Manners (The Lack Of)

The following is a selection from the book Raising Children Who Think For Themselves by Dr. Eisa Medhus. From the chapter titled "Specific Child Rearing Challenges - How to Handle Them to Encourage Self-Direction", the following introduction is offered.

"The best way to make children good is to make them happy." - Oscar Wilde

Here are some inner-directed suggestions that will help with some of the most trying child-rearing difficulties we may stumble upon. All of these approaches are designed to preserve your children's ability to rely on internal dialogue instead of external influences to assess and correct their behavior. Using this section as a ready reference will help you raise a self-directed child, even if it means carrying the book, tattered and tear-stained, to the market, in the car, or at home. There are some challenges that, I hope you will never have to face, but others will be as inevitable as a pimple on prom night.

To get to self-direction, there are a few universal caveats for every one of the situations that follow. First, our children need to understand and agree with both the need for the furl and the consequence for breaking it. Only when they come to agree with our rules, through their own internal dialogue, will they become self-directed. Second, look to your own parenting strategy as the possible source of some of the problem. Are you over-controlling or over-protective? Either trait can elicit an externally directed response, as your children react to an unhealthy situation. Third, remember for all these parenting challenges how important it is for you as parents, to model the right behavior. If you're expecting your children to act one way and you act another, the double standard will throw a monkey wrench into their whole internal dialogue machinery.

And lastly, don't forget to laugh.

Why they do it

Children show a lack of common courtesy because some are never taught manners, some are exposed to discourteous role models, and some just plain forget.

Logical consequences

If your children don't say "please," then don't do as they ask. If they forget to say "thank you," then take whatever they should have been thankful for away from them until they do so. If they show bad table manners, have them leave the table until they can behave civilly.

If they show a blatant and purposeful lack of manners, ask them to leave the room until they can be more courteous.

Solutions toward self-direction

Prepare a list of manners you want your children to adopt, and post it in an accessible place. Make sure they know why each one is important.

If they forget to say, "please" or "thank you," then model it out loud for them, "Thank you, for helping me with my homework, Dad." Keep repeating it until they say it, too.

Include good manners as a part of your family's identity.

Try using humor: If you have a rude pack of animals to deal with, try using your worst manners and see how this affects them. Slurp your soup, interrupt, reach over them to get the bowl of peas, eat with your fingers, and yes, you can even sneeze on their food and pick your nose. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Use questioning, impartial descriptions, and information: "I notice you forgot to acknowledge Mr. Thomas when he spoke to you. Manners are an important way of showing respect. How do you think he felt?" "How do you think you'd feel if someone I was speaking with didn't bother to introduce himself to you?"