Minding Your Child's Manners, Still in Style







One of my longest-running battles with my kids is about manners specifically, about whether it's necessary to send hand-written thank-you notes for gifts. I say yes, and my children have continued throughout their teens to write the notes. But they grumble that I'm out of step with the times.

If a new BabyCenter poll is any guide, I'm not alone. A surprisingly large number of parents still insist that their children practice such old-fashioned manners as putting pen-to-paper to say thank you, treating adults with respect and addressing adults as 'Mr., Mrs. or Miss.' A majority of the 1,000 parents surveyed also said they insist at dinner that children keep napkins in their laps, ask to be excused from the table and refrain from talking with a full mouth.

Among the reasons cited most often by parents, BabyCenter says, is that 'the world is a more free-wheeling place, and they want to give their kids a stronger moral compass to guide them.' This thinking was affirmed by 64% of those surveyed. And 58% say they see so many badly behaved kids around them that they're determined to raise their children differently.

This poses a particular challenge for parents who work outside the home and must find a sitter, nanny or other child-care provider who will insist on the manners they consider most important.

Pediatrician Perri Klass wrote recently in the New York Times about her annoyance at a rude, demanding child who was among her longtime patients. Although she veiled her injunctions to the mother in euphemisms, talking to her about 'setting limits,' Dr. Klass wrote, 'I do pass judgment' on kids with bad manners 'and so does every pediatrician I know.' Rude kids make her wonder whether the family is dysfunctional, among other things, she says. The whole 'manners' concept might seem a bit quaint, she says, until you recast it as 'social skills' a hot-button child-development issue, as I wrote in a recent column.

Readers, what manners do you insist upon for your children? Has other kids' bad behavior led you to toughen your standards? Do the strict rules embraced by parents in the BabyCenter survey seem right, or too formal?

我

与我的孩子们之间争论时间最长的一个问题是有关礼节方面的，具体而言就是对送礼物的人是否有必要回以手写的感谢信。我的回答是肯定的，我的孩子们在他们十几岁的时候也一直在亲手写感谢函。但他们抱怨说，我已经跟不上时代的步伐了。



Myrren via Flickr

饭碗应该放在桌上，怎可扣在头上？



如果BabyCenter的一项最新调查能说明问题的话，我在这个问题上其实并非孤家寡人。仍有人们想象不到的众多家长坚持让他们的孩子按照传统的方式行事，比如亲手用笔书写感谢信，尊重长辈并用“先生，夫人或小姐”称呼成年人等。在接受调查的1,000名家长中，大多数人也表示，他们坚持孩子在晚餐在膝盖上铺餐巾、离开餐桌时要打招呼，口中有食物时不要说话，等等。

BabyCenter说，父母们列出最多的理由是，如今的世界是一个更加自由宽松的地方，他们想给孩子提供一个更强大的道德指南针，来引导孩子。有64%的受访者认同这种想法。有58%的受访者说，他们的周围有很多品行不好的孩子，因此决心按不同的方式抚养自己的孩子。

这对在外工作，而必须找到一位保姆或其它儿童护理提供者的父母尤其困难，因为后者会坚持他们认为最为重要的一些礼节。

儿科医生克拉斯(Perri Klass)最近致信《纽约时报》(New York Times)，谈到了她的长期患者中一个粗暴无礼、胡搅蛮缠的孩子给她带来的烦恼。克拉斯写道，尽管我掩饰自己的强硬态度，委婉地希望孩子的母亲“定些规矩”，但我确实对行为不佳的孩子进行了评判，我认识的每一位儿科医生也都是如此。她说，粗暴无礼的孩子让她想知道除了其它原因外，这样的家庭是否出了什么问题。她说，整个“礼节”的概念似乎有点古怪，除非你将其重新界定为“社会技能”──正如我在近期的专栏中所述，这是儿童发展的一个热点问题。

读者朋友们，你坚持让你的孩子遵守哪些礼节？其他孩子的不良行为让你提高了标准吗？你认为接受BabyCenter调查的父母所采取的那些严格规定是正确的，还是太过正式了？

it seems western manners are gonna be close to chiness manner~~just imagine children around us, how many chinese children ask to be excused from table? how many of them say thank you when senior people do them a favor or something else.