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 Amazing Grace: Tips For Teaching Child Manners

The holidays aren't the only time a kid should demonstrate good child manners--but special occasions, parties or family gatherings are when parents most want their children to be acting their best. For children to exhibit respect, tolerance, and social graces at these special times, however, means those important lessons must have already been learned. Teachers and senior adults agree that today's children demonstrate less child manners than in previous generations, which is not a compliment for today's youth.

Children who grow up without learning respect and tolerance, as well as how to act in social settings, are at greater risk of not being successful as adults in work settings and at social events. Parents, teachers and providers can team together to start teaching and reinforcing appropriate child manners now and in time to impress even Great-Grandpa at the next family dinner. How?

Here are some tips for teaching kids social graces.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T is Class Manners 101. Aretha Franklin sings about respect, and it is a fundamental skill needed for learning about child manners overall. Children must first be taught about respect--for their parents, for their friends and family, and for themselves. Here is where the issue of respect and manners gets sticky. The "old school" still believes in teaching kids the basic rules of never calling an adult by a first name, always responding with either "Yes Sir" or a "Yes, Mrs. Smith," and never, ever talking back or questioning an adult's directive. With that said, many individuals today believe some of the more traditional social rules to be too formal and too restrictive for today's kids. It is okay to agree to disagree with some of the recommended social rules. The key is to determine what rules are appropriate for child manners in your family or at your school or day care, and then to enforce them. These rules can be applied to sharing, asking to borrow a crayon, lining up in a hallway, and what actions cause a consequence and why. And, by doing so, adults teach respect along the way........ (Read More in the below Link)

http://childcare.about.com/od/behaviors/a/manners.htm