Thank you Queenofthecastle, you reminded me of what one of my questions was from this morning. It is on manners.
Manners in our children have been brought up several times recently and I was thinking of the struggles that I have had teaching them to my children.
For example:
My son will about knock people down in order to open the door for them.
Or he will say excuse me REPEATEDLY, because he thinks that just saying excuse me means we (whoever) has to stop talking so he can start (obviously we messed something up in the delivery of that one).
So in teaching your children their manners, what challenges have you then had to overcome?
DD will refuse to acknowledge people when spoken to. She will also not say good bye or good nite because she thinks if she doesn't say it, it doesn't happen.
I cringe at the NickJr bit where the moose says "excuuuse me!" to get the flower dog's attention. I think it's showing the rude way to do it, not the polite way.
My six yr old son can be shy and I think it is good manners to always reply when spoken to Just a Hi! He's very good with please and Thank you. Table Manners UGH "Mac and Cheese not a finger food!" "fried egg, not a finger food!!"
When our daughters were little we had issues with the whole 'excuse me' thing too. It is very tricky because we are trying to teach kids a polite way to interrupt. Interrupting isn't really polite! They need to learn when it is appropriate to interrupt and when it is not. What things are important enough to interrupt for, and what isn't. I had to really work on it. "If there is blood involved, it is ALWAYS important enough to interrupt!" or "If you are hungry or thirsty, it is not important enough to interrupt. You can wait a minute." That sort of thing.
We made a rule that if they needed to interrupt, they should come put their hand on my leg, then wait quietly. This worked wonders! It let me know that they needed me, but still gave me time to finish my sentence before asking what they needed. It worked for in person conversations as well as phone conversations. They still needed to be reminded of what was, and was not, important enough to interrupt, but it took care of the dreaded "Excuse me....EXCUSE me...EXCuuuuuSE ME...!" nonsense. :)
We also had a rule that if they tried to ask a question while I was on the phone, even if they used the hand on leg technique, the answer would always be 'no'. I was very rarely on the phone for more than a few minutes and most requests could wait that long. This stopped their odd need for attention the minute the phone rang. :) Until one day they thought they were clever and started asking things like 'Can I go to bed early?' At that point, I said the answer would never be the one they were hoping for!
Of course as parents we needed to make sure we are not yakking on the phone for ages, or ignoring the hand on our leg for more than a sentence or two, but these techniques worked very well for us, and taught our kids patience and respect for others.
Table manners!!! We work so hard on good table manners and then it seems that as soon as we are in a public place, my kids eat like they have been raised by wolves.
*sigh*
But we keep going, right? Soon it will pay off! :)
Knocking on a bathroom or bedroom door that is closed...
My son thinks it's OKAY to just open the door and walk in....and he's 9!!! YIKES!!!
We KNOCK before we go into their bedroom - door open or not....My oldest is good with this!! Just Nicky seems to forget about it!!
