.

I can't believe where we're at now. But, you know, do boys suddenly think, oh, the coach hates us? So, again, vocabulary is why this is so exciting, and the point there is mothers don't have to suddenly become something they're not.

You just need to add a few vocabulary words that I'm talking about so that he knows that the real reason here for you confronting him is the behavior, not that you're using this topic as another opportunity to send a message that you find him despicable as a human being, because that's what he's feeling, particularly if he's failed or he's feeling inadequate. And we need to quote Shanti Feldhahn's research of the 400 American males that decision analyst out of Houston did, and they ran it again because they were blown away by the stats. And Shanti called me and said, hey, here's one of the questions I'd like to include.

Do you think I should do it? And I said, absolutely. And the question was this. Would you men rather be left alone and unloved in the world or be viewed as inadequate and disrespected by everyone? Almost 75 percent of the men said they'd rather be left alone and unloved in the world. So we have to refrain from this message. Do not say to a man, you're inadequate as a human being, and I don't respect you because of it.

You can say what you did was inadequate and I don't respect what you did, but that's conduct unbecoming of who I really believe you to be. Just that way of saying it can take that relationship and turn it completely around. Let's unpack some of those vocabulary words that you're mentioning, and you've done some of that, but what are some of those buzzwords that moms should refrain from using and maybe get rid of them out of their lexicon when it comes to dealing with your son? Well, I mean, just as we would say, no father should use any kind of vocabulary that suggests that he hates his daughter, right? I mean, is there any vocabulary word that a dad may be using that would suggest that that daughter's going to hear that you really hate me?

And if there's any message that he sends that is that. So a mother just has to step back. Is there any vocabulary word that I'm using that would cause my son to think that I don't respect him, that I have contempt toward him, that I despise who he is, that I find him unacceptable as a human being, that he's less than he ought to be. And those are the words that we need to refrain from. But I still give a lot of grace to a mother who blows it just as long as she comes back and says, look, I wasn't trying to dishonor your heart, you're creating the image of God, and I believe in you, son, and that's why I'm so upset. I sometimes don't think you believe in yourself as much as I believe in you.

See, that's the way you rebound. Countless moms will contact focus on the family here. I mean, we get this a lot. And they're saying basically, listen, my son needs to earn my respect. Describe that environment and is what she's saying accurate or is that something you give, you don't earn it, it's something that your son deserves from you even if they're behaving inappropriately. This is a cultural teaching that respect must be earned, respect must be deserved. And if they have not earned it, they don't deserve it, and I'm not going to give it. And I always say that's understandable, we all feel that. It would be better to say we earn the respect in some ways on the behavior if we're doing well, we're honored, we get honor for things that we do. So there's a performance component to it that all of us would agree with.

However, let's just think for a moment. So now your son does not earn, hasn't earned it, he doesn't deserve it. What's the logic of this?

Where are you going to go with this? So now you're going to say he deserves your disrespect, he deserves your contempt, he deserves you to say he's despicable, he deserves that you say that he's inadequate. So if you bring this to its logical conclusion, then what you're saying is, I can show contempt toward him all day long because he doesn't deserve it.

And I'm going to say that is one of the biggest mistakes we could ever make with any human being because no human being responds to contempt. So what the mothers are basically saying is, I'm not feeling that respect toward him because of his misbehavior. That's correct, we're not asking you to feel respect. What we're asking you is respectfully confront that which he's done that's not respectable. Because if you don't, if you show contempt toward his spirit, that's the same thing as a father showing harshness and anger toward his daughter because she's not performing at the level that he wants, but as a result of his harshness and anger, she starts performing at the level that he wants. But you're going to lose her heart and you'll lose your son's heart if you continue to show contempt. So we have to then talk about unconditional respect being equal to unconditional love.

And what are we talking about? God calls the husband to love his wife unconditionally. That doesn't mean, honey, you know, I know you're committing adultery with the neighbor, so just continue on because I'm going to show you that I'm unconditional my love.

We say that's stupid. Unconditional doesn't mean you give another person license to do what they want. Unconditional love means there's no situation, no circumstance, no condition that can get me to ever hate you.

I love who you are. What you're doing is unacceptable, but there's nothing you will ever do to get me to hate you. Unconditional respect is an oxymoron. We all understand unconditional love, but it's a contradiction of terms when you say unconditional respect. But unconditional respect means you say to your husband, you say to any human being, you say, this doesn't mean it's easy, it just means this is true, there's nothing you can do, there's no condition, there's no situation, there is no circumstance that can get me to show you contempt for who you are as a human being.

Why? Because this is who I am as a person. This isn't about who you fail to be as a person. I'm going to be a loving soul whether you're lovable or not. I'm going to be a respectful human being as a mother.

I'm going to be a woman of dignity who communicates respectfully even though what you've done is not respectable. So where does a mom who feels that her son hasn't earned respect or that he's so disrespectful she can't possibly meet him there? How does she start to get out of that? Well, again, this is why the methods that she's been using, we ask, are they working? See, this is why I think so many mothers are frustrated with their boys, and the implication of this is staggering. So I'm not here to say that the way she's approaching it may be totally wrong because I can't speak to every situation, but if her son is pulling away from her and she knows that, and women intuitively know that, then just try this. Don't do it as a theory.

I believe God and his word and the best research is pointing out this is meeting another person's need. You're meeting your son's need, and you're not losing power. And one of the first questions most mothers say, well, I need him to respect me.

Yes, honor of father and mother. And I wrote 300 pages in the Love and Respect Family book that addresses that, all about how to get your son to honor and respect you. But the other side is, you've got to understand, if you're going to expect him to honor you, then you can't dishonor him to motivate him to honor you. And what does it mean, then, as a mother to come across in a respectful, honoring way as a model of the very thing you're expecting and paying attention to the innocent ways that you come across in these gestures of contempt?

Because I say, if you misrepresent your deepest heart, he's going to misinterpret your deepest heart. So it's probably a good idea to kind of stop the cycle when you're not in it, right? I mean, to be proactive about it? I think Sarah and I get on the crazy cycle in our marriage, and we have to, oh, oh, we're getting in the crazy cycle. You have to at least identify what's going on here so that you can call a time out like I did with that mother, you know, saying, let's take a time out here, because otherwise you're suddenly going to realize the issue is no longer the issue.

And that's the problem. Once we get into that point where your spirit is deflating as a mother and his spirit is deflating, now you're probably on that crazy cycle. You're feeling unloved and disrespected. Now you're going to react in a way that probably feels disrespectful to him. And when he feels dissed as a young boy, he's going to react in a way that feels unloving to you. And he's going to probably just shut down, because that's the way he's protecting himself. He's not trying to be disrespectful toward you.

He's guarding his heart. And you want to get out of that crazy cycle, because the damage long-term will be tough. And this is why we're talking about it today, Emerson. Man, it has flown by, because of, I think, the interest here. I mean, we're three guys talking about it, but I think many, many moms have leaned in to say, help me do this better. I can feel it.

And we need to keep going and come back next time and talk more about this great work that you've put together. Mother and son, the respect effect. You have tapped into what I believe is spiritual truth here with the love and respect message right out of Ephesians. You've got it. And now you're applying that to the parenting role. And I think it is right on the money. So it's been great. Let's come back, have more discussion about it next time.

Can we do it? Love to. We'll invite you to get a copy of Emerson Eggerich's book, Mother and Son, The Respect Effect, when you get in touch with us here at Focus on the Family. And then we also have a CD or download of this program to listen to again or to share with others. And additional parenting helps always available. Our number is 800, the letter A and the word family, 800-232-6459. Or follow the link in the episode notes. And we also have a link to a free parenting assessment that is so helpful.

Be sure to take a few minutes and check that out. And John, I want to ask our friends to support this ministry. It's an invitation to be part of it. And we need your partnership to help us serve parents every day through our broadcast, podcast, magazines, counseling and so much more. With a gift of any amount, we'll say thank you by sending you a copy of Mother and Son, The Respect Effect.

Join the support team. Donate as you can and request that book when you call 800, the letter A and the word family. Well, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, I'm John Fuller inviting you back tomorrow. We'll hear more from Dr. Emerson Eggrich as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. It's our gift to you at Focus on the Family dot com slash prepare my will. That's focus on the family dot com slash prepare my will.