Respect-the lost art of humanity

I was taking my children to school this morning, as I do every morning, and I proceeded to escort them to breakfast in the school cafeteria. As I await my children to emerge from the food line, the school's custodian proceeds to ask some students to vacate the premises so other students can use the space to eat. The 8 young men proceed to talk back and refuse the custodian's request, as to challenge his authority over their actions. I then proceeded to intervene , as well as a teachers aide, to support the Head Custodian's request for the young men to leave and head for class. They finally picked up and left after the confrontation, only to have 2 of the young men come back and complain to a parent who proceeded to give me ugly stares.

This is a prime example of what I have been preaching about for years with school district officials- parents refusing to take responsibility for their child's actions and leaving the schools to deal with disciplining their children only to be criticized when it is not fair in the eyes of the parents. This kind of problem could be easily solved by one word- R-E-S-P-E-C-T , just like Aretha belts it out. Respect is a two way street, in order to receive respect one must practice it!
Parents no longer discipline their children for two reasons- first, for fear of Government agency interference (Child Protective Services seems to have a lot of time on their hands going after people who spank rather than people who have histories of beating their children severely); and secondly, they feel since they send their kids to school, it is the responsibility of the school to deal with their children indiscretions while in their care. So what have we derived from this attitude? Parents are the blame for how children act at school, not the schools or other environments such as video games or the media. We are the foundation for our children to learn morals and manners, so why do we turn that over to people who know very little about our children? So, respect your children by teaching your children to respect others.