Why Manners are Important

SPENDING TIME ON MANNERS and RESPECT

            September is Children’s Good Manners month at my school and while classrooms are establishing the expectations for social and academic behaviors, the counseling lessons concentrate on the issues of Caring, Courtesy and being Careful.

             Kindergarten students define manners as “being nice or good!”   With efforts from home and school, children will come to realize that good manners demonstrate respect, kindness and consideration to others.  

            Experts in the field of etiquette say that parents should “always behave in the way you want your child to behave.”  It is true that our actions speak louder than our words.  If we act one way and tell our children to act differently, they will imitate our behavior.  “A parent with poor manners cannot expect to rear a child with good manners,” says Peggy Post, daughter-in-law of Emily Post, the well-known Etiquette Guru.  

“Today’s families are very different than those of 50, 30 and even 10 years ago,” Post said in a recent interview about her new book, The Gift of Good Manners: A Parent’s Guide to Raising Respectful, Kind, Considerate Children.  Her advice reflects those differences.  The book speaks to every kind of family: single parents, stepparents, and grandparents raising their grandchildren.  And it covers the whole scope of their lives.  “The book’s most important message to parents,” the author says, “is that the gift of good manners inspires self-confidence–one of the most precious and important gifts that can be given a child.“

Of all the tools that we want our children to possess to help them “navigate” their way through life, good manners, doing the right thing at the right time, will make all our lives more enjoyable.  The children can be proud that their character is appreciated, respected and even honored by their peers who have learned to tolerate and appreciate differences.  This is truly the reason why being respectful is so important. 

      Here are some tips for teaching good manners that were recommended by Better Homes and Gardens, bhd.com:

Work on one thing at a time.  If you try to teach too many social skills at once, you will end up teaching none of them well.  Instead, teach table manners first, for example.  When those have been learned, advance to phone manners, and so on.

Credit your children for their successes.  When you kids display proper manners at home or in public, give them immediate positive feedback.  It’s more critical that you do this during the early “learning phase” of manners instruction, but even older children need to occasionally hear how proud you are of their deportment.

Be tolerant of your children’s lapses, but do not overlook them.  Children will make mistakes.  The more patient you are, the more progress they will ultimately make.  Under no circumstances should you reprimand a child’s social errors in public, although firm reminders may at times be in order.  Remember that children want to please adults and that it’s easier to catch the proverbial fly with honey than with vinegar.

Book Suggestions:

Teaching Your Children Good Manners: A Go Parent! Guide. By Lauri Berkenkamp & Steven C. Akins, Psy.D

The Gift of Manners: A Parents Guide to Raising Respectful, Kind, Considerate Children By Peggy Post

Manners Matter by Veronica Zysk.

Manners on the Playground.  by Carrie Lynn Finn

The Berenstain Bears Forget Their Manners by Stan Berestain.

Mind Your Manners in School by Arianna Candell.