By vanessa m. | Leave A Comment
Have you ever sat in a restaurant and watched as the Parents desperately tried to get their child to stop screaming? While we might not be able to stop our children from screaming in public, we can teach them basic public manners. Teaching our children manners not just at home but in public will help our homes run smoothly, not to mention lower our stress levels!
First and foremost, you cannot teach your child how to behave in public without taking them in public! Do not be afraid to take your son or daughter to a sit-down restaurant, you never know, they may act like the perfect angels that we know they all are!
Simple ‘Please’ and ‘Thank You’ goes a very long way. My daughter says “Thank you” for just about everything, the look on a person’s face after she says ‘Thank You’ is astonishing! Make sure to give a lot of praise and encouragement when your child is polite.
“Hello” is a form of manners as well. Teaching your child to say Hello is a great conversation starter. When you’re at the grocery store and you have your toddler with you, it may just make the cashier’s day to have your child say “hello”.
Children learn through observation and repetitiveness, so remember to practice what you teach. Do not expect your toddler to be polite during dinner, if you’re not leading by example.
Make sure to always praise your child after doing something good, such as good manners. Disciplining them because they did not say Thank you rarely, if ever, works. Most children between the ages of one to three don’t understand what their being punished for, especially if it is because they did not say a specific word.
Once you have the basics down with your learning Toddler, you will be able to explore other aspects of manners. While we might not be able to teach them how to chew with their mouth shut at the age of two, we can certainly begin with ‘simple manners’. Thank you and Please are just two parts of having manners, imagine when your child starts to say “Excuse Me”!
Have you begun the process of teaching your child manners? What methods have you used that have worked?
Vanessa is a mother of two daughters’ under the age of three. They definitely keep her on her toes! You can visit her over at Dressed In Pink.
ABOUT vanessa m.
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My little guy is 19 months old. So far, he says please, but doesn’t quite understand about sitting still and things like that…
i just can say it pays to teach the kids manners as early as possible. i have two kids – son 9 years, daughter 3 years – and i never had problems going somewhere with them.
people often asked me what i did to them because they’re so well mannered and behave so good. i just say them i started to teach them manners since they’re babies.
i in fact started with hello-bye,bye, please-thank you and then saying sorry. and it’s always good to be an example.
but mostly i’m proud of my kids when we go grocery shopping.i started to teach them as they started to put things in the basket – which is about with 12 months. in the beginning it’s not easy, because there was a lot of crying and the people watched me like i’m a bad mother. but after a few times they learned. what did i do? i allowed them to buy just one small thing – wheter it’s a chocolate bar or a fruit yogurt. often it happened that they found a second thing. then i say: no my dear, we said just one thing. take the thing you like better. this worked so well with my son and also now with my little daugther.
My son who is almost 4 will say “Thank You” & “Excuse Me”. Which I always said to him, even before he could talk. We’re working on staying in his seat while he eats right now. I have now idea how to take “control” of it. We have the television off during breakfast, lunch and dinner. We all sit at the table. He just likes to get out of the chair and start dancing, or something “silly”. I will direct him back to the chair and ask him to please sit down while you’re eating. It can be very frustrating.
Children will always say “thank you” and “hello” if they hear it always from parents. When parents never thanks to their own children it would be hard to explain why we need to say such words.
I never learned manners with my mom and then went to live with my dad at 11 and then it is too late. My dad made me feel ashamed and rebellious when trying to force me to say Please and Thank-you and I got a complex about please and thank you and manners. Now I am fine and I didn’t even have to teach my daughter please and thank you. Without even thinking about teaching my daughter and without treating her any different than I would anybody, she says please, thank you, you’re welcome and I’m sorry and she isn’t even two yet. Most children learn by example and they want to be like adults. Do you treat children with the same manners and respect you would anyone (including your boss)? Are the adults in your child’s life and genuinely thankful and respectful? Then your child will most likely learn manners. The way the adults in your child’s life treat each other is also key. But of course some kids need training.
Though she doesn’t scream in restaurants, getting her to sit still for more than 15 minutes is definately not something I can brag about. But then I think about how it it must be for someone with so much energy to sit liek that for very long.