Adult Guide · Ages 18+ · Adults
Respect
May · Word of the Month
May's word is RESPECT — treating people, including yourself, as worth taking seriously. As an adult, respect shows up as how you treat people with less power than you, whether you can hold a boundary at work or at home, and whether you can genuinely respect someone you disagree with.
🥋 Respect isn't the same as authority
Having authority over someone — as a manager, a parent, an instructor — doesn't automatically earn their respect, and demanding it rarely works. Respect is earned through consistency, fairness, and actually listening, not through the title alone.
🚧 Self-respect as boundaries
- ●Saying no to a request that isn't reasonable, even to someone you report to or care about
- ●Not tolerating a pattern of disrespect because the relationship (work, family, friendship) feels too important to risk
- ●Modeling for your kids that respect is a two-way expectation, not something only owed upward
🤝 Respecting people you disagree with
Adult life is full of people — coworkers, family, other parents — who see things differently than you do, sometimes on things that matter a lot. Real respect means extending basic dignity to the person even when you strongly disagree with their position.
💍 Respect in a marriage or partnership
Romantic feelings fluctuate; respect is what has to hold steady underneath them for a relationship to actually last. It shows up in small, consistent places — how you talk about your partner when they're not in the room, whether you honor agreements you've made, whether you take their opinion seriously even mid-argument.
🏠 Respect and boundaries with your own parents
Adulthood often means renegotiating respect for your own parents — honoring where it's earned, while also holding boundaries around your own household, your own parenting choices, or your own decisions. Respecting someone doesn't require doing whatever they'd prefer.
🧢 Respecting a role even when you don't like the person
You can respect a boss's authority, a colleague's position, or a rule you disagree with, without personally liking the person enforcing it. Confusing the two is what makes it feel okay to be disrespectful the moment personal feelings sour.
🤐 Respect and how you talk about people
It's easy to think of respect as how you treat someone to their face. The more honest test is how you talk about them when they're not in the room — a coworker, an ex, another parent. Real respect holds up in their absence, not just their presence.
🎓 Respecting people who are still figuring it out
A younger employee, a newer instructor, a less experienced parent — respect doesn't require them to already have it all figured out. It means taking their effort and role seriously while they're still learning, the same grace you'd want extended to yourself at that stage.
🏅 Respect in competition
Respecting a competitor — in sport, at work, anywhere — while genuinely trying to outperform them isn't a contradiction, it's the actual standard. How you handle a loss or a win says more about your respect for the process than the outcome itself does.
🥋 How you treat people who can't push back
The clearest read on someone's actual respect for others is how they treat people with less power — a new employee, a service worker, a lower-ranked student. Respecting only people above you isn't respect, it's strategy.
💡 Try This At Home
Watch how you talk about people who report to you, serve you, or otherwise have less power in the interaction — this week, at work and at home. That's the most honest measure of your own respect for others.
"Respect is earned, not given." Consider someone who has genuinely earned yours — and what specifically they did to get there.