To think that good manners in children are overrated?

[mrsruffallo]

Manners seem so important to some parents. Personally, I don't believe in forcing them to say sorry, please, thank you, hello, goodbye etc.
If it is a genuine emotion they say it naturally anyway
AIBU?

Good manners aren't restricted to words though. How many parent these days teach their children to open doors,give up their seats on public transport etc. (& how many PARENTS do this?) .

A few months of "forcing" good manners on a toddler means you have well mannered children who are a pleasure to have as visitors for life. Or at least until they turn 13. It's nice to be nice and saying please, thank you, sorry and holding open doors etc are nice and need to be taught.

YABU.

I want them to marry rich and preferably, American or the like.

Manners go a long way towards this, especially combined with good looks and a Scottish accent.

Manners maketh man.

I groom them up to hopefully make a better life than can be found here what with where they are brought up and our standing.

Better they go someplace where people see class as just the straight line of bullshit it is and look on manners are about noticing and showing respect where due to others.

Because then they can get a husband or wife who feels the same, hopefully.

YABU.

I want them to marry rich and preferably, American or the like.

Manners go a long way towards this, especially combined with good looks and a Scottish accent.

Manners maketh man.

I groom them up to hopefully make a better life than can be found here what with where they are brought up and our standing.

Better they go someplace where people see class as just the straight line of bullshit it is and look on manners are about noticing and showing respect where due to others.

Because then they can get a husband or wife who feels the same, hopefully.

But manners are incredibly class bound (and I'd rather my children went on to be successful than aim to marry into money). I didn't beat my children into submission until they said please and thank you and sorry. But you know what they did learn by example and with a gentle prompt or two, at 8 and 10 they (when they want to) have excellent manners, and are in general very nice children that get lots of praise. I do think that example is overlooked here.

I always say thank you to bus drivers etc. I've never told my children they should, but they do. Partly because I do, and partly because they usually get a good response back. Isn't that one of the real reasons why we are nice and polite to people? Because they are nice and polite back? Personally I love the fact that if I smile at people they smile back. Positive feedback is a powerful thing.

Of course YABU

Is saying please and thank you class bound? Perhaps it's living in Australia now that makes that seem like an odd concept.

Etiquette is definitely about class but surely basic manners are about respect and appreciation.

Oh, I find 'You're welcome' very strange. I've only ever really heard it used sarcastically in the UK.

I hear it all the time in the US though and know it's meant well but I still have rather negative associations with it. To me, it implies 'Yes, I did put myself out to do that for you, but glad you appreciate my effort.'

I prefer (and usually give) a response like 'No problem' or 'No worries' (or even the very very English 'Not at all') which is a bit more self-deprecating. It minimises the effort the giver put into whatever it was they are being thanked for and thus assuages the guilt/obligation of the receiver.

Maybe I've overthought this

I use it and it means what it says on the tin, the person who's just thanked me is welcome to whatever it was I did or didn't do. I do also use no problem and no worries though.

How many of us like adults with no manners? Do we think that children with no manners have a fairy wand waved over them when they hit a certain age which suddenly blesses them with social skills? Nope, they turn into the adults we all inwardly clench our teeth about!

I am quite surprised that such a question needs to be asked to be quite frank!

Do kids need good manners? Let us have a think about that......nah, why bother, lets build a generation of rude, ignorant, arrogant, impolite, discourteous, unpopular kids who think it is beneath them to show appreciation or respect for people or things.

That is a hard one....

Exactly cbmummy!!
I can't see how it is class bound.
You don't have to have a set formula, I would never say 'you're welcome'.
Please and thank you are so simple and easy. I get off the bus and say thank you to the driver-it costs nothing. I bump into someone and say sorry. If you pick it up as a DC from your parents-mainly by copying,it is automatic. It gets you much further than rudeness.

I taught my soon to be 2 DD to say please, thank you and sorry. Her added "Thank you much" comes from listening to me say thank you very much. I love hearing her say it!

Well, like I said before, if you think that good manners are class-bound then you are confusing basic manners with complicated social etiquette, which in some cases is just a secret code of rules to expose/trip up those of us who have the audacity to mucsle in, unqualified, on old-money upper-middle class circles. Basic good manners are classless, or should be.

muscle, obviously!

OP- YABU

I am on a teaching placement in a very middle class area where a majority of the children speak in a very 'polite' accent. However, I am amazed at how many of them never say thankyou for anything.

I was handing out some food the other week, and it took until the 8th child before anyone uttered a thankyou (yes, I was counting, as I was so amazed!) Now, I am a little more forceful and say to them, 'excuse me?' or 'what do you say?' As year 4 children, I feel I shouldn't have to prompt them in this way.

I am proud of my dds manners. At nearly 4 and nearly 2 you never catch them not saying thankyou, or replying with, 'you're welcome', even dd2.

As parents I feel it is our job to instill this in our childen from an early age. No excuses.

I have only read some of the posts - which I acknowledge is quite rude of me when people have gone to the bother of writing them, so I apologise.

YABVU

Not teaching DCs to have nice manners is setting them up for a poorer life. Other DCs will not want to play with them because they are rude, and even if they do, the other DCs' parents will try to avoid it because they 1/ won't want them in their house, and 2/ will think them a bad example. And they might feel that teachers are picking on them as they try and teach them the manners that the parents are failing to.

As they get older, potential girl/boyfriends will be put off by their social ineptitude, and they will fare less well at work because society sets great store by people being able to interact successfully with others, which includes having nice manners.

And, OP, you may not mean using a knife and fork but nice table manners are very important. No-one wants to sit opposite someone eating with their mouth open and spitting food everywhere as they talk with their mouth full! Or have that person reach across their plate for the salt instead of politely asking for it, or pass them bread with their grubby fingers instead of offering the plate!

VVU...

'Manners are class-bound' What nonsense. If they are class-bound, who uses them and who doesn't in your opinion then Nooka? I think you'll find people from all backgrounds both have manners and are ill-mannered. Not all about class. Just parenting.

There are class-bound ways of being polite, though. Like the eternal what/pardon divide. The what side of the divide might well be seen as rude by the pardon camp.

It is impossible to over-rate good manners. We chose the DC's school on the basis of how polite the pupils were!!!

But Tiggy where is the line between basic manners and etiquette? what is considered polite in one circumstance might not be in another. If we are talking about asking nicely, being appreciative, and apologising when we have done wrong then I would agree these things are essential. If we translate that into the automation of please, thank you and sorry I think slightly less so, and everything beyond that is socially variable IMO.

Or what Horton said My family is half working class and half upper middle, and their ideas about how to behave are very different. Both once you understand the rules perfectly polite, but if you mixed them up together each would think the other rude.

I do hope the OP is not being serious

INO, as a parent your job is to raise a "fully-functioning" adult - someone who can integrate into society, and hopefully contribute in some way (hold down a job, help others or whatever). Manners are a part of what makes society work, and so are very important.

how you choose to do this is up to the indivdual/family. I find that a mixture of leading by example and some gentle reminders when necessary works well for us. DD is 3 yrs 3 mths and nearly always remembers to say please when she wants something and thankyou when she gets it. If she needs reminding i say " what do we say when we want/get something?" - I don't like "what is the magic word?" cos in my mind it is abracadabra!

Shyness is one thing, but if she is deliberately not saying it/playing up, then she doesn't get whatever it is she wants - it is usually quite easy to tell if she is being genuinely shy or not.

DH is German, and please/thankyou is important to him too. However, he is bemused by how often we Brits say sorry when it is not our fault, ie someone bumps into us and we apologise! He also doesn't understand why if someone burps they say "pardon me", or "excuse me" after sneezing - his attitude is, it's a natural bodily function, over which you have no control (usually!) so why apologise? I do see his point, but that doesn't stop me saying it - even if I sneeze ten times in a row (hayfever) I will say excuse me after each one!!