Children’s Manners
If you have young children, you have probably experienced those rawwther stressful moments when they simply “forget their manners” and you wish you had a magic wand to make them “snap-to polite attention!” You know that they know how to behave. You just want to scream, “YOU KNOW BETTER,” along with an expletive… or two! The addition of sweets (gummy bears and jellybeans) can exacerbate their misbehavior too. UGH… one feels embarrassed and frustrated as a parent. Manners begin at home, with role models such as parents, grandparents, and caretakers. Mastering anything always requires practice. My dear friend Gaye shared a splendid method for instilling manners in children. Tuesday night at her house was “manners night” at the dinner table, which didn’t mean a free-for-all on other nights. It simply meant that on Tuesdays there were no distractions, no television, and no phones. Etiquette and the art of conversation were explored.
