THE POWER OF GOOD MANNERS

The most difficult period of helping our children grow up is when we have to teach them good manners and behaviour. We need to have a lot of patience and tolerance to make sure we don’t end up losing our temper and making a mess out of it. Though it is impossible to train toddlers, we need to slowly start telling our children what is good and what is bad when they start to grow up. It will not only make them responsible adults in future, but also ensure that we, as parents are successful in the good upbringing of our kids. Here are a few tips for teaching manners to our children.

Our children will set us as their role model. Unless we are at our best behavior, we cannot expect our little ones to be at their best behavior. So, we need to set a good example for our children and portray a behavior that we would want them to follow.

It is not possible to teach our children everything in one go. It is only as and when they mature that theyare able to understand things the way they are. We have to teach basic manners and train them when theyare around 3 years old; then move on to instilling etiquettes and politeness. We should not expect two year olds to stop chewing with their mouth open because we said so!

If we want our children to talk politely, we have to do that ourselves and use words like ‘thank you’, ‘sorry’, etc. often. When we do that, we are encouraging them to do that too. Taking care of what language you use helps, since children tend to imitate how we adults speak.

Teaching our children to talk to others with respect is important. We need to ask them to call our friends by adding Mr. or Ms. before their name, teach them how to shake hands and smile and answer when asked something. Also, how to behave when in public or at someone else’s home.

If our children behave in a bad way, we should not ignore it. We have to take them to a corner and talk about it there and then. Addressing bad behavior as soon as it is exhibited helps. If they break a rule, we should not reprimand but we need to address the issue in a firm manner. We should never ever reprimand or scold the child in front of others.

We don’t need to keep advising our children about good behaviour. If they do exhibit it, we should appreciate them and acknowledge the behaviour. This will encourage our little ones to take us even more seriously and be at their best behavior always.