For The Child
October 17, 2005

Manners

It’s easy to forget about the importance of teaching manners and politeness in the midst of making sure you address issues from peer pressure to bullying with your child. But including the art of courtesy in your parenting curriculum is a direct method to raise a child who will know how to respect and celebrate many cultures, choices, and abilities. You must be thinking “oh no, something else to worry about.” Well, don’t sweat it because these articles are not instruction manuals, but more like encouraging suggestions to enhance your already meticulous parenting. Plus, all you have to do is play up your own well-established social graces so that your child can easily follow your example.

Developing healthy social skills is essential to making sure that your child has the ability to handle all situations and to deal with a variety of people. Most importantly, a child who has the knowledge and capabilities to display good manners by him or herself reflects his or her genuine understanding of the need to treat everyone in multiple situations with kindness and respect, which is the first step to celebrating diversity. Never thought manners were this crucial to helping your child’s comprehension of the world? Well, if you don’t equip your child with social etiquette skills, you are setting your child up for major difficulties in developing positive relationships with others, which welcomes the ever dreaded—bully behavior, peer pressure, and low self-confidence levels—into your child’s world. Have you ever thought that a child was polite for saying nothing when given a gift or demanded something? And has your heart warmed at the thought of a child who points and stares at a family unlike his or her own? We think most likely not, so we want to emphasize how instilling social ethics into your child’s mindset is just as important as dealing with issues from violent demeanor to jumping on the bandwagon.

Politeness is not something intrinsic so it is your duty, as caretaker, educator, parent, and friend all in one, to incorporate mannerisms into your child’s daily routine so that respecting and appreciating others becomes natural and instinctive. Children learn best through example, so what better example to follow than you? Most animals when born, particularly non-domesticated species, are given a few weeks, some only days, to emulate their parents’ actions and behavior. A tiger cub is born blind and dependent on its mother for 2 weeks just as human babies are born dependent on parents for several years. Tigers are taught to watch his or her mother’s survival skills after about eight weeks and after about a year and a half, must make do with the knowledge he or she has accumulated from careful watching. This biological process is not entirely different from humans, except that humans have a much more complex and long-term development in regards to learning successful survival techniques, like courtesy. Why? Well, humans, young or old, usually can gain wisdom and knowledge from watching parents without a time limit, whereas most animals, like tigers, are forced to learn closely by example for a short period of time and then left to fend for their own life. But the key fact is that all animals, including humans, learn the most from their parents’ actions at a young age. By showing your respect for others, displaying your appreciation for something, or teaching good manners, your child will possess skills that make encountering every unique person, place, or idea a positive experience.

Here are three simple recommendations on how to throw in a bit of your expertise about politeness:

1. Be conscious about demonstrating your own good manners regularly.
2. Remember to praise your child when he or she voluntarily shows politeness or when others display favorable manners.
3. Encourage your child to make efforts to be courteous to you, the family, and others.

For more tips, visit www.rudebusters.com