Teaching kids about good manners is one of the important parts of parenting. It is best to start with you as a parent at home during their early childhood years and they will be taught in school as well in most countries. We as a role model for our kids and what we did is going to reflect how he/she behaves when they grow up. Good manners also
In this article, you will learn
- What is good manner?
- Parent’s role
- How to teach kids about good manners?
- Why good manners are important?
This article is written to provide general guideline and sharing of experiences regarding teaching your kids about good manners. Begin with these 5 steps, you will see the difference in the outcome.
What is good manners?
Good manners is also called good etiquette. Good manners is always associated with politeness, a judgement of person’s behavior which can be accepted by society. It is not rules and regulations that enforced by the country’s law, but more to the cultural acceptance.
A simple term, good manners is a treatment of other people with courtesy and politeness and showing the right behavior in the public.
Parent’s role
Children is like our mirror image. What we do in our daily life can be a real example to teach them about good manners. If a father who has a bad habit or lifestyle, do you think you can convince your children not to follow his/her father foot step in future?
We are our children role model. If you want to teach your children about good manners, start from yourself.
How to teach kids about good manners? 5 simple steps to begin with.
1. Praise your child
Praise your child whenever you see him/her start showing sign of good manners like sharing toys or food, greeting others by shaking hands and waving good bye to others, clean up after play etc. A “Good job” or “thank you” can be encouraging phrases to promote their good deed.
Don’t embarrass your children by trying to correct him about manners in front of other people. Instead, have a private conversation about how you want them to behave and give them appropriate encouragement to try it next time.
2. Role model
The best way to teach your children good manners is to be a good role model yourself. When your child sees you greeting others such as “good morning”, “good to see you”, “how are you” and practice good etiquette in routine life, they will pick up on that.
3. Role-Play
Role-playing gives kids an opportunity to practice their skills. It can be a helpful strategy when you’re entering into a new situation or when you’re facing some complicated circumstances.
If your 5-year-old girl has invited her friends to her birthday party. You can show how to use good manners while opening presents. Show her how to thank people for her gift and how to respond if she opens a gift that she doesn’t particularly like.
Sit down with your child and say, “What would you do if…” and then see what he has to say. Pretend to be a friend or another adult and see how your child responds to specific situations. Then, provide feedback and help your child discover how to behave politely and respectfully in various scenarios.
4. Start from teaching appropriate languages
Make sure that your expectations are appropriate to your child’s age and developmental level. Start with simple language skills like “sorry”, “thank you”, “please”, “bye bye”, “welcome” etc. When your children start to learn how to write, you can teach them how to write a thank you note to express how you feel after receiving a present from someone.
Avoid using bad languages that may offend other people’s feeling such as “stupid” or “you’re dumb”. When babies start to learn how to talk, it is the best time to teach them proper languages. It is easy to start with when they are young.
Language is a beautiful communication tool, a child who speaks politely will be more accepted by community and favored by most people than a child who speaks bad languages. This is important to help them to develop social skills in future.
5. Eye to eye contact
When you introduce your children to your friends or guests, small kids usually will turn their head around and ignore them. It is the best time to teach them eye to eye contact and say “welcome”, shaking hands and have big broad smile on the face.
At home, whenever you want to talk to your children, knee down and have same eye level with them and start talking. Let them know you want them to look into your eyes when you talk. Whenever you talk to someone, it is better to have eye to eye contact to show sincerity and respectful to someone who is talking.
Why good manners are important?
Good manners is one of the key component of life and have tons of benefits that can carry over into social, educational and later in professional situation.
Here are some benefits of having good manners:
- Good etiquette starts from home, set a foundation for better behavior. Usually parents set good examples on how they do and talk. If we are to show politeness in our daily life, they will do the same too. They will practice it at home since young, they will follow the same culture outside home.
- If you children is treating others with politeness, he/she is most likely will be accepted by group of friends and included in their social events or activities.
- Treating people nice and polite will also get the same nice back to you.
- A polite worker will be more favored when comes to employment. A well mannered worker will follow and obey what is required and fulfill the task efficiently.
- A well mannered person usually is a law abiding person with self discipline.
- A good mannered person can build strong confidence. People will usually follow you as a leader as you set an good example of what to do and what not to do.
Conclusion
Practice good manners start from home. Kids can pick up faster if start young. Parents are not only provide our children food and education, teaching them how to behave is also important.
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