The Holidays are Coming: Worried about Your Kids#146; Table Manners?
Virginia M. Shiller, Ph.D.
www.rewardsforkids.com
No matter how many times you#146;ve asked your seven-year-old to remove his elbows from the table, does it seem that he can#146;t keep them off for longer than it takes you to reach into the fridge to fetch the butter? And do the magic words #147;please#148; and #147;thank you,#148; not to mention longer phrases such as #147;Would you please pass the milk,#148; sometimes seem like a foreign language your child will never master?
With the holidays coming, many parents are concerned that they should be preparing their children to perform acceptably at the family dinner table. Yet, this is a time when stress is mounting for parents, and children are weary at the end of the long school day. If reminders and nagging haven#146;t worked before, they are unlikely to work now.
To make the learning of better table habits as painless a process as possible, a carefully devised reward plan might just do the trick. All of us #150; adults as well as children #150; form new habits when we have adequate motivation and sufficient opportunity for practice. To increase your child#146;s motivation, consider offering a modest reward for consistently practicing better manners.
Don#146;t worry: You needn#146;t promise a new toy or more sweets if you feel your child gets more than enough of such things. Privileges such as the opportunity to stay up later on Friday evening, or special activities such as a family ice-skating outing may be sufficiently enticing incentives.
The basic steps for a reward plan aimed at improving manners are:
Devise and introduce a plan at a moment when you#146;re calm, not during a crisis at the dinner table. You don#146;t want to make promises you#146;ll later regret, and you want to introduce the plan in as positive a manner as possible. Take an upbeat, encouraging approach: for example, you might say that you see your child is showing more maturity in her homework habits or athletic skills, and you think she#146;s now up to mastering better manners.
Have reasonable expectations, and don#146;t demand perfection. Expect your child to make improvement, but also to slip at times into old habits. And it is usually better to ask children work on only one or two new behaviors at one time.
Make up a chart to record progress. If remembering the words #147;please#148; and #147;thank you#148; is the goal, you might offer your child a star for every dinner he manages to say these phrases at least five times. Young children will be more invested in the plan if they get to personalize the chart by drawing pictures on it or affixing their photo to the chart.
Provide reminders to help keep the tone of the plan positive and fun. Children could make placemats with words or pictures to remind them of their goals. To add some humor, you might devise and wear a cardboard #147;crown#148; to remind children to make requests respectfully. (After all, they#146;re talking to the queen!)
Provide the reward within a time-frame appropriate for your child#146;s age. Preschoolers may need a modest reward (e.g., an extra story at bedtime) daily. Elementary school aged children can wait to receive a reward once a week.
After two or three weeks, most children will have improved their habits, and typically will lose interest in the reward plan. You might award your child an #147;I Did It!#148; Certificate stating her new accomplishment to mark the end of the plan. And, before you head for the family holiday dinner, reinforce the new habits at one last dinner at home. You might come up with a secret signal (perhaps tapping your nose, or pointing to where the crown once sat) to remind children if they start to forget their best manners amidst the excitement of the family gathering.
While devising a reward plan takes a little effort, the joys of watching your children demonstrate better behavior makes the effort well worth it. Reward plans are a pleasurable way to improve a variety of child problem behaviors. And parents themselves feel rewarded when they watch their children behaving in more positive and mature ways.
Virginia Shiller, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of children and families. She is a Lecturer at the Yale Child Study Center, Chair of the Connecticut Psychological Association Children and Youth Committee, and author of the book
Rewards for Kids! Ready-to-Use Charts Activities for Positive Parenting
(American Psychological Association, 2003). For more information, visit
www.rewardsforkids.com
. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com.
