Manners & Children: Good Manners Aid Learning

You know how we all knew we could parent better before we had kids? Ha ha! Now that I have my own child, I understand there are times when children are unpredicatable, overtired, and simply behave far differently than we want them to!

With that understanding, I have more grace when a child has “a moment.” But I still firmly believe parents must instruct and insist on good manners from their children.

One of my pet peeves before I had children was how so many seemed to
lack basic manners and common courtesy. I don’t mean small children who are at a learning stage. I mean when children are at an age where they SHOULD know better, and/or clearly have not been taught.

Watching these behaviors I would silently pray to have grace to teach my children NOT to behave this way.

I saw it in my classroom all the time. It was an uphill battle to instruct
pre-teens in the fine art of manners. Students shoved their way between two teachers talking instead of walking around,… interrupted conversations without so much as an “excuse me,”… accepted rewards and prizes without a thank you,…excused poor work or lack of work with an offhanded, “Oh I wasn’t listening to the directions,” … on and on!

Finally, one year I spent an entire day’s lesson instructing the students in “How to pay attention,” another day on “Learning to accept no for an answer,” and yet another day on “How to ask for help appropriately.” Mind you, I was an English teacher, but no learning was happening until they learned these important lessons first! Effectively, I was teaching good manners!

Polite manners are a fundamental of civilized life. Further, I believe they are a
essential to successful learning.

John Rosemond, a Christian family therapist, interviewed teachers about children’s behavior; the teachers overall said the best indicator of a child’s success in school was not early literacy or a pre-school education. No, they said the common element among their successful students was simple: they arrived in kindergarten with good manners instilled. These students, they said, understood that listening to an adult (and others) was important, therefore, they had greater ability to learn, work with others, and get the most out of the lessons.

Wow, I was surprised to read that! Although I believe pre-literacy skills are
important, if a child doesn’t have the manners to apply those skills
in various social settings, they are ill-prepared for school, and indeed life!

This makes teaching my children good manners even more important because in
addition to being a kind and courteous member of society, I also want to set
them up for success in learning!

Do you have pet peeves about certain manners children SHOULD have but often seem not to have? What’s a game or strategy you use to teach good manners in very young children (gotta make it fun!)?