Manners

A child having good manners is a process that will take years as they grow and develop and have the opportunity to practice and understand their world.

Manners includes being respectful, showing kindness and consideration for others.

A child learns manners through exposure to manners within their world.

Instilling the foundations to good manners facilitates the tools a child needs to succeed as an adult.

In order to instill these foundations for a child it is imperative they observe you and your interactions. Interactions should be respectful, considerate.

It is important to have expectations that are reasonable and appropriate.

At around 18 months a child will develop an understanding in relation to the fundamental concepts of manners.

When a child is very young, we don’t tend to place any or much emphasis on manners although we can certainly model good manners.

When they are infants, their loud burps sometimes can elicit laughter, and as they learn to speak, we often consider their lack of manners or rude words, as rather endearing or dismiss it because they are that age.

As children gets older and start having play dates and socializing, starting school, etc manners tend to become more increasingly important.

It is not so much about ‘teaching’ manners but more about modeling and praising when they do.

For example: Prompt them to say please and thank you when they are asking/receiving things, always using manners yourself, etc.

• Start off at the achievable: “please” and “thank you” are first; then add in “excuse me.” The simple manners are the easiest.
• Empower them with strategies: To politely say “excuse me,” or squeeze your arm instead of screaming/making noise/yelling, etc. Talk to them about when it is OK to make noise to get your attention without manners such as in an emergency, but otherwise explain to them to use manners such as excuse me or squeeze your arm. But ignoring a gentle arm squeeze will send the message to your child that screaming is a better option — at least it gets your attention.
• Model: Use your manners including polite behaviours such as letting an elderly person have your seat on public transport models the behaviour you want. Screaming at the twit who cut you off in traffic does exactly the opposite. Sometimes it is the unspoken that can speak the loudest.
• Be consistent: Manners and good behaviour need to be part of the routine.
• Don’t lecture them: It is best to use short, to-the-point phrases like “Walk inside please”. It is the same with behaviour. If your child picks up their food with their hands, just hand them a fork- no need for the lecture.
• Praise: They love compliments and doing the right thing, lavish them with praise. And be specific: “I’m so proud of the way you said ‘excuse me’ when you were trying to get my attention”.
• Respect your child: If your child behaves rudely, take her aside and discuss the issue privately. Criticizing your child in front of others will embarrass them and could cause them to be even ruder later.
• Establish and enforce consequences: Make the consequences fit the ‘crime’ though and be age appropriate. Decide where learning manners falls in your level of what to expect and then make the consequence for not using their manners appropriate to that level.