It's back-to-school time! Autumn is around the corner and it's time for children to hit the books and get involved in extracurricular activities.
National Children's Good Manners Month
Back-to-school time is a great time to start fresh with your child's behavior training. Good manners should start at home. Unfortunately if parents don't know how to behave, then children rarely have a chance to learn etiquette skills. Nowadays, most parents send their children off to daycare or school with the attitude of "You fix 'em--I don't have time."
Parents should take responsibility and teach their children how to behave before they send them off to school. Remember that today's children are tomorrow's leaders. Here's some tips that might help you get started teaching your child how to behave:
~Teach your child to share with others.
~Teach your child to wait their turn.
~Teach your child not to interrupt when others are speaking.
~Teach your child the importance of being honest.
~Teach your child the importance of good sportsmanship...not everyone will be a winner and children need to know that when they do not win, it's not the end of their world! Children should be taught how to lose gracefully!
~Teach your child the proper forms of address for their teachers. Children should show respect to their teachers and use titles when addressing adults; i.e. Miss, Mr., Mrs, Ms. In the South, some teachers are addressed as "Miss Janice", instead of Mrs. Gibson...it's a Southern thing y'all and a sign of respect! Also, I would like to add that parents should also address the teachers with a title and refrain from addressing them using only their first name.
~Teach your child how to accept others with disabilities.
~ If you show respect to others, your child will learn a valuable lesson from you. If you practice kindness by using words like "please, thank you, you're welcome, and excuse me," your child will learn another valuable lesson from you.
~Praise your child when they show good manners!
"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."
17 comments:
Excellent post Miss Janice! Parents must definitely lead by example, loved all your tips!
Hope you are having a super week!
Wonderful post. One of my very favorite quotes is by Socrates, "Speak so I can see you." The way we conduct ourselves says a lot about our character, our upbringing, and the path of our future. No amount of money or social status can disguise bad manners. Therefore, if you love your children discipline and train them up. Anything less would be considered treacherous.
Excellent Miss Janice...
and love love love your header!!!
~victoria~
Thank you for your wise words. I love your tips because they are grounded in good sense as well as good manners.
Best,
Colleen
As we drive to school, I have the boys play the "manners game". They try to see how many good manners they can think of, such as holding doors and men following a lady up the stairs. They think it's fun to see who is crowned the Best Gentleman.
Hear! Hear!
Great post! I would add Teach your children to make eye contact when they are introduced to or talking to an adult.
Miss Janice, wonderful post and tips ... its also a good reminder for those of us who do not have children (yet)!
I see Autumn is in the air ~ your header is wonderfully gorgeous!!! HHL
Great post. The only problem is that some of the parents need to learn good manners first. I encounter this problem all of the time.
Couldn't agree more! I'm tough on my children, constantly reminding them of how they should behave and what is appropriate. It is the parents' job to teach their children good manners and we must teach by example!
Hi Miss Janice,
Very nice post with helpful tips on training children to have good manners!
Valerie
Wonderful post!!!
I love your blog header...it looks wonderful.
Wonderful post! You know how adamant I am about food manners from my past posts. Also, I love how our two present posts deal with the subject!
We are the only people we know who have taught our child to call adults 'Miss Emily or Mister Bob' and it irks me when a 5 year old calls me by my first name alone. I always tell them when they are old enough to buy the house next door they may consider me a peer. :O)
Miss Janice,
You have a sign that I've always admired on your front porch. It says, Welcome to the Roost Southern spoke here. Where did you find such an adorable sign? I can't seem to track one down.
Gigi
All of the things you said are important. The one that stood our to me is "Teach your child how to accept others with disabilities.".
As a disability rights advocate myself, and a person with autism I have experienced a culture of low expectations myself when I was younger.
I have spoken at many conferences myself advocating for those with disabillity rights and I know first hand what it is like to be treated poorly due to disability.
These are my suggestions for good disability etiquette (quoted from my presentation on self advocacy:
* Never call anyone “retarded” or make jokes about ones disability
* When someone uses an alternative communication system (such as a picture board, sign language, type to speech, light writer, dynavox,etc), learn how to understand it and even sometimes respond back using it.
When interacting or doing certain activities, one may have to adapt what they are doing to accommodate a person who may have movement differences or a different brain functioning level.
Sometimes people with special needs will take longer to respond and answers given may be simpler.
* Seeing eye dogs and monkey helpers should never be petted or touched without permission
* When one uses a wheelchair, do not push it unless the person asks you to. Opening doors for those in wheelchairs is a kind thing to do for them though.
* Aides and Paraprofessionals are an exception to the “Don’t go near the kid when an adult is there rule!” Kids that do not know this exception often leads to those people with support workers, aides, or paraprofessionals that assist them to not have very many friends. This article explains this further: http://www.uvm.edu/cdci/parasupport/reviews/EC0571%284%29415-430.pdf
Thank you StephanH! These are tips that we all need to know. I applaud you for being an advocate to those disabled!
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