This blog post was inspired by a conversation on Twitter. Canadian Family asked its followers “On a scale of 1-10 (10=very), how important is it to you that your kids have good table manners?” I replied that while I rate the importance of table manners at a 10+, I rate my actual accomplishment at instilling table manners a rather measly 3 to 3.5, tops.
I try, I really do. Family meal time is incredibly important to me, and we dine together each night. I love the idea of raising polite, respectful, well-mannered little Stepford boys who know which fork applies to which course, and who can carry on a polite mealtime discourse on the use of the Oxford comma. Each meal together brings yet another opportunity for new lessons and gentle correction. And? Horrendous failure on the manners front. Sadly, I am vastly outnumbered, and it is an uphill battle where concessions are made rather gratuitously and despite my best intentions.
I found the following list of North American table manners on Wikipedia. I’ve added our interpretation of each “rule”.
Dip your soup spoon away from you into the soup. Eat soup noiselessly, from the side of the spoon. When there is a small amount left, you may lift the front end of the dish slightly with your free hand to enable collection of more soup with your spoon. We are satisfied when soup is not lapped from the bowl in the manner of a dog.
If you are having difficulty getting food onto your fork, use a small piece of bread or your knife to assist. Never use your fingers. Fork use writ large is the exception rather than the rule. See above re: soup.
There should be no negative comments about the food nor of the offerings available. Vigourous and entertaining if not tedious campaigns are regularly mounted with regard to the consumption of vegetables and other suspicious foods. When relenting to consumption, energies are then expended on bartering required quantities.
Chew with your mouth closed. Do not slurp, talk with food in your mouth, or make loud or unusual noises while eating. I truly believe they are incapable of surviving a 15 minute period without making loud or unusual noises, while eating or otherwise.
Say “Excuse me,” or “Excuse me. I’ll be right back,” before leaving the table. Do not state that you are going to the restroom. Usually, one leaps from the table with a look of panic and darts from the room hollering, “Make way, make way, I gotta go peeeeeeee” as they run down the hallway. As long as no mention is made of draining the main vein or seeing a man about a horse, I’m okay with that.
Do not talk excessively loudly. Give others equal opportunities for conversation. Ha! ’nuff said.
Refrain from blowing your nose at the table. Excuse yourself from the table if you must do so. Frankly, I’m happy if they blow their noses with a tissue at the table. It’s the gratuitous use of sleeve that rankles me. Especially when it’s MY sleeve.
Burping, coughing, yawning, sneezing, or flatulence at the table should be avoided. If you do so, say, “Excuse me.” If you say “Excuse me” in burp language, does that count?
Never slouch or tilt back while seated in your chair. At any given moment of a meal, I am quite sure there are at least four chair legs out of contact with the ground. I’m beginning to believe the house is tilted.
Do not “play with” your food or utensils. Never wave or point silverware. Does stabbing someone in the back of the hand over the last piece of pie count? Because Beloved has done that. To me. More than once. And also? Does playing with someone else’s food count?
You may rest forearms or hands on the table, but not elbows. I’m okay with elbows on the table, not so much elbows or foreheads on the plate itself.
If food must be removed from the mouth for some reason, it should be done using the same method which was used to bring the food to the mouth, i.e. by hand, by fork, etc., with the exception of fish bones, which are removed from the mouth between the fingers. What, simply opening your mouth and letting gravity pull half-masticated food back on to your plate is not an acceptable way to register that a particular taste does not suit your palate?
Gentlemen should stand when a lady leaves or rejoins the table. Yeah, and the whole table would be bouncing up and down like their chairs were pogo sticks. “Mom, I need a drink.” “Mom, can you get the ketchup?” “Mom, I dropped the dipping sauce into my lap!” “Mom, did you forget my drink?” Gah.
The Canadian Family peeps said that on their informal Twitter poll, respondents ranked the importance of table manners at 9.8 out of 10. But here’s what I’d really like to know: how do you rate your own kids’ table manners on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being “My children could teach the Queen a few tidbits on etiquette over tea at Buckingham Palace”?
And really, is it a boy thing? Cuz that’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it.
Oh wow, I can relate to this post… my desire would be to have a rating of 7, but in reality… we are probably more like 3! Love reading your responses, they ring so true here too and I have 3 girls!!!
I am pleased if, at some point, both boys are actually facing the tables on their chairs; someone (don’t care who it is) uses a utensil properly (a knife is not for spearing food and eating it); food stays on the plates instead of being eaten off the table; there is less than 3 complaints about whatever I’ve prepared. There is a good reason that I try to feed my kids before we eat at other peoples houses. Grown-up people who have, you know, manners and dining rooms that aren’t splatter-proof.
Not just a boy thing…not at all. My 6 year old (boy) is getting somewhat better (he uses utensils) and usually says please, but my 3 year old daughter offends just about every rule on that list…with glee.
LOL! You MUST have been watching us have dinner…ever night! Like Christine, I have three girls, and they are exactly like your boys. The exception would be that my little angels cannot belch out words, much to their dismay. However, the littlest one, does laps around the dinner table, periodically reaching up and grabbing someone else’s food (think “early Helen Keller”). Last night, my children and I fed the two year old by handing her food every time she “lapped” us! But I am AWFULLY proud when they say “I have had SUFFICIENT”…and on the word “sufficient”, they FIRE their plates across the table. The Queen would have their heads!
Don’t think it is just a boy thing. At home we’re lucky if we can even get Rachel to sit at the table to start with. Once there she is pretty good (6/10). When we’re out in public though things are much better. Almost as if she knows that she needs to be extra good (9/10)
LOL, you’re sitting at my table, right?
I have a son and a daughter and there is very little difference between the two of them when it comes to table manners. My daughter is getting worse instead of better. She has reached the “I don’t care” or “nobody can see me”
stage. My son is such a picky eater that he hasn’t had much opportunity to use actual utensils. Everytime they go to a friends house to eat I make sure to tell them not to act like they do at home.
Table manners really really hit all my hot buttons.
And probably not the way you might think. I am utterly appalled at a woman I know who actually expects her one-year-old to eat without mess – AND at adults who insist on other levels of completely non-age appropriate behaviour in their kids, but can’t model a decent dinnertime performance of the above rules themselves to save their lives.
So – let the kids be kids. And grown-ups, act your age.
I agree that we can’t expect perfect manners from kids. Someday I hope to resolve the dilemma that my 10 year old never stops talking, nor does she ever stop eating. The overlap can be visible. (Letting others participate in the conversation is also something I’d like her to learn eventually!)
Mine hums Christmas carols with gutteral pleasure as she eats. Every meal. Year round. Ho, ho, ho.
And what is this utensil thing you speak of?
Dang, have you been spying on our mealtimes?! I’m going to give our dinner table a (solid!) 4, and my belief in the importance of table manners, a 10.
Can’t win, eh?
ugh, two girls, and your boys could teach them a thing or two about manner 😉
I give us a 1, and that’s just because food does in fact get consumed. Hate, hate, HATE family dinner.
My littler is still too young to feed herself, so her manners are still ok. As long as I’m fast enough to keep the bowl out of her reach.
The older one is getting better – say 4, on good days. But utensils are definitively an option and sitting still an impossible task. Talking and eating concurently is routine (read constant). She knows her rules though, because even though she would never apply them herself, she is very fast at reminding them to her parents.
so i see that you have been lurking outside my window at dinner time.
importance, yes. accomplishment, no. if the jellybean manages to take two mouth fulls with a fork or spoon i am thrilled. i’m thrilled if we go through a meal without reference to burps, poop, penises and farts. i am thrilled if the jellybean finishes a meal within 20 minutes.
but he does say “can i be excuses please” before he leaves the table, which melts my heart and makes everything else tolerable.
I think mine are at about a three, only because they each put their plate in the sink when they are finished eating. Otherwise, we may rate a one on many occasions. Forks seem optional, taking a PBJ sandwich apart and licking off the peanut butter is proper, and those are the good points of eating. I would do a happy dance if we could ever get to an eight, but I don’t dance.
Dani, that was just a perfectly appropriate reading while having lunch in my office. I just laughed and laughed and laughed… remembering myself. Cuz I have to say, sure my son isn’t on top of table manners but for a 3-yr old I consider he’s good.
Or maybe I ma just trying to make my life easier?
Right now I am losing my mind because the twins think that the solution to not liking something, or being full, or being funny for that matter is throwing food, dishes and utensils on the floor. “Great, I guess you’re done with that bowl of stew that is now upside down on the floor. Thanks for that.”
🙂
I am fortunate if my son even decides to eat. He is a very picky eater.
I don’t have to worry about too many things. He is a only child so he doesn’t know that he can act up at the table. He generally eats with his fork properly and we are just not letting him use a knife for some things.
This past summer I got him to start excusing himself when he wants to leave the table but I am lucky if he says it half of the time. It doesn’t help that I forget to do it myself. Monkey see, monkey do, right?
Our dog has better manners than the kids! She quietly picks food off the kids plates while they are throwing, screaming, fighting, talking, lapping the table, sawing the table with the knife, combing their hair with the fork, and making dangerously last minute dahses to the bathroom yelling “piiipiiii”. The dog sits quitely, patiently, makes no noise when she eats, is happy with whatever food I have served, and she even gets up when I get up from the table! So: goal 9, actual result 0.5 (but the dog gets a 7- evern though she hasn’t mastered the fork yet).
Enjoyed this post and all the comments so far. I agree in part with Moosilaneous. One of my pet peeves is seeing some adults at dinner tables (in a home or elsewhere) dining with baseball caps on their heads. Another is seeing adults dining out and talking on a cell-phone in the middle of the meal. Begin teaching proper dining etiquette when your children are old enough to understand and practice what you preach to them.
Perfect meal-time reading RT @DaniGirl: Laughing out loud at comments on my post re: kids & table manners. : http://tinyurl.com/2d4llf9
I have a 5 1/2 year old girl, and your description of your boys’ behaviour sounds pretty familiar. I’ve even received propaganda posters objecting to the choice of food. And the spitting things into MY hand? Ew. I would view spitting things back on to the plate as a huge step up.
Kids are animals!
made me pee in my pants
hahaha manners? we’re trying. But it is not an easy task to get them to sit, eat, listen, speak with please/thank yous etc. all at once. But…I am trying 😉
I’ve been hesitating whether to comment since yesterday, so if this comes across wrong just pretend I never wrote it…
Because I am not trying to boast when I say that I think my 20 month old has pretty good manners. For her age, and all that. She’s good at please and thank you. She doesn’t throw
food on the floor. She says no thank you when
offered food she won’t eat and asks to be
excused. She waits at the table until everyone
is finished eating.
I don’t think this is because I have a particularly amazing kid, or “better” parenting. And maybe it won’t last (but I think it will).
I read somewhere that if you want to encourage
a particular behavior, you have to be
consistent. Also, millions play the lottery because of a tiny chance they might win. The author basically said that if you are going to be successful you have to be more consistent than the lottery odds. That’s pretty hard, so if you are wise, the number of things you choose to be consistent about HAS to be very limited. Or something like that. my kid sits for an entire meal because we’ve chosen to make doing so a non negotiable. Some parents choose instead to make sure their children are as least disruptive as possible, letting them down to play when they get restless. My point is that the two goals are mutually exclusive.
Rambling a bit here, but I guess what I wanted to say was that I don’t believe that manners are a pipe dream, even for small children. But I also think that achieving them requires figuring out exactly what you mean by manners and then implementing them really consistently, no exceptions, even if it’s not convenient. So if you wanted to get your children to excuse themselves from the table everytime, then you would start to do that. Someone has to pee isn’t an excuse to avoid the accepted formula. Of course parents have to model the expected behavior too. If the phone rings, hopping up to grab it without excusing yourself would send
the wrong message.
I would think it would be nearly impossible to enforce good manners if the parents didn’t agree on what constituted good manners ANd make a conscious effort to model them.
Not that I am judging you or your kids or your standards for manners. I’m just saying that so far we’re reasonably happy with how our child is doing in this area. As I tell my sil, different families have different “cultures”, and by definition that means we’ll all end up doing things a bit differently.
Seriously laughing here. Sounds like dinner at my house too. I was hoping to blame it on having only boys, but the comments suggest that girls are bad too. I have to partially blame my husband, as he tends to get the kids all riled up and silly and then it’s a game. A 3 (at best) out of 10 here. And I would rank them as 10 in importance.
The one and only rule I had managed (note past tense) to instill was asking to be excused (“may I be excused?”). Then my three-year-old one day made it sound like “may I be a goose?” and so now that’s what it’s become. SIGH. I was so close.
Love the post! Great idea!
You know, my kids are almost ten years old, and we’ve been consistent for years, and their table manners are just uneven. Some days, it’s a nightmare. A 3 or 4, tops. And other days, they’re cruising along at an 8. OK, maybe a 7, because one of my daughters can’t keep the chair legs in contact with the floor to save her life. (There’s a parenting book out there that advised getting kids like that swivel chairs, but … no. Not the solution for me.)
How many times in a meal do I really, truly want to remind my kid to stop slouching, chew with her mouth closed, and stop picking up tidbits with her fingers? I want to enjoy some of the meal, not be a martinet the whole darn time.
I don’t think I had decent table manners until I was a teenager. I knew the principals, but implementation was weak. I turned out fine. And I do notice that my kids don’t eat with their fingers at restaurants, not ever. They’ve been smart about context for a very long time.