Teaching Children Manners: Five Parenting Tips

In today’s technology-driven, fast-paced society, teaching children manners is more crucial than ever.

Helping young children learn polite, appropriate, and considerate behavior enables them to become more socially attentive and form good manners as they get older. It is easier to nurture first-class child behavior if you work as a family to set good manners rules in various situations.

One of the essential jobs parents do is help their young ones develop social skills, show them how to interact kindly and politely with people, and teach them to treat others with respect.

There are many gains when you teach good manners to kids. Every parent loves to hear how kind and polite their children are from other children, parents, or teachers. The book entitled The Ladybug And The Bully Frog by Caroleann Rice is a perfect way for your child to understand the importance of using love to change bad behavior such as bullying. Understanding these circumstances can help in dealing with bullies peacefully.

And so, whether the occasion is a family meal, a holiday gathering, or a simple trip to a store, parents can use these social opportunities to teach good manners to their children that will become a regular part of their lives as they grow older. Here are some great parenting tips that teach their children good manners.

How Can Parents Raise Polite Children?

Given that destructive behaviors are seen everywhere around you, what can parents do to ensure that their children adopt good manners and treat others with courtesy and respect? Below are the five parenting tips to ensure such:

1. Model Good Behavior – At home, you must first, and most importantly, model good behavior for your kids. Never underestimate how much children emulate the behavior they see from their parents. Start with the essentials. Say “thank you” and “please” throughout the day. Say it to the kids. Say it to your spouse or to people that you encounter. Ensure that the children hear you use these words several times throughout the day.
2. Be Patient – It may take some time as these changes do not happen overnight, mainly if they are new to a family’s routine. But be gentle (and repeat) when you correct and ask your children to restate their requests as you will reap beneficial results. However, once you hear your family speaking kindly to one another out of habit, it can change the family dynamics. It is excellent for spouses too. Husbands and wives feel good when thanked for what they do to support the family, such as mowing the lawn or cooking a good meal.
3. Teach Gratitude – There is more to teaching manners than just words. Gratitude and politeness are valued traits in one’s culture. When children show their appreciation for things given to them or done for, they will feel better about themselves. They will begin to see themselves as recipients rather than “takers” and develop a sense of empathy as they see that other people are going out of their way for them. Without such expressions of gratitude, kids become self-centered and take all they have for granted. People who use “thank you” and “please” regularly come across as gracious, thoughtful, and admirable qualities.

4. Start Early – Children as young as eighteen months old can learn the fundamentals of manners by being taught to say “thank you” and “please” when appropriate, even if they do not understand the reasons for being polite. When parents, or the critical adults in a child’s life, model proper manners, children ultimately absorb the teaching and use these manners. 

5. Continue As Your Kids Grow – For older children, acceptable manners consist of knowing what to say when someone gives them a gift or when someone does something good for them. As a child matures, they will remember appropriate manners that need less guidance.

Parting Words

Remember that you set the standard. Your child will pick up on the behaviors you usually do (directly or indirectly) and will most likely copy them. If you want to raise a well-mannered kid, the first thing you must do as a parent is take a good look at your behavior and make sure you are consistently practicing good manners yourself.