Tag: manners

Interrupt Rule

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Interrupt Rule (3)

Life is full of Zoom meetings these days, but it occurred to me that this is an opportunity to teach Veronika a few rules about interrupting, and make a little lemonade out of all these virtual lemons!

Yes, even a two year old can learn how to politely ask for your attention. We have two methods now for when Veronika needs me, whether during a Zoom, a random phone call, or just while I’m making dinner!

The first trick is to teach your child the sign for “wait”: Hold up the hands and wiggle the fingers. Interestingly, this is one of the only signs Veronika ever latched onto, and she has used it long past when she dropped all the others. So when she needs my attention, I say, “Show me your wiggle waiting.” And she wiggles her fingers and waits!

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Our second method is newer, but seems to be working! I’m teaching her to touch my leg, instead of yelling out for me. Then, I put my hand back on hers to acknowledge that I know she needs me.

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The key to making this a success? Don’t make your toddler wait for long! Yes, Zoom participants are usually understanding if you turn aside a moment for your child.

Monkey, Monkey

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Monkey Monkey (6)

Thanks to the influence of a certain big brother, Veronika has learned to say, “I want [fill-in-the-blank], gimme!” When I then remind her, “Say please, not gimme,” she becomes impish, doubling down on the “gimme”. So I came up with this incentive to guide her back towards the magic word of please!

We have a set of stacking monkeys that the kids love. I told them that every time Veronika says please instead of “gimme”, a monkey gets added to a tower. Travis’s job is to help remind her that “please” is the word to use. Once the monkeys are all in a pyramid, the kids get a reward.

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To incentivize Travis a bit more, a monkey also gets added when he does a kind deed for his sister.

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I love that this added an element of sibling cooperation to the game. Part of the issue, I realized, is that I taught Veronika to say “please” using sign language. Reminding her of the sign prompted her to start using it, rather than “gimme”.

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By the end of the first day, the monkey pyramid was growing. Travis was so proud when he could add one for his good behavior.

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After two days, the monkeys had all been stacked – success! The kids decided they wanted hot chocolate from a cafe as a reward, a rare treat. And well earned!

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Etiquette Around the World

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Etiquette (4)

Travis and I have been working on table manners lately; he’s old enough now that his behavior matters more when we go out to dinner, or even just dine as a family. No elbows on the table and staying in your seat are big rules in our house!

But I wanted to stop feeling like a broken record reminding him of these manners, so we did some investigation into etiquette around the world to make things more fun! This overlapped nicely with a home-school lesson to go with our Eggplant Parmesan from Raddish Kids.

Start off with some giggles, with a recitation of ‘The Goops.’ I remember this poem from my own childhood!

The Goops they lick their fingers.

The Goops they lick their knives.

They spill their broth on the tablecloth,

Oh they lead disgusting lives.

The Goops they talk while eating,

And loud and fast they chew; 

And that’s why I’m glad that I 

Am not a Goop – are you?

You can plainly see the giggles this elicited!

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I asked Travis what the poem was about, and he caught on right away that it was about manners.

Next we watched a clip of strange etiquette rules around the world. Travis was more interested than I would have guessed. “Mom, in one part of the world you can’t eat with your left hand,” he came rushing up to tell me, for example.

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Because he’s only 4, we parsed the video closely so it made more sense. I printed flags from 7 of the 12 countries (the full 12 seemed overwhelming) and printed pictures depicting the bad manner to go along with each. We colored them in (a nice geography lesson, too!) and then glued each flag to the appropriate etiquette picture.

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For some final silly fun, we read ‘The Goops’ again, and this time Travis got a kick out of acting out some of the bad manners – elbows on the table and fork licking!

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Big kids can make this into a proper skit, and delight their family or friends with their bad manners. What’s a big no-no in your house? Please share in the comments!