Manners Matter

It’s important to teach children that having good manners. They are important for a few different reasons. Teaching a child to be polite is a great way to set them up for success in adulthood.

Teaching manners is teaching your child to think about other people’s feelings. Manners are a basic building block of social skills and are important for learning how to build relationships, how to effectively communicate and more.

Teaching manners can be a positive experience for everyone involved. Teaching to your child to share with others is a good example. If a child shares and takes turns, then they have made the other child happy. If it was fun to play with your child, then that child will be excited to play with your son or daughter again. This helps reinforce manners with your child as they receive positive feedback in the form of friends asking for play dates.

Teaching manners can be easy if you start early. Children as young as one year old can learn to say “please”, “thank you”, and “you’re welcome”. At this age, they will learn simply by imitating you as a good role model for your children.

Here’s one technique you can use to teach manners if you’re experiencing some resistance. Get some new preschool toys and tell your child that these are “big boy” or “big girl” toys that are made for sharing, something easy to share, like a train table or an activity table. When your child does share, or at least let another child play with the same toy, praise them as much as you can.
Some manners are easier to teach than others. Be patient and be a good role model. Teach your child one manner at a time. There are table manners, phone manners, visitor manners, school manners, and more. Reinforce the old adage,” treat others as they would like to be treated” and it covers most of the bases.

The Goddard School includes a Courtesy and Respect program as one of the personal and social development resources in their core curriculum. Learn more about Goddard Guide to Getting Along™.

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