Have Parents forgotten to teach children manners?

Freedomfighter

I started this thread in another section and wanted to get parents views and taughts...

I am 27, when i was growing up i was always told and corrected for my manners. Please and thank you. For everthing. Dont speak with your mouth full and close your mouth while your chewing. Dont slurp you drink or hit your fork off your teeth.
Now im sure everyone will agree that these are the basic rules if you will for life. But i was in work looking at people slurping their tea/coffee eating with their mouths open. I mean come on my tea does be hot but i dont have to slurp it. People actually slurping cold water.
Then people rarely say please or thank you anymore.
What has happened to the world?
Im far from posh or from Dublin 4 or the likes but i was raised to follow these steps. But im finding fewer and fewer people that were raised like me.
Am i wrong to be giving out here or is the world becoming rude. Are parents neglecting teaching their kids manners. Whats wrong with Please and Thank you.

the_syco

Erm, why? Or should I say how? In the "old days" you would do so, or get a slap. Now kids can't be slapped, and I see this as part of the downward spiral to chaos.

Freedomfighter

My parents never slapped me. Violence breeds violence. And if you have to resort to slapping you have lost. You should be able to instill values or manners in your child with out a little slap.

Crea

You'll find that children are more indulged because parents aren't getting to spend time with them as they generally are both working. The last thing you want to do if you can only spend 2 hrs a day with your child is be constantly correcting them. Understandable but the kids will end up being out of control brats and harder to handle in later yrs.
In the case of most of my peers the mums were at home.
I wasn't slapped and was well disciplined without it.

simu

I don't think slapping is necessary. Some parents, though, seem to be reluctant ever to say no to their kids or make them behave a certain way, as if this will cause great psycholgical problems in the future or something!

Nasty_Girl

I do not think it is one bit fair to suggest this is down to working parents.

the rudest, undisiciplined brats I ever met always had either both parents on the dole or a stay at home mammy who's little darlings could do no wrong. (Not all of them but most)

Both of my parents worked, and we knew our manners.

Same goes for my cousins, all of whom had both parents working.

Working parents care just as much about how their kids will turn out as those who stay home.

Generally I do agree that kids are more spoilled and less disciplined today than ten or twenty years ago.

Crea

I wasn't saying that all working parents are the blame for this but I do know from experience that at the end of a long day disciplining your child is the toughest thing to do.

I was thinking about this thread during the day and I do think the lack of manners has to do with how a child is addressed. How often have we heard children spoken to in curt tones "sit down", "come here", "get your coat" etc.
No "will you please" and no "thank you" when obeyed. The best way to teach a child is by example. I find that adults today are ruder, less courteous and less helpful so no wonder the kids are.

Nasty_Girl

Crea wrote:

How often have we heard children spoken to in curt tones "sit down", "come here", "get your coat" etc.
No "will you please" and no "thank you" when obeyed. The best way to teach a child is by example. I find that adults today are ruder, less courteous and less helpful so no wonder the kids are.

I kinda agree with this about adults being a lot ruder but I also find some parents put their kids up on pedestals and maybe go too far in the other direction and the kids think they are above everyone else as a result.


Tough one to call.

the_syco

It wasn't as much as the slap, but the fear of the slap which stopped us. Now, the kids have nothing to fear. Not the parents, not the law. No-one.

sharonlarkin

I agree that manners are very important. I have 2 young kids (5 & 2) and they are very well mannered. They say please and thank you for everything, and I never slapped them to remind them, If they forget (which they do being kids), I ask them where their manners have gone, and then we go through this whole thing about about manners costing nothing and they get them of mammy and daddy. They love doing that and it gives them a little remind to use their manners.

The only problem I have is with my lovely son who keeps picking his nose. When I tell him thats not nice or use a tissue he tells me he is only getting a snot out :eek: HOW NICE. Nothing seems to work for this. But I would never ever slap him because of it. My kids are spoiled (by me mainly) but not in a bad way. They are never rude to people. Bed is a great punishment.

Here's a laugh for you : My little fella started not wanting to go to bed lately, just the past couple of nights. And he would throw a right strop about it. So I took him to the back door and told him if he didn't want to go to bed he could go out and sleep with the dogs instead. He hasn't had a strop since.:D Now people might think this is cruel but it's better than slapping him all the way to bed and him going asleep in bad humour.

Enii

What I can't stand is parent who get on buses and who plonk their 4 yr old or so child on the seat beside them. Then they never take the child on to their knee when the bus is packed. They would even let an elderly person stand rather than put their children on their knee. I think they think that their child is entitled to the seat. The child is charged half price, you would think they would give up the seat. I was always taught to give up my seat on the bus. Now very few people do, probably because they weren't encouraged to do it as a child. Rant over!

Ickle Magoo

There do seem to be A LOT of precious children around today....I was in an indoor playcentre with mine yesterday & there were loads of kids hair pulling & thumping others while their parents merrily chatting away to each other like their spoilt brats bullying other kids was the most normal behaviour in the world....frankly it was disturbing to see - they actually looked on with pride...if they bothered to watch their kids at all! :mad:

I think there are several reasons for it....there are an increasing number of working parents which can lead to problems re continuity of consequence & punishment as well as the fact that childcarers cannot possibly admonish with as much force (not physical, I hasten to add) as a parent can....added to people rebelling against the smacking & corporal punishment remembered from their own childhoods & so they are increasingly liberal with their own children....there is also the general climate of equality in the world today - we no longer live by the "children should be seen & not heard" ethos, children have more rights and so we cannot & do not see them as second class citizens in someway inferrior to older members of the community - so nor are they treated as such....

I think people in general have less manners these days - not just children....I think in a world where everyone is running around working 12hr days to try & afford to give their child a decent life & a shot at university, crime is rife, paedaphilia & stranger danger is at an all time high, etc, etc....manners seemed to have fallen off the top-ten list of "important things for kids to learn".......:(

DublinWriter

Crea wrote:

I was thinking about this thread during the day and I do think the lack of manners has to do with how a child is addressed. How often have we heard children spoken to in curt tones "sit down", "come here", "get your coat" etc.
No "will you please" and no "thank you" when obeyed. The best way to teach a child is by example. I find that adults today are ruder, less courteous and less helpful so no wonder the kids are.

Hear hear.

I don't think corporal punishment comes into it. I went to primary between 74 and 82 and as children we were whacked will all manner of wooden instruments. It makes me really angry to remember it now, and I hope for my sake I don't bump into any of my old 'teachers' as I don't think I could be resonsible for my actions.

luckat

Yes, manners are important, and yes, *Irish* people have forgotten to use them lately.

You don't find this is so abroad - and in my interactions with Poles, Lithuanians, Africans, Indians and Chinese, I find that they have beautiful, courteous manners. Especially the eastern Europeans - they're just so damn courtly!

I think it's really cruel and wrong not to teach children good manners, and show them by example how to use them. If there's one thing that will help a young person get on in the world, it's good manners.

A lot of manners come from being surrounded by them. For instance, watch a queue of people getting off any bus. If one person smiles at the driver and says "Thank you", usually everyone following that person out will do the same.

Getting back to the point of how useful manners are, apart from anything else, rituals of courtesy give you time to think. If someone's rude to you, the automatic courteous response gives a moment for the lizard brain's automatic snarl to be tidied back into place!

Also, people with bad manners appear slightly stupid. Listen to Joe Duffy any day. The people who greet him with a little ritual - "Hello, Joe, I'm Lisa. How are you? Thanks for talking to me..." - just seem a lot more intelligent than those who bully straight in without the ritual.

deisemum

I work as a childminder and I don't think the lack of manners has much to do with children where both parents work outside the home and those where one parent is at home. You only have to go to Parent & Toddler groups to see this. I think a lot of people are developing airs and graces and think they are better than others and then treat others in a rude manner. Is it any wonder that their children are picking up this behaviour.

I agree with Crea about how some children are addressed. Fortunately there are still a lot of children that have lovely manners.

Some of the rudest people I've come across are old people, right contankerous so and so's but all age group have rude people.

I've often been complimented on my children's manners, also the children I mind. My own are of an age that don't need prompting and it's second nature to them at this stage. Barney was a useful aid with his please and thank you song.

McGinty

First of I don't believe you need to smack a child to install manners, however repition, repition, etc is needed, keep reminding them, there are a million ways to punish a child without hitting them, be it going to bed early, grounding, no sweets, whatever works.

I think what is contributing to the lack of manners and anti social behaviour of children is the fact that discipline (loving discipline) requires effort, hard work and pain. I have to keep on at my son all the time, it is wearing and hard work, sometimes I feel frustrated and would love to throw my hands up and say I don't care but I can't because I want him to be a well rounded, mannered individual. Maybe manners are dying, but those with manners have more class, grace and are more likeable, even by those without manners, and that is why I will keep on at my son.

A lot of people find it too much effort and give up after a few attempts, which is why there is such a decline.

nesf

Tbh on the whole slapping thing I got slapped when I was a kid when I did something seriously wrong and I really don't have any issues with it. It was the punishment of last resort and I can count the number of times on one hand. I was never marked or hurt, it was a sting only. I can understand people's issues with a child being struck or hit with a hard object but a light slap is not a big deal.


On the whole manners thing, I don't think it's much worse now than it was 10 years ago. Some people have manners, but it is down to "breeding" to a very large extent. If the parents don't teach manners it's not going to happen and monkey see, monkey do complex comes into it also.

I don't get it really. Being polite can solve so many situations. There really isn't a downside to it. You don't sign a pact saying you always have to be polite or anything like that.

oldschool

What I want to know is; when did this business of 'don't you dare give out to my child' start happening?

When I was a kid, if you were misbehaving or putting yourself/others in danger, any adult could correct you and by God, you'd obey! Your parents, if they were around, would support the other adult, thank them and tell you to do what they said...

I think parents today feel guilty, they have a nagging feeling that they're not disciplining their children properly or spending enough time with them; they can ignore this feeling most of the time, but it comes to the fore in this defensive outburst if another adult highlights it. The increasing individualism of society in Ireland is only making things worse. In an interdependent society, everyone looks out for everyone else and has a part to play in moderating each other's behaviour. This concept is now dying, to the detriment of current and future generations!