Manners, please!

Besides leading by example - what practical teaching methods/exercises are you using to teach etiquette and manners to your children?

This week's question at the Homescool Village is hard for me!  We teach manners by example, for sure, but I have never purposely sat down with the boys to teach manners.  I guess the way we have done it is to teach through discussion.  When a behavior arises that isn't appropriate we discuss why.  For example, to teach my boys how to answer the phone we have gone over what they need to say and practiced it a few times.  They have gotten it right of the bat, but every once in a while they regress and get sloppy!  So we have another discussion about it.

One of the concepts that I have hit hard with my boys  is that...People are always more important than things.  We put others first before our personal possessions or activities. So for example, when one of my sons refused to take out his ear buds (he was listening to his Ipod.) so that his brother could talk to him, I corrected it right away.  We talked about how people are more important that his music or his Ipod and that he has to keep communication open at all times with others.

So I guess I don't have a neat and pat answer for how to teach manners...we just teach them as we go along in life.

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