Table Manners to Teach Your Kids

Table manners are the best ways to improve your kid’s social success. Kids are not born with good manners, and teaching is the best way, as a parent. Good manners can bring a lot of positive changes or opportunity in your kid’s behavior and assist them in developing good moral values. Here are the few manners you should teach your kids.

• Welcome People

Nowadays kids just come to the dining, quickly eat
a food and move out to play with their friends without welcoming people around them. This leaves a really wrong feeling about the kids in everyone’s mind. Teach your kids to have a good look at people sitting around them and welcome them. The first feeling is the best and most lasting feeling! If your child forgets to welcome everyone, you can quickly remind him to say ‘Hello or Hi” to others.  To show a good example you can welcome your kid first.  

• Setting the dining table

It is very important for your kids to have experience on how to set the dining table properly. They will know that the forks, glass, and the spoons on the right, and the knives go on the left. The handkerchief should lie beside the fork and the knife should face the plate. You kid should remember that it is a bad habit to eat until everybody is served. Many parents forget this important notice, and this is a mistake! However, these skills will come useful when the kids should serve the dining table alone.  

• Manners of sitting

Tell your kids to sit straight, placed the handkerchiefs on their two laps and with their elbows off the table while eating. If the kid does not know when it is time to put handkerchiefs on their two laps, teach them to observe and repeated it twice after older people. It may be difficult for kids to sit for a long period of time if their legs do not reach the floor. But try to make your children accustomed to sitting like this for at least 2o minutes on a daily basis. If your child is too active, let them push the chair back and play for 15 minutes. These manners are very important when you eat at a friend’s house or restaurant.

• Mouth Closed

This is essential table manners you should teach your kids before is too late. Nobody will like to look at people while eating with their mouth opened. Tell your child to take small bites of a meal instead of stuffing the mouth full. Your child should know that talking while eating is a bad habit. Moreover, it is very risky since the kid can choke on the meal. So be sure to tell your kids to chew slowly while eating and close their mouth.      

• Learn to say ‘Thank you’

Let your kids learn how to say “Thank you” to a person who cooked a meal for them. Make them understand that the person spent time and energy to prepare the meal, so the least they could do in return is show their gratitude. Enlighten them on the need to be grateful for service when they eat out. If they are able to say ‘Thank you’ at home, it wouldn’t be hard for them to replicate it outside the home. Then even when they are not interested in it, they should know that their response should be ‘No, thank you’.  

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• Do not dump the food

Make sure to teach your kids not to put the meal completely into their mouth. Tell your kids to put a small portion of food in the mouth. Stuffing mouth with a meal may result to choking that can lead to health problems. Not only is it good for digestion, it will also make the communication easier. If you are going to eat out, make sure your kid has some snack not to feel hungry.  

• Use a spoon

Let your kids know how to use a spoon unless the meal is meant to be eaten with hands. Teach your children how to eat gently and slowly, without making irritating noise with a spoon. Your children should know that it is a bad habit to push meal to the spoon with his hand. Your kid can make use of a fork for this purpose. When eating with a fork it is very important to sip from the side. Tell your children not to lick the spoon, fork, and plate when they finished eating. All these tips require a good practice you would better start teaching them at a very young age.

• Never pick their teeth with hand

Remind your kids that they should not pick their teeth at the dining table with their hand. Teach them how to use a toothpick and if the kids feel restless, tell them to excuse themselves and go to the toilet to pick their teeth with a toothpick. If the kid notices that a piece of food stuck in the tablemate’s teeth, the kid should quickly signal with their chin. Let your child know some tips on how to remove unwanted food from the mouth