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manners don’t matter? excuse me.
I have long maintained the feeling that I should raise my kids to be polite. But since I started the blog, I have found a lot of media out there that says teaching your kids to say please and thank you is an unnecessary hoop to make them jump through just so that adults feel better. What a load of rubbish! We raise our children to be polite so that they can learn to look outward instead of constantly toward themselves — so they can put off their natural tendencies to be selfish for part of the day. This is a blog, so I won’t bore you with any rantings and ravings — that would be impolite. But, if you do believe in teaching your kids manners, Emily Post has a list of downloadable printouts for teaching them. Right before a nice dinner, I like to sit down with the kids and review the one entitled “Top Table Manners for Kids.” That way, during the meal, I don’t have to keep nagging –elbows off the table! stop chewing with your mouth open! Instead, I can simply raise my eyebrows at them, and they get the picture.
I wish a raise of the eyebrow worked with my kids! These are some of the things you would have heard at our house this evening: use your fork, please; put your bottom on your chair; put your knees down; stop “toasting” with your glasses; keep your fingers out of your cup; don’t throw food; if you don’t want it, just leave it on your plate–don’t shove it across the table; no taking food off of somebody’s plate unless they say you can; you haven’t been excused! I think it’s difficult to make children care about having manners. Maybe making a game out of it or setting up a point/reward system might motivate some of the more reluctant ones. I would love ideas!
Well, raising my eyebrow only works with our oldest kid, and that’s after meticulously going over the rules before hand. Plus, it only works well if I’ve outdone myself with a great meal, and he is feeling particularly classy that evening. Most of the time it’s more like your experience. I’ll have to think of a game. If you think of one, let me know. We can put our heads together. How did the chicken work out?
My children are all grown up now and have, or are having children of their own. I don’t think we had too much of a problem but I do think you have to pick your battles too, for example I dont think an elbow on the table is quite so important as throwing food or making a terrible noise when eating.
Well done though for raising the point as many of the old standards are slipping badly.
I agree that you must choose your battles. Most evenings we find it difficult to even have a sit down dinner. When things are casual, many matters do slide: the baby likes to touch the table with his foot when he sits in his high chair; elbows find their way to the table. The major rule that will always be enforced is this: NEVER CRITICIZE THE FOOD. The next in line is keeping their mouths shut while eating. If those two are in place, then we feel we have something to work with and can graduate to some of the other pleasantries.
Jamie,
Love the blog, and this entry touched a nerve. As a former teacher and foster mom, I’ve found that basic manners are important and not overly difficult to instill. As a teacher (granted, it was in a Catholic school in the South) my students were required to say please, thank you, may I, and ma’am, not to mention stand up when an adult entered the room. As a foster mom, my 3 kids learned very quickly that if they didn’t ask and respond properly, they didn’t get what they wanted. Now if I only had as much success as a step mom…..
I have a couple “games” that come in handy for table manners. Granted, there are plenty of nights when these gems don’t work, but for the most part they’re pretty helpful. Here they go:
1. Catchy rhymes – “Mable, Mable strong and able, get those elbows off the table!” “You get what you get, and you don’t get upset!”
2. Reverse rolls – Let the kids pretend they’re the parent. My kids love this! Parents get to misbehave. The kids get to tell the parents what they need to do. To really get the point across, my husband and I will say – “I have to do what? I don’t understand, will you show me?” (This one also works well for bedtime routines, leaving playgrounds etc.) Another version is to let the girls “teach” their stuffed animals and dolls the routine. The girls aren’t allowed to have toys at the table, but there have been a few nights where the stuffed spectators watched from kitchen counters or hallways.
3. Rewards. They can place stickers on their responsibility chart when they clear their dishes. Also, we usually do some family fun activity after dinner (go for a walk, playground, game) so if they want to do that – they can’t do it until their places are cleared!
4. The quiet game. Who can be the quietest for the longest?
Good luck and have fun!
My boys are grown now, but table manners became a source of pride when they were young. I had a little pig that sat in front of my plate. When someone commited an error, I moved the pig in front of his plate. He could move the pig to someone else’s plate only when he spotted an error. When dinner was over, whoever had the pig had to clear the table. Sometimes, my husband and I had to clear, but after awhile the pig just sat quietly by me through dinner. That little pig still sits on my kitchen hutch and watches over us to make sure we are polite at the table.
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Until recently I taught preschool. One of the skills we worked on was table manners at snack time. It lasted all year and most of them didn’t master it but we tried. The children were supposed to say “please pass the juice (or whatever food they wanted)”. When it was passed we worked on saying “thank you”.
One thing I’ve heard from the preschoolers and friends’ families is that a lot of people don’t sit down as a family and eat dinner. How are children supposed to learn manners if they don’t have role models? I hope being kind and polite isn’t going the way of the dinosaur!
My kids are getting older now with my oldest married and my youngest being nine, but sometimes a little reminder is deemed necessary. I occasionally break into song with an old Joyschool line from the manners song, “…so when you want the butter, say ‘please, pass the butter’ good manners are never out of style, and when you get the butter, say ‘thanks, for the butter’ and say it with a great big happy smile…” Another thing I’ve pulled out at times is a cute children’s book called “It’s a Spoon, Not a Shovel.” I love, love the pig idea.
Table manners are important because they translate over to treating others with respect. When I worked retail (in the tourism industry and then at a small store with an antiquated system, making checkout take a long time) people who were polite made my day easier, kept me from getting stressed and fumbling, and helped me to keep a smile on my face. When people tried to make my job harder or were mean or not understanding, I made more mistakes and was more visibly agitated and had a harder time helping them quickly.
At Sunday School, when the three year olds I teach are getting demanding for snack, I make each of them say “Please may I have a snack, Miss Kate?” (or as well as they can say it, some of them are behind verbally) before they can have a snack. Who on earth said this is unnecessary? They probably didn’t realize how it’s a building block, like learning language early on, that will be more useful later on.