Nurturing Respect

by Gerald A. Larue

Nurturing Respect is teaching by example. The program of "respecting adults" was developed at the Andrus Gerontology Center at the University of Southern California. Nurturing Respect offers lesson plans and exercises to prepare for the encounter between the young and their elders. The process is a group format meeting where questions are asked and answered from both sides, and ideas are exchanged about aging and the young's perception of aging. The instructions in the book prepare adults for the difficult and emotional moments they will face in the exchange with young people. These meetings with the young can be in groups or in one-on-one situations. Ageism, a form of bigotry directed against the elderly, is alive and well in America. This thinking begins in childhood and education about adults and aging needs to begin to supplant the bigotry. As a society, we have worked towards understanding minorities, now it is time to consider our largest minority, the elderly (which may be 30+ for a child). Nurturing Respect gives scenarios and some of the dialogue that has happened in some of these meetings. The responses from the young after these meetings are very encouraging. This book is the first step in the process. Respect is the consequence.

221 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2006

About the author

Gerald Larue is a Professor Emeritus of Religion at the University of Southern California’s College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and an Adjunct Professor of Gerontology at the University of Southern Califronia’s Davis School for Gerontology. He has been awarded a Faculty Lifetime Achievement Award and the Leibovitz Award. He is the author of Playing God, Way of Positive Humanism, Long-Term Care in an Aging Society and many more.