Maria Shriver Made Her Youngsters Stand ‘Out of Respect’ When She Entered a Room

• Maria Shriver opened up a few parenting trick she discovered from her mom.
• She mentioned she taught her youngsters to face up every time she entered a room, one thing they nonetheless do to this present day.
• Shriver mentioned the ladies in her household have been “huge on manners,” one thing she needed to go down.

Maria Shriver has opened up in regards to the parenting tip she inherited from her late mom, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and why she believes it instilled her youngsters with good manners.

Showing on a current episode of the TODAY podcast “Making Area with Hoda Kotb,” Shriver, 69, mentioned that she taught her youngsters to face up “out of respect” every time she entered a room — one thing she mentioned they nonetheless do to this present day.

“I make them rise up,” Shriver mentioned. “I used to make them. Now they simply do rise up.”

Shriver, who’s the niece of former President John F. Kennedy, shares daughters Katherine, 35, and Christina, 33, and sons Patrick, 31, and Christopher, 27, with ex-husband Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Shriver mentioned the rule did not simply apply when she entered a room.

“I needed my youngsters to, once I walked within the room, or their dad walked within the room, otherwise you would stroll within the room, that they rise up out of respect,” she mentioned.

Shriver additionally inspired her youngsters’s pals to do the identical once they visited their house: “When their pals would come over, I would be like, ahem.”

She continued: “I did not need to stroll within the room, they usually’d be sitting taking a look at a cellphone or watching the sport. I would be like, ‘I am right here. Right here we’re, and right here I’m. And look me within the eye, say whats up, thank me for coming, write me a thanks be aware if I take you someplace.'”

“Though my youngsters moaned and groaned about it, they now say it was factor,” she added.

Shriver mentioned the rule is one thing her mom — who died in 2009 — additionally enforced when she was rising up.

She added that each her mom and her grandmother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, have been “huge on manners.”

One other etiquette rule she discovered from her elders was bringing attention-grabbing matters of dialog to the dinner desk, she went on.

“After we went to the dinner desk, all people needed to have one thing to deliver to the desk to speak about, to converse about. My mom could be like, ‘What’s your opinion of the gospel? What’s your opinion of what the president mentioned at present?'” she mentioned.

“You might be 10, 11, 19, 20, however you needed to step up.”

Shriver mentioned that on the coronary heart of her parenting type was the concept that her youngsters have been “4 distinct people” who knew they have been valued and “a precedence in a public household.”

She added that she needed to “guard their privateness” and to “be certain they weren’t a part of political pamphlets” or “used as props.”

Shriver’s strategy to parenting and her emphasis on instructing her youngsters manners aligns with the authoritative parenting type, which is typified by setting guidelines and excessive requirements.

As Enterprise Insider beforehand reported, specialists say authoritative parenting may also help youngsters develop accountability and emotional regulation.

“This type encourages youngsters to take accountability for their very own actions and make selections which can be acceptable for his or her age and growth,” Kalley Hartman, a wedding and household therapist and scientific director of Ocean Restoration, advised BI in 2023.