Manners at the Table

Lately we have started to realize how the children's manners at the table have started to drastically deteriorate. To stop this from going any further, we have started to give the children a small treat after every lunch only if they used their manners completely. This includes: please, thank you, yes please, no thank you, using inside voices, not kicking, not hitting, not spitting, answering our teachers the first time they ask, finishing all the food/milk that we ask for, and being kind to our other friends' stories at the table. Lately, this treat has been mini marshmallows and it has worked SO WELL! We remind them about their treat throughout lunch and they have been using their nice words and their nice bodies since. So if you hear your child say anything to you about getting their treat because they used nice manners, this is what they're talking about.

Why are we doing this?

Teaching things that should come naturally (like proper table manners) early on in a child's life makes for less of a lesson later on. Although it may be easier to let them just hurry up and eat, it is worthwhile to slowly teach them these manners throughout the first few years of their life. Also, as I'm sure you all know, kids feed off of what other kids are doing. So if two friends at the table are talking over everyone else and yelling "give me, give me", then chances are some of the other kids are going to go ahead and do the same thing. So if we nip this now and offer up a small sweet reward at the end, this is going to happen less and less until table manners are second nature to them.