The other day I blogged about the art of making manners fun and using games to teach table manners. A few days later I blogged about intentionally unplugging, and having a family night without outside distractions. Then it hit me – why not combine the two? So I looked online to see what kind of board games there were to teach manners. I found a great one – Blunders by Aimee Symington and distributed by PATCH. My children and I played it the other night and it was great.
When I was at university working on a masters degree I made friends with a young girl called Karen who happened to be a member of the Latter Day Saints Church. I learned a lot of things from Karen, and one of them is that in the Mormon Church many families have a family night one night a week. Every Monday evening, Karen’s family would turn off the TV, unhook the phones, turn off the radio and have no interruptions from outside the home. Children were not allowed to participate in sports later than 6 o clock, and there were no communications with the world outside the home.
Some adults think manners are a thing of the past, relegated to little old ladies having tea, or little ‘princesses’ drinking pretend drinks with their teddy bears. Most children think manners are old fashioned, not for them, or just too plain boring to think about, but teaching them manners is important. Having manners is important for their ability to get along with others, and is part of living in a civilized society. Learning it however doesn’t have to be either old fashioned or boring.