Ms. Niru Agarwal, Trustee, Greenwood High International School

It is never too early to start teaching your child the importance of good manners and etiquette. Children at a young age have incredibly absorbent brains. They remember what they are taught with clarity and their minds absorb everything much faster than they would at a later age. Children have to be taught the best of social skills and to learn to interact with people positively without fear or arrogance. They should learn to understand a situation properly and act according to the norms of the interaction. To do this with a good balance of mind is crucial. In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, when children stay at home most of the time, it is important for parents to find ways to teach them the basics of good behavior with different people. Ultimately, children have to respect people and develop an attitude of kindness towards everybody. Let us now look at how children can be taught good values at an early age:

Be a role model for your child

Parents are the first teachers for their kids. So, be their role model. Be gentle, kind, generous and courteous to teach them the same. Your tiny tot possesses most of your traits and tries to imitate you. The people children will look-up to in their young age is mostly parents and anything they say and do will be vital because that will determine what the child will pick up eventually.

Greeting with affection

It is important that you help your child learn how to greet people. You must make sure they always practice to say hello, how are you, and various other greeting phrases that will get the conversation going. Whenever your child interacts with any stranger, greeting them plays an important roleso that they are well-mannered all the time.

Be polite

Children may not sometimes know the most appropriate way to talk and will only learn what you talk. It is very important that you choose the right words and expressions in front of them like thank you, please, welcome, excuse-me and many more. You should not make the mistake of using cutting words because they may catch those words and use them inappropriately. They will see and learn from you and eventually become better communicators.

The importance of being patient

It is very important to learn the art of patience. This can be achieved if the value has been taught at an early age. It is vital that you make sure that your child knows when to speak and when not to. They must know that listening is an important part of their learning mannerisms and speak only when it’s their turn.

Table manners

You must make sure that your child doesn’t feel overwhelmed during meal time. Children should be taught to avoid awkward behavior and advised how to interact with people at the table. They should watch how others are behaving and learn from them that acting and speaking out of turn is not appropriate. The onus is on the parents to teach them the right interaction during meal time as children will learn values that parents live by.

In conclusion, it can be said that parents have to teach the basic lessons of appropriate behavior to children at an early age. Good manners and language and affection are all learnt by kids when they look at how their parents, siblings and friends interact in the social world. And at school, teachers play a vital role in shaping the personality of children as they spend a good amount of time with them. It is important to keep a watch on the overall development of the child in every sphere to ensure healthy growth.