If a child speaks sharply to parents and siblings at home but is praised as polite at school, there is a split that Confucius would question. True respect is consistent across contexts. Parents shape this by how they insist on basic courtesy in the home—tone of voice, listening, avoiding insults—and by how they themselves speak about other authorities. When parents grumble constantly about teachers or relatives in private but are polite in public, children learn that respect is a performance. When speech is broadly respectful in both places, they learn that it is a way of being.