Is your 3-year-old a little hellion with no manners? Well. Maybe he's a totally normal 3-year-old. Or! Maybe he needs to take the "Manners for 3, 4 & 5 Year Olds" course with Peggy Newfield. Peggy has created a "remarkable" course on etiquette. Watch and marvel as well-trained children politely introduce each other, greet callers on the telephone, and place cloth napkins on their laps -- the correct way.
Does this scare anyone else?
Look, I'm all for teaching kids manners. It's becoming a lost art, truly. But there's something Stepford Wife-ish about this video. Do we really want little kids to be this sedate and robotic?
Okay ... a manners class for 3-year-olds ... that lasts 55 to 60 minutes?!? No class for 3-year-olds should last that long except maybe gymnastics or soccer. I really have to wonder how much editing/threatening was required to produce this short sampler video. I know it's a smallish class with three adults, but these do not look like the preschoolers I'm familiar with.
I actually like some of what I saw. Learning how to chew slowly and cut with a knife? Awesome. Learning how other people hear them over the phone? Fantastic -- an essential lesson in empathy. But learning the "proper" way to unfold a cloth vs. paper napkin? Come on, that's pretty fussy territory for such little kids. I mean, let's just get them to use the napkins instead of their sleeves, you know?
I think there are two different approaches to etiquette. A woman I know once said her favorite word in the English language is "appropriate." She's kind of obsessed with rules and propriety. Her kind of etiquette is about knowing your place and making others feel shame and judgement. It's about learning how to be polite even when you're treating someone unkindly. It's about feeling "better" than everyone else. Those slobs!
Then there's the other approach: Emily Post once said, "Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you want to have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use." Emily's approach is about making everyone around you feel valued. In other words, the best approach to manners is to teach your child to care about other people's feelings and to communicate clearly. I fear that lesson may be lost in the discussion over the proper way to unfold a paper napkin.
But hey -- there's a silver lining with these lessons! They come with a business plan -- seriously. I guess that's how you justify the $1,195 price tag for the videos and manual? Zoiks! Did you know, etiquette isn't just an important life lesson, it's also a money-maker. Or was that rude of me to point out?
How do you teach your children good manners?
Image via AmSchoolofProtocol/YouTube
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Comments 22
You don't have to pay for a manners course, just lead by example and correct your children when they're wrong.
If you think an hour is too long for a kid to learn something, then good luck to you when they start school! I'm not saying I'm Emily Post, but you're probably the woman I'm staring and judging at in the grocery store because her kids think the pasta aisle is the playground.
Manners are important, and should never be the thing you neglect to teach your child. My family was HUGE on manners (especially table manners) when I was growing up. And I hated it at the time. I couldn't do anything right or anything "fun." And it was all the time...my mother would often quote "Miss Manners." But as an adult, I am grateful that the rules of social ettiquette were drilled into me. My friend's parents loved having me over because I was polite and treated them with respect. In college, my manners and politeness led to many compliments on my "professionalism" and "maturity." Using my manners has never done me a wrong turn in my life.
I can't stand kids who are rude and have bad table manners. It is one of my biggest pet peeves. For typically developing children, there is no excuse for it. Most kids I see today would benefit greatly from this kind of course.
You teach them from day "1". It is so adorable to hear a 9 or 10 month old say their version of "thank you". And all those little trick, like bye-bye, nite-nite, etc, are manners.
They by imitating their parents,so if you say "I love you" to your husband/partner your baby will also say it.
Now, social etiquette is a bit different but it is also important to teach them, not hard at all, and it can be fun. You don't have to go all out about it, just adjust to your own social activities.
Adriana, I'm going to throw my manners out the window with this response and tell you that you need to raise the bar on what you expect from your children. This kind of attitude- that children cannot be expected to demonstrate good manners and proper social etiquette- are exactly why they are becoming a "lost art". My children have always been expected to use good table manners even as toddlers. When my oldest daughter was very young, I would let her invite her friends to tea parties, which provided great opportunities to teach some essentials (my oldest is now 14 and knows how to set a proper table). I recently had dinner with a group of 15, some of which were children. On couple had 3 children 5 and under who had NO table manners whatsoever, and they acted like complete animals, nearly ruining the entire dinner for everyone else. I think you might be taking some liberties with how you interpret Emily Post...