Training Respectful Children

Training respectful children

Parents often ask me how to correct impolite behavior.  My pholispohy is training good behavior as part of your daily routine.  It will make your job much easier and reduce the stress levels in your life.

Our children live in a computer world where interaction with technology has become the center of their world.  Look around you the next time you're in a store, restaurant, or a doctors waiting room, no one is talking!  They are all engaged with technology.  The opportunity to learn basic social skills and etiquette have deminished significantly.  Parents who want to have respectful children must plan to practice social interaction.

What do you do when your child is disrespectful in front of you to another adult or teacher?  In our school, I have noticed most parents of preschool and kindergarten age students correct their children when they are not polite to teachers.  2nd grade to 6th grade parents either don't notice or they ignore disrespectful behavior.  The biggest thing we are seeing are students that completely disregard communication from teachers and parents.

I did an experiment for over 6 months where I stood at the door to greet each of my students as they came in for class.  90% of the 300 Elementry age students completely ignored my greeting.   A few students smiled, made eye contact and walked by, however, most students staired straight ahead and kept walking.  The second week, I started working with the responsive students who smiled and walked by.  They had no clue what to say when I said "Good Morning Johnny." I began teaching them and they felt relieved knowing what to say.  

Old fashioned greetings can help children with social skills and teach them to be polite.  Try this when your children come out of their rooms in the morning: "Good morning Johnny."  If you're  raising a grumpy morning head child like my second son was, greet them at the breakfast table or slightly later in your morning routine.  Expect them to smile, and greet you back with a polite and cheerful tone of voice.  If they look at you and grunt like a caveman, just smile and say "The proper greeting is for you to smile, look at me, and say "Good Morning, Mom!".  Let's try that again.  Remember, if you are sarcastic, your child will pick up on your tone of voice so use the same polite voice you want them to use with you.  

I practiced polite greetings with my children 4 times while they were home.

When they woke up, it was "Good morning, Jessie." returned by "Good morning, Mom".

When they went out the door to school. "Have a great day at school". "Thank you mom." 

When they came home from school it was, "How was your day?"   Responses varied but they had to look at me and have a conversation.

When they went to bed " Good night, Jessie".  "Good night, Mom"

To this day I receive compliments on both of my boys.  They are grown men with children and I still have people stop me in the grocery store and say how polite they are.