Navigating the Civility Shift: Raising Respectful Kids in a Digital World

Welcome to Where Parents Talk.

My name is Leanne Castellino.

Our guest today is a mom of one and an international expert in the field of Civility.

Dr.

Lou Baer is the CEO of Civility Experts and she joins us from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Hi, Lou.

Hi, Leanne.

How are you?

I'm good.

So the last time we spoke was about 11 or 10 years ago now, almost 10 years ago.

And we were speaking to you on the topics of teaching manners, etiquette and civility, as well as the influence of technology in each of these spaces.

What would you say are some of the key trends that you have witnessed over that span of time in the areas of civility and etiquette?

Oh, well, I would say the most significant thing is that increasingly parents are understanding that while manners are important, you know, teaching children social rules kind of eases their social experience.

But most parents that we're working with now are realizing that civility is significantly more important than manners.

So we're throwing the etiquette books out the window, not literally, but you know what I mean, and focusing more on civility.

How.

How would you go about defining civility?

So civility is about values.

It's a values proposition.

It's about character development.

So civility, by our definition of civility experts, includes being conscious and deliberate in using things like manners and respectful attitude, your cultural competence, your social knowledge as a way of easing the experience of others.

So it's sort of a service oriented approach and it requires thinking skills and being present to a situation, paying attention to people versus just memorizing a rule and following whatever behavior is dictated for a certain context.

We're finding because of diversity and technology and social change, that just blindly following social rules is getting us into trouble.

So at what point and for what reason would parents come to see you?

At what point would they come to see us?

Well, what they're now, I guess one of the benefits of COVID is putting everything online.

So oftentimes they go direct to online courses that we offer or our membership sites and find sources and resources, download training kits and lessons they can use at home.

But in terms of kind of the stage of things, as early as age three, we're finding and our affiliates around the world, there seems to be a really big focus now on children age 2 to 5, social and emotional development.

So it used to be we started kindergarten, grade one with the etiquette and civility training, and now we're actually doing it a little bit earlier and what.

Have you, I guess, noted with this age group.

It Sounds awfully young to start these kinds of conversations.

Is it too young?

I don't think it's ever too young.

I think that some of the challenge is that the parents and teachers and caregivers who are having the best of intentions, myself included, sometimes we have conscious or unconscious bias unless we manage our own issues related to judgment or trust issues, unless we understand that respect is something that no one should ever have to earn.

I think there is potentially a little bit of risk in people who are maybe not as knowledgeable or skilled taking all that on.

Although I can say that most people who want to teach civility as a character, aspect of character, you know, tend to do their research and have a little bit of knowledge and, you know, a really positive value set of their own.

That's very interesting because, I mean, we're in the middle, in the midst of, you know, massive societal upheaval where this subject matter is concerned.

Respect and civility.

We're in the throes of change, it would appear, and that's a study in itself.

But what strikes you most about what you are seeing in this space?

I think what strikes me most is that, well, I hope this doesn't come across negative.

I always try not to be negative, but I am struck by how sort of blindly we tend to accept what we read and what we see in the media.

I mean, we know we can filter a camera for zoom, for example.

So it's upsetting to me that we're not teaching children to ask questions and be curious and not to just accept things blindly.

And that goes for behaviors that they observe in the classroom or in the ballpark.

And I'm just surprised, really, that as adults, we know how much harm and hurt there is, why we're not incorporating that as part of our teaching for our children.

We are talking to Dr.

Lou Baer, who is the CEO of Civility Experts, and you're listening to Where Parents Talk, the podcast.

Let me pick up on that point a little bit more.

As parents are the first educators of their children, what advice would you offer to parents in this area in terms of what should we be doing?

And.

And let's say starting at the ages of 2, 3, 4, and 5, as you mentioned, in our own homes, to promote respectful and civil behavior?

Well, I think the first thing is that we need to work harder as adults, leading by example, to be present.

I recall as a young person, we didn't have the same kind of technology, but even then we were required to sit at the dinner table as a family.

You know, for a certain hour and a half period.

And if the phone rang, we just didn't answer it.

And if there were was company or people over and the doorbell rang, we just didn't answer it.

And we were taught to be present to whomever you were in the company of.

And so I think as early as age 2 and 3, children are very observant.

And if they see that an adult or an older sibling prefer to look at the television or the computer or the phone screen versus paying attention to the little person, you know, we're teaching them at that early age what their value is.

And then the second thing would be our word choice and our tone.

So I mean it goes beyond please and thank you.

But I think we have to be careful to take, you know, words that refer to labeling or to gender or to cultural aspects.

You know, some of that we need to be mindful that we're using those words appropriately and avoiding those words altogether where they could be misunderstood by a young person without the social context.

It's interesting being a global expert in this area, as you are, Dr.

Baer, how have you gone about navigating this in your own home with your own child?

Well, I've had the luxury, I guess, of, you know, a husband who did most of the heavy lifting in that regard.

I travel 320 days a year for the last 15 years.

So, you know, sadly I'm, I mean it's great.

I don't mean being grateful about the work, but I, you know, my daughter, when I am with her, you know, I try to practice what I preach.

We, you know, we've always wanted her to, and she was an only child too, so we wanted her to understand that people are first and that we want to be service oriented in terms of, you know, what can I give versus what can I get?

You know, I'm a little bit old fashioned because that's how I was raised.

And so we did sit at the table at least twice a week, whether she wanted to or not.

I do set the table with full setting and linen and you know, try to teach her a little bit of propriety.

Even things like being mindful about gift giving, things about considering how you manage your time when it impacts other people, you know, be on time.

Things like waiting your turn, you know, kind of the basics.

But we wanted her to have an understanding of restraint, respect and responsibility, which are what Dr.

Forney, kind of a leader in civility suggests that respect, restraint, responsibility are equally as important to overall development as the reading, writing and arithmetic.

In Your estimation, Would you say that we are a more uncivil or less uncivil society than we were 10 years ago when you and I last spoke?

Well, I think that given the access we have and the benefits of the technology and all of the advantages, tools that we have, I do feel that we have not leveraged those tools in such a way that we could be more civil.

I think keeping up with the pace of change, things like pandemics and technology in general, the learning curve, daily stress and economic situations, there's all kinds of factors that contribute to incivility.

I do feel like there is a resurgence of interest in the topic.

And if I look at the field itself, there are literally thousands of new initiatives popping up, everything from kindness community to random acts of kindness, the character association, partnership, civil dialogue groups.

There's a lot of grassroots and kind of sidebar activities and conversations happening about civility.

But again, it's a bit disappointing to me that given all of the access we have with technology, if all of those like minded people could somehow connect and share resources and work together, I think we could have astonishing impact.

But for whatever reason, we're a bit uncivil and competitive, it seems.

You know, when it comes to who wants to take credit for the new and novel nice idea.

I'm not sure why that is.

Let me ask you, you talked about, you know, we've talked about the discourse and where it's at now in terms of society and I think an area where a lot of parents struggle is what you alluded to earlier.

You know, all of the messages coming at us, whether it's television or, you know, social media or whatever, but, but being able to sort of distill it in a way or accept it in a way that doesn't make us feel negative all the time and so that we can actually be confident in how we're raising our children in our own homes.

So what advice or what tips can you give to a parent to be able to kind of shut down and shut off all that noise, to really focus on the key parts, teaching civil and respectful behavior to their kids while all this other stuff is going on in the background in the outside world?

Right.

So we actually teach in workplace and you know, community, but it would apply to home situations too.

We ask people to use an end in mind approach.

So this just means that I, as a manager or a parent or a teacher or whatever, when I'm engaging in an interaction or communication, I would say to myself, after this communication or dinner or presentation or whatever, I want the listener, learner or audience too, and we fill in the blank.

So in the case of a child, I would say, you know, maybe the child behaved badly.

So in my head, as a parent, I'm saying, after this communication, I want little Sally too, monitor her, the volume of her voice when she speaks to me.

So then you start with the end in mind.

So instead of saying Sally, you may not speak to your mother like that, or don't yell at me.

Like instead of what we might typically do, I would start by saying, sally, would you consider.

Or if you would speak in a lower volume tone, mom could stay calm and we could find out what the problem is and help you with your homework.

Right.

Like we want to always start with the end in mind, which is usually showing forward motion.

It's positive, it's action oriented.

So we take the emotion and the pronouns out of it.

It's not I or you, it's actually focused on the action.

So it de escalates things.

Oftentimes it works really well with adults, and so far we've seen it work really well with children.

That's really interesting.

Just in closing, are there any other tips or pieces of advice that you give to parents?

And a lot of them really struggle with this area because maybe they haven't started with their kids from an early age or, you know, now they're dealing with the teen years and things just get, you know, progressively more complicated for some people as their children get older.

Any final words of advice for them?

Oh, I would just say that this idea of respect, we really need people to understand, especially with MeToo and Black Lives Matter and some of these things that are happening in the world that certainly impact our children, that respect is something that you should never have to earn.

Trust is different.

You have to earn trust.

But respect is something we're all deserving of because we're human and on the planet.

And so color, age, gender, financial situation, cultural background, none of that matters.

On a basic human level.

We are all of equal value.

And so we're trying to teach children that.

And if parents could agree and adopt that attitude, it changes how you approach people and it changes your everything from your body language to your vibration.

And it's just a different way of being in the world.

And there's a natural non judgment, kind of an automatic aspect of civility that comes through.

And so if I could ask people to consider one thing, it would be consider that respect is not something any human being should have to earn.

And just be mindful that trust is something different.

Wonderful food for thought for all of us parents.

Definitely.

Thank you so much, Dr.

Lou Bear, CEO of Civility Experts, for joining us today.

Thanks so much.