Family Matters
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
How to teach your children to chew with their mouths closed.
I recently read this in a Dear Annie column and thought it was clever and helpful: A game called "Pass the Piggy" was used to teach children table manners.
"Whoever let his or her manners lapse was passed a small plastic piggy, which would sit in front of their plate until the next infraction. The offender who was holding the piggy at the end of the meal was stuck with dish duty. For younger children, the consequences may need adjustment, but this game worked wonders for our family."
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Re: How to teach your children to chew with their mouths closed.
Isn't social shame pretty much the only reason to have table manners in the first place?
Do you think its too late to play this game with a few women at my office?
Amen to that
Now that would be funny
normally just a lurker.... but this made me LOL.... I know a few people like that.....
I wish more people would have learned better table manners. It is horrifying to see grown people in a restaurant holding their knife or fork like they are trying to choke it instead of use it. Or blowing their nose (NOISILY!) at the table. Or the open mouth chewing of course. Or taking ENORMOUSLY huge bites and then watching them try to chew all that shiit down to something remotely close to swallowing size. Or burping at the table. Or.....
OK...so I have a bit of a pet peeve on this topic....ranting is over now.....
Oh, please.
It is. My parents used to put us in the corner in the grocery store when we'd act up. Suppppper embarrassing. Anyway, we stopped being brats and my parents could actually get the shopping done.
Are you serious???
Oh my, I hope not - pride, grace, empathy, health, pleasure, conformity, physical coordination/ability. Off the top of my head, they all play a bit of a role. I can't imagine that my 3 yo with good table manners is shamed into it each and every night.
Love it!
My mom would make my sister and I hold hands when we were arguing. It embarrassed us so much that we would stop just so we didn't have to hold hands anymore.
The smugness in this post is hilarious.
Are you serious???
See, now, I would think that feeling ashamed of bad behavior just once or twice would be enough to make a kid act right.
Rather than repeatedly trying to tell a three-year-old that she shouldn't chew with her mouth open because of "pride, grace and empathy."
Right, none of those things have to do with avoiding social shame. Conformity? No, that totally has nothing to do with maintaining your social face.
Take a sociology class.
The above is just plain funny. Thanks for the smile!
Regarding the rest: wow. I'm surprised at the responses. I honestly thought it was an innocent, potentially helpful post. Interesting to see what it triggered. Disappointed at some of the hostility. Who knew?
I LOVE that your mom used to make you and your sister hold hands if you were fighting! That is a wonderful idea!
I had a friend whose mother made them do the same thing. At the time it seemed "so mean" but looking back it's rather smart and also funny of the parent.
What exactly constitutes "good manners" changes drastically, sometimes within a single generation, and definitely between cultures. Chinese spoons are shaped funny because you're SUPPOSED to slurp. It's a sign that you enjoyed it. In the West it's considered vulgar.
And let's get real here...using a fork and a knife isn't particularly efficient in evolutionary terms.
High-minded values are good to have, but they're really just ornamentation on most social norms. As a PP said, sociology will tell you that.
I'd worry that it would encourage them to point it out when other people are being rude.
It would be worse for a kid to point out someone else who has no manners in a restaurant than it would be for him to have his elbows on the table.
I can just see him yelling, "Give grandma the pig! She's breaking all the rules!"
Etsy shop
Maybe tattletaling could be considered lack of etiquette?
I don't know if there is any hope for getting some people to learn basic table manners! Most of my major pet peeves lie within this realm. I am disgusted when adults chew with their mouths open, make disgusting eating noises, or slurp beverages. You'd think that decades of eating and drinking would give people plenty of opportunity to refine their consumption habits! I don't know why some people feel compelled to adopt a neat eating style whereas others do not.
My biggest advice is stress the importance of learning to eat properly at home and hold kids accountable there, not just in public. Don't make public opinion the focus of manners training. My parents paid attention to manners in public, where correction can be embarrassing to kids, but were openly lax about manners at home. All of my siblings still have some really disgusting habits when it comes to eating and drinking. Kids aren't going to be as apt to learn table manners if they are taught that manners are only important sometimes. As Quentin Crisp said, "Manners are love in a cool climate." While I do think home is a place to let loose and relax, I don't think basic table manners should be neglected. Teach your kids to be kind and thoughtful towards the people with whom they eat daily, not just occasional outsiders who need to be impressed.