Well, Manners do matter. It has it’s own importance and cannot be learnt in a day! Some children are a joy around. They are pleasant, polite and treat others with respect. Whereas, some are rude, naughty and noisy. They are defiant, give back answers or blur out words they shouldn’t.
Are you bugged with such child who needs to learn good manners?
Parents are the role models and so are the teachers too. Parents often complain that coping with undisciplined child is the most turbulent phase of parenthood. Even teachers call for the parents and complain the child’s behavior when they fail to handle a manner-less child. Great kids misbehave too! Children are always in transition. Moving from one development stage to another and it is amidst the process, Parents need to instill moral values in kids. Manners are skills taught to develop social grace. They display respect, care and consideration. Imagine, a child comes and bangs saying, ‘Mommy, I will not share my chocolate with my brother’ or blue out in from of a guest saying, ‘Mommy, I will not allow you to give my biscuits to the aunty’.
In fact, I really came across a child who was rude and rough. The mother got a complain from school and the teacher told her not to send the child if he misbehaves. On hearing this, the child said, ‘No problem. Good for me. I won’t go to school and watch TV at home all the time.’ So, this is really embarassing, isn’t it? Here’s where we need to draw the lines.
Good manners at home and away from home, makes life pleasant. Knowing how to be polite will give the child the self confidence, build his self esteem as others will respond positively to his good manners. So, what can you do and set initial steps? May be this can help:
1. Talk about Manners and teach social skills. The simple, ‘Please’, ‘Thank You’, ‘Sorry’, are the easy words but to be used often.
2. Set a good example. Children act the way you do. If you tell him to do something and you don’t, he too will follow the footsteps.
3. Children don’t learn by just playing, seeing or listening. Give them the chance many times over and again to practice social skills.
4. Role play the situations. Let the child be the host and get ready for guests.
5. Teach the proper table manners, Phone manners and even appreciating, caring, sharing and check on proper moral attitudes.
Well, more on this and you can find on the wiki here on a guide to ‘How to have Good Manners’. You may find more websites on Manners through
Btw, I have routinely held sessions at Swagat on ‘Manners’ especially on Table Manners and simple outline of social skills and moral values. Here is a worksheet on Don’t of Table Manners, supported to this session. I am sure, may parents and teachers will find this helpful to have a supportive class circulation copy while you teach Manners in your classroom/or even hang on clip board in your child’s study room/bedroom. Enjoy!
Fun Games by Hasbro’s Noodleboro
Sharing, Listening and manners don’t come to naturally to kids… but playing does! – reads the lines on the Hasbro’s Noodleboro site as they promote three new games to teach Manners and social skills to children, aged 4 up for 2/3 players. They’re Fun Park Game, Picnic Basket Game and Pizza Palace Game.
Fun Park Game: Developing social skills. The story is about a place filled with midway games and carnival fun. In this game, kids play together to collect as many sharing stars as they can before the park closes. It’s all about having fun and helping friends by sharing.
Picnic Basket Game: Value of Manners. It’s hard to have a perfect picnic party when ants keep trying to steal food! Just say “please” and “thank you” to send those pesky ants packing and collect all the items that will make the picnic a success. Rachel refuses to use good manners and see what happens!
Pizza Palace Game: Learning to Listening skills. In this game, it’s important for kids to listen and pay attention to orders before heading into the kitchen. Things may go wrong if they don’t listen properly.
The games are the result of more than a year of development work, which included an online survey of moms (and a few dads) around the U.S., according to an executive with Hasbro’s games division. Teaching social skills turned out to have surprising importance for the nearly 1,000 people surveyed.
You can find more on Kids page here to check on the game demos on the site.
