Raise Your Kids to Do People Right

There’s a lesson I think we need to teach our kids that sometimes gets lost in all the noise about protecting them from the world:

Do people right.

Treat people well. Be honest. Keep your word. Help when you can. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Don’t intentionally hurt people. Don’t use people. Don’t screw someone over just because you can.

And perhaps most importantly, don’t grow up believing everyone is out to get you.

The world isn’t filled with terrible people.

Most people are just people.

They’re trying to pay their bills, raise their kids, figure out their relationships, deal with their own insecurities, get through difficult days and hopefully build a life they’re proud of.

People make mistakes.

People say stupid things.

People disappoint us.

Sometimes they hurt us without ever intending to.

If we raise our kids believing that every disappointment is betrayal and every bad interaction is evidence that people can’t be trusted, we aren’t preparing them for the world.

We’re teaching them to be afraid of it.

Teach Them to Start From Good

I want my kids to start from a position of believing people are generally good.

Not perfect.

Good.

There’s a difference.

I want them to walk into a room assuming the people in it are worth knowing.

I want them to make friends without constantly wondering what those friends might eventually do to them.

I want them to fall in love someday without carrying around a list of all the ways someone could break their heart.

I want them to trust people enough to actually experience life.

Because there’s a cost to teaching children that the world is dangerous and people are inherently untrustworthy.

Eventually, they stop letting anyone in.

That isn’t strength.

But Good Doesn’t Mean Stupid

There’s another side to this.

You can believe people are good and still have boundaries.

You can be kind and still refuse to be treated like shit.

You can forgive someone and decide they no longer get access to your life.

You can understand why someone behaved the way they did without excusing what they did.

And when somebody genuinely fucks you over, you deal with it.

That doesn’t necessarily mean revenge.

In fact, most of the time revenge accomplishes very little.

Dealing with something might mean confronting someone.

It might mean walking away.

It might mean ending a friendship.

It might mean refusing to do business with somebody again.

It might mean standing up for yourself.

It might mean involving someone else when the situation is serious enough that you shouldn’t handle it alone.

The lesson isn’t:

Never let anybody fuck with you.

The lesson is:

Know your worth well enough to recognize when someone does.

Then respond appropriately.

Don’t Raise Victims. Don’t Raise Assholes Either.

There’s a strange idea sometimes that we have two choices with our kids.

Raise them soft and they’ll get walked over.

Raise them hard and they’ll survive.

I don’t buy that.

I don’t want to raise kids who see themselves as victims every time something goes wrong.

But I also don’t want to raise kids who believe strength means being an asshole.

Real strength is much quieter than that.

It’s being able to treat someone with respect without needing anything in return.

It’s being able to apologize when you’re wrong.

It’s being able to say, “No, you don’t get to treat me that way.”

It’s knowing when something deserves a conversation and when something deserves a closed door.

It’s being generous without being easily manipulated.

It’s trusting people while paying attention to what they actually do.

That’s a much harder balance to teach.

But I think it’s one of the most important ones.

Teach Them That Their Word Means Something

One of the simplest things we can teach our kids is that how they treat people matters.

If you say you’re going to do something, do it.

If you borrow something, return it.

If you make a mess, clean it up.

If you hurt somebody, apologize.

If someone trusts you with something important, respect that trust.

If someone helps you, remember it.

If you see someone struggling and you have the ability to help, help.

If you’re done with a relationship, friendship or commitment, have the courage to deal with it instead of disappearing or treating someone badly until they leave.

These aren’t complicated ideas.

They’re character.

And character is what remains when nobody is watching.

Let Them Get Hurt Sometimes

This might be the hardest part for parents.

Our kids are going to get hurt.

Someone is going to lie to them.

Someone will probably betray their trust.

Someone they love might break their heart.

A friend might turn on them.

A boss might treat them unfairly.

Someone might take advantage of their kindness.

Our instinct is to prevent those things.

We can’t.

And I’m not sure we should try to prevent every one of them.

Our job isn’t to create a life where nothing bad ever happens to our children.

Our job is to help build people who know what to do when it does.

You got fucked over?

Okay.

What happened?

What can you learn from it?

Do you need to address it?

Do you need to walk away?

Did you contribute to what happened?

Is this person deserving of another chance?

What boundary needs to exist now?

And then, eventually:

How do you move forward without letting this experience change how you see everyone else?

That last part matters.

One person betraying you doesn’t mean everyone will.

One terrible relationship doesn’t mean love is bullshit.

One dishonest business partner doesn’t mean nobody can be trusted.

One shitty friend doesn’t mean friendship isn’t worth having.

Don’t give one person’s bad behaviour that much power over the rest of your life.

Be the Person You Want Them to Become

Of course, none of this matters if we don’t live it ourselves.

Our kids watch how we talk about people.

They hear how we describe someone who wronged us.

They see whether we keep our promises.

They notice whether we’re kind to strangers and whether that kindness disappears the second we’re inconvenienced.

They watch how we handle conflict.

They see whether we spend years consumed by resentment or whether we deal with something and keep moving.

We can tell our kids that humans are generally good.

But they need to see us believe it.

We can tell them to stand up for themselves.

But they need to see us have boundaries.

We can tell them to treat people properly.

But they need to watch us do it when there’s absolutely nothing in it for us.

That’s how they’ll learn.

Do People Right

If there’s one simple rule I want my kids carrying into adulthood, it’s this:

Do people right until they give you a legitimate reason not to.

Start with kindness.

Start with trust.

Start with respect.

Assume good intentions when it’s reasonable to do so.

Don’t spend your life looking over your shoulder waiting for humanity to disappoint you.

But pay attention.

Have boundaries.

Know your worth.

And if someone genuinely fucks you over, don’t pretend it didn’t happen just because you’re trying to be the bigger person.

Deal with it.

Learn from it.

Protect yourself where necessary.

Then keep going.

And most importantly, don’t let one asshole convince you that the whole world is full of them.

There are a lot of good people out there.

Raise your kids to be some of them.