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| Are our children minding their manners? | ||||
| And are we? | ||||
 by Sophie CrossRecently it's come to my attention that even apparently well brought up kids have absolutely no manners whatsoever. Are we becoming so soft with our children and/or so casual or lazy about everything that we are not teaching proper manners anymore? When I was a child in junior school, if we were caught with our elbows on the table, a teacher would come along and swipe them off. Often with our plate. That might be a little extreme, but children today often don't seem to even know how to hold a knife and fork properly, let alone know about such things as elbows off the table, sit up straight etc. So what's happened? Are we getting soft? Aren't manners seen as an important part of our general life skills and early education? Kids smart mouth, back chat and swear at a very young age. They don't say please and thanks and they have no concept of privacy. Where are we going wrong? Perhaps such old style values aren't considered important any more. But they are, aren't they? Isn't it important for later in life that a child knows how to eat with their mouth closed, hold a knife and fork properly, put their cutlery together when they've finished, wait for everyone else to start or finish and not just get up and leave the table? Reece Witherspoon said in an interview once that her mother taught her to be polite and respectful. As my granny, and I suspect yours too, used to say manners cost nothing. And she was right. They just require time and attention. And perhaps that's what we don't have. Time? Nor Attention. How often do we sit down and eat dinner with our kids? How often are kids watching TV or looking at a gadget while they're eating? How often are we guilty of the same? Lots of families are pretty good with this but when you're busy and all coming in at different times, it's often hard to maintain. And how many of us have said at some point "my child's so well behaved at child care, but a monster at home" or wondered how the carers get our child to sit neatly and quietly at the lunch table and eat their lunch without any complaint. Of course this is largely down to a peer environment where they just go into herd mentality and do what the person next to them is doing. Somewhere around the table will be someone who eats well so you have to hope they're the one who sets the trend! At home we're often guilty of rushing home, rushing dinner, multi-tasking over dinner and not really paying attention to what's going on around the table. We also don't really set a great example. We eat on the sofa. Read the paper, surf the news on the iPad, catch up on some emails. It's very common to focus on education, exam results and qualifications to get a good job, but manners are important and often get left behind or ignored. Or put in the "too hard basket". Maybe it's time to make some new house rules and start enforcing some basic etiquette! Manners cost nothing. Ignorance can cost everything. |
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What manners are you guilty of ignoring? What do you think are the most important manners for kids to learn?
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Sophie Cross is a public relations consultant and writer who has publicised and written about everything from makeup to The Muppets, child care to celebrity chefs and perfume to Partners in Population and Development! Originally from the UK and as a languages graduate she has worked around the world, living in Australia for the last 11 years where she runs, PR Chicks.
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