During a family Taco Tuesday dinner in our backyard when the weather was warm, my 4-year-old son got up from the table at one point, walked less than a foot and peed in a bush. As our jaws dropped, the hubby and I decided it was time to teach some table manners. With a week and a half to go until Thanksgiving, Breezy Mama turned to Mary Mitchell — author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Etiquette and who has appeared on Today Show, CBS Early Morning, CNN, Good Morning America and more – for advice on teaching meal time civility.
What are your top tips for teaching toddlers to big kids table manners?
Be a good role model yourself. We all learn by what we see, not what people say.
What is the best approach for reinforcing manners night after night?
Make sure you always say “please… thank you… excuse me…” yourself before demanding it of your kids. When you see a child struggling with food, say, “Let me help you with that” rather than “You are making a mess.” Do your best to have an unemotional tone of voice when correcting. In other words, “This is the way we do it” rather than “Not like that!” Sometimes losing your temper just encourages the child to crave more attention. Also, the rules apply to everybody — Mom, Dad, siblings.
Which manners do you feel are the most important to get across and how do moms convey them to their children?
Kindness and respect are the most important behaviors to get across. Moms convey them by practicing them so the children can see it in action. Never make fun of anyone at the table. Be pleased to learn new things and share them with the children — maybe a couple of paragraphs from an etiquette book every now and then for “show and tell.” Let the children know that nobody is born knowing etiquette — we all have to be taught.
What is the proper way to set a table?
- Knives and spoons on the right, with the knife blades facing in.
- Forks on left.
- Drinks on right.
- Bread plates on left.
- Napkins on left.
It’s fun to have one child make placemats for everybody, drawing the the placesetting in. I used to do this with young children with simple construction paper or plain paper placemats.
What are some other common etiquette tips even us moms should have down?
Even if a meal lasts only 15 minutes, cell phones should be out of range, ditto for any kind of electronic devices. Don’t pile your plate so high with food that you look like Orca the Killer Whale on a feeding frenzy. Don’t slather your entire plate with gravy, sauce, ketchup. Taste food before you put salt or pepper on it.
Any other advice or anything else to share?
Yes! Remember that adults dine. Kids re-fuel. Don’t expect a child to sit through a long meal with lots of adult conversation. They should know to ask, “May I be excused” and mom should be aware enough to say something like, “If you are finished, take your plate to the kitchen. You’re excused.”
Children don’t really have the digital dexterity to manage flatware very skillfully until they are around 8. Before that, a child should know how to ask for something to be cut for him, to say please and thank you, and to wait for everybody to start eating.
Also, here are some more tips by age from www.themitchell.org:
Age 5: Basic Behavior
- By age five, children should be encouraged to say please and thank you, rather than demanding.
- They should come to the table promptly when called.
- They can understand that it’s important to wait until everybody is at the table before they begin eating.
- Once the meal has begun, a child should ask when he needs something cut for him, should sit up straight at the table, and should know not to crumble bread or rolls all over the table.
- By age 5 children can be taught not to slurp soup, food or drinks.
- They can learn to put a napkin on their laps as soon as they sit down, and how to use it.
Age 8: Utensil Skills
- At around age 8, children have enough digital dexterity to correctly handle flatware (knives, forks and spoons). Life begins to get more complicated.The good news is that kids of that age often are so proud of their skills that they love to show them off.
- To help your child remember that knives and spoons go on the right, while forks go on the left, you can make placemats together and use them for family meals. Even a sheet of standard computer paper will work.Draw in the knives, forks, spoons, glass, bread plate. Be sure to point the blades of the knife inward.
- Kids should know to rest their fork and knife (or fork and spoon) side by side, in a vertical position, on the outside right-hand rim of the plate when they are finished eating a course. Placing the handles of flatware on the table while resting the tips on the plate is a big no-no.
- When they are done eating, youngsters should ask to be excused rather than just dash off. Reinforce how important it is not to pile the plate with portions that would make an NFL linebacker smile. It’s also
“really lame” to flood gravy, ketchup or sauce all over the plate.
- When talking, include everybody in the conversation; never complain about the food, no matter how gross it may appear.
At this age, your child also can be taught to:
• Use a piece of bread to help difficult food (such as slippery peas on
the fork) into his mouth.
•Use the napkin to wipe his mouth before taking a drink, so the glass
rim isn’t a messy smear of the meal.
• Chew food thoroughly, and don’t talk with food in his mouth.
Tweens: No Table Clutter
- Tweens present the biggest challenge in accepting that if something is not part of a meal, it does not belong on the table.That goes for phones, iPods, keys, anything….
- Encourage conversation with open-ended questions such as, “What was the best part of your day?”
- Volunteer what the best part of your day was, and persevere until you find a common ground. Yes or no questions simply provide an all-too-easy out.
- Take conversation in small bites until everyone gets it that conversation is the best sauce for any meal.
Are you asking for frustration as a parent by focusing on table manners? Yes! Yet ultimately your kids will thank you, because as they grow into their adult lives, nobody will tell them that they don’t want them in their school, club or workplace because they eat like a pig. Unspoken prejudice will follow them, and it will come at a price.
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About Mary:
Mary Mitchell is the author of a nationally syndicated column, “Ms. Demeanor.” She has appeared on programs such as Today Show, CBS Early Morning, CNN, Good Morning America, Fox Style News, Working Woman, and the Lifetime network. She is founder and president of The Mitchell Organization, a consulting coaching, and training firm through which she has been conducting programs for executives and employees at all levels. She has authored several books on the subject of etiquette, including The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Business Etiquette and Class Acts, which she co-wrote with etiquette superstar Letitia Baldrige. Her books have been translated into 8 languages.
For more information, visit www.themitchell.org
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