Jun. 19, 2008 - Looking at Manners

Last week I had a blast-from-the-past phonecall.  A couple whom I went to Bible College with was traveling around Australia and in town.  We caught up with them on Friday evening for a meal.  There was instant reconnection – we had a great evening.

But…. While we were at the dinner table there were a few, not very many, but a few little things the kids did that pricked my awareness – we need to work on our manners!

On Sunday morning I spoke to the children about dinner conversation and staying at the table till the meal is over, even if you aren’t involved in the conversation.  Manners need to be practiced at home so that when we need “social” manners they come naturally.  Working on table conversation is a bit tricky as we often eat our evening meal without Peter which means conversation centers around the children.  But the benefit of being intentional with this is that we can make the point of having conversation, when he is at the table, that the children need to sit and listen to.  The other aspect of conversation we touched on was silliness – though I like the fun and laughter we have at the meal table I want my children to be able to know when they’ve reached the line, and when they need to stop.  I also want them to be able to have serious conversation with each other. 

On Tuesday afternoon I spent a few hours catching up with another mum and manners was one of the topics we discussed.  One of those consolidating conversations – yes, we need to polish up our manners.  I do have a good book on manners and yet I can’t find it at the moment so yesterday I did some internet surfing to see what I could come up with. 

I printed off the “Tip Cards” (look in the left hand sidebar) and discussed 10 manners we are going to work on over dinner.  It was a lighthearted conversation but well received.  Over our next meal I want to discuss why manners are important.  I liked the quote  from Anna Post's blog,

Emily Post herself said,

"Whenever two people come together and their behavior affects one another,

you have etiquette."