Did You Just Throw Your Child in the Deep End?
- Kaye Wilson
- Jun 27
- 3 min read
Updated: Jun 30
Imagine taking your child to a pool for the first time, throwing her in the water, and being shocked that she struggles, sputters, and nearly drowns. You'd never do that in the first place, and you'd certainly never scold her for not being able to swim.
And yet this is essentially what we often do with everyday situations.
We take our kids to a friend’s house; they run through the house, ignore the host, destroy things, refuse to eat what’s offered (or whine and beg rudely for food) climb on the furniture, and never say “thank you”. Embarrassed, we mumble something about how our child missed a nap, or had too much sugar, or we lose it and bark a harsh correction, or say, "You know better than that!" when really, they don't!
Trying to correct a child in public or at a friend's house when they've never been taught how to behave doesn't work well—we're too self-conscious to think straight, and it puts the kids on the spot.
Look, you give your kids swim lessons before going to the pool—why not give them manners lessons before they go to someone’s house? Or to church? Or out to dinner? Or to a movie? Not just immediately before, but days or weeks before.
"Manners begin at home." is an old but very true saying; it means home is where it all starts, the training ground for manners. If they can behave at home, they can behave anywhere.
It's the everyday situations in the home that offer the best way to teach them to behave well. You don't have to teach everything at once; start small, then eventually make good manners part of your everyday life, in everything you do.
Here's how: Before dinner one evening, say "We're going to start practicing good manners!" or something similar. Tell them that good manners are a sign of the respect and gratitude we have for the people God has placed in our lives.
Explain that it's good manners to stay in your seat while eating, Demonstrate exactly how you want them to sit, and maybe squirm around and pop up out of your seat to show them how it looks. Gently correct throughout the meal.
Do this at every time you gather to eat. Eventually, add not eating with fingers, not playing with food, cleaning up spills as you go, using a napkin, chewing with your mouth closed, and so on. It's constant, and it should be! This is how kids learn!
But prepare yourself for compliments; nothing gets folks' attention like well-behaved kids (unless it's poorly behaved kids—but that's not the kind of attention you want!)
A major part of our job is to teach our kids to behave in such a way that people don’t dread being around them, but actually enjoy having them around! For the rest of their lives they'll be facing a variety of scenarios; it will serve them well if they are confident in knowing and being comfortable with expected social norms. And as I mentioned before, manners are how we demonstrate respect to others, a key aspect of Christian life.
As I said, we don’t have to teach them everything at once; a three-year-old doesn’t need to know how to make conversation, but he should know how to greet an adult, and say “please” and “thank you”. For a list of more manners every kid should be comfortable with, click here.
As we teach our children the basic lessons of life, from using the toilet, to table manners, to learning greet people at the door and offer to take their coat, we expand their ability to move about in the world without us, which is ultimately the point! Their ability to thrive in this world all begins with parents who make it a point to teach them how.
Were you brought up learning manners? Think back to what you were taught. Maybe you weren't, and need a list of some kind; there are some very good resources to choose from:
"The Family Book of Manners" by Hermine Hartley is a book I relied on when bringing up my own kids;
"Manners Can Be Fun" by Munro Leaf is an old classic;
and there's a very inexpensive pdf I've created called Manners for Children, which has a list of manners all kids should learn, listed by age, with simple instructions for implementing them, which you can get here.
Teaching your kids good manners is one of the most helpful things you can do for them; the future is going to bring plenty of challenges; don't let social awkwardness be one of them!
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