I'm not gonna' lie.

I'd rather visit a female gynecologist with man-hands than try and have a conversation with a teenager who is desperately unable to hold a conversation without their thumbs twitching from withdraw.

I'm sure every generation says it. Owns the trademarked lament the kids these days with great gnashing of teeth.

But they couldn't have imagined this sound-bite generation.

A new, technology-fueled hybrid of children born to relate and converse on a screen; easily forgoing eye contact for Emojis and completely satisfied living a quieter, but more brazen, viral life.

As parents, we see the hashtag writing on the wall, but feel powerless to curb the influence of an increasingly intrusive culture that encourages casual contact without relational intimacy.

In our desperate attempt to get back to basics, we've forgotten one very simple truth in our quest to raise kind kids.

Kindness isn't a character trait but a byproduct of respect.

Before my kids could speak, while their little heads were still bald and their first words a mish-mash of sounds and slobber, please and thank you were spoken for them dozens of times a day.

When my son was ten months old, crying for his train, we would ask him, "may I have the train, please?" before putting it within reach. Once secure in his tiny hand we would exclaim "thank you!". Each day became a lesson in receiving and giving graciously.

And it's not about raising perfect, robotic children.

The please and thank-yous, the firm handshake, the running ahead to hold the door open for a mom pushing a stroller, learning to be the last off the elevator because your entire family is a gaggle of girls-it's all about respect.

We've lost that haven't we?

We complain collectively about equal rights and a dwindling, universal lack of acceptance, but what we're not getting is that we've forgotten what it means to respect the person in front of us at Target wearing stained yoga pants and a cranky two-year-old.

We honk anxiously at the elderly driver who hesitates that one, two, three Mississippi after the traffic light turns green. And how hard do we roll our eyes when the person in front of us at the grocery store-clearly on purpose just to make us late and angry-buys an item without a bar code?

Price check on an extra two minutes of our time in aisle five!

And it rubs off.

Those little eyes and tiny ears see it all. Every huff and puff. Every mad dash to get in line faster than the person walking lock-step with us. They learn that kindness is tied to respect without us every having to give them the words.

And the worst part? We teach them that kindness is conditional and that's just plain wrong.

There is no authentic kindness without respect, friends.

When we're teaching our young kids, even our teenagers and tweens, to say yes ma'am and no sir to the stranger at Chick-Fil-A, what we're really doing is asking them to respect the person. Not just when it's convenient or when someone has been respectful to us first because respect offered graciously is what it means to love your neighbor as yourself.

I love when people compliment my children on being well-mannered but nothing makes me tingle like a sparkler on the Fourth of July when someone says they've just had an enjoyable conversation with my oldest that included both eye contact and honest-to-goodness complete sentences.

Constantly reinforcing manners in our home has given our kids two gifts: the opportunity to bless others with kindness and an invitation for conversation with people we meet daily who we otherwise may not have cause to talk to.

It's amazing how being respectful can open doors. I can't count how many times being respectful, showing stellar manners, has opened doors for unique opportunities for my kids. Unexpected, awesome opportunities from demonstrating maturity and just plain kindness to a stranger because, unfortunately, it's rare these days in our young people.

But we can change that! It starts with us every time. If my kids can't look at me as an example then I can't have any expectation of them figuring it out on their own. They learn what they see and they also practice what comes easiest.

And if easy in our homes is an attitude of great expectations with little sacrifice, then kindness will not grow in the hearts of our children because respect was never taught in the first place.

Can you imagine what our communities would look like if we woke up daily challenged and eager to give respect to every person we encounter? Even to the person who did us wrong or the person who had little patience for us despite our best intentions.

Imagine the example we could give to a generation of kids more interested in looking at a screen than at the beautiful world around them.