Like a huge number of parents, Maria Shriver believes in the importance of teaching her children manners. But on a recent podcast episode of Making Space With Hoda Kotb, the former first lady of California and prominent member of the Kennedy family shared that one way she had her kids show her respect was by making them stand up whenever she entered the room.
“I make them stand up,” Shriver said. “I used to make them. Now they just do stand up.”
And the rule also applied to dad Arnold Schwarzenegger, and any other adult entering the room for that matter.
“I wanted my kids to, when I walked in the room, or their dad walked in the room, or you would walk in the room, that they stand up out of respect,” she said.
Even friends who were visiting were asked to stand out of respect for the adults in the family.
She explained that she got the idea from her own mom, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who expected it of all of her children, and who was “big on manners.”
“I didn’t want to walk in the room, and they’d be sitting looking at a phone or watching the game. I’d be like, ‘I’m here. Here we are, and here I am. And look me in the eye, say hello, thank me for coming, write me a thank you note if I take you somewhere.'”
Okay, while this sounds like a bit much, it would be nice if my kids always looked up from their screens when I start talking to them.
Shriver added that even though her four children — Katherine, 35, and Christina, 33, Patrick, 31, and Christopher, 27 — are now grown, they still stand up when she enters the room. And now it’s their idea, not hers.
“Even though my kids moaned and groaned about it, they now say it was a good thing,” she added.
Parenting experts have established that teaching your kids manners at home is important both to society at large and to individual health and happiness. Instructing your kids about how to properly share a meal, be a guest, have a conversation, and (of course) say please and thank you helps prepare them to be good civilians who can interact appropriately with others.
However, having too many rules for your children, especially strict or arbitrary rules, can cross the line into authoritarian parenting, a style of parenting that has proven less effective and even damaging to children by researchers. Demanding too much from your kids, while not responding to their emotional needs or letting them make decisions for themselves, can lead to issues.
Does making your kids stand when an adult enters the room authoritarian? It’s hard to say from the interview. But finding the line between teaching manners and being too strict is tricky for lots of parents — and parenting styles can differ widely and still result in healthy kids (with good manners).
