Kids learning to mind their manners
Middle-school kids are not generally known for their good manners. But Cord Ivanyi, a teacher in Chandler, Ariz., said he was fed up after seeing “the sheer rudeness and carelessness the boys showed” during his classes, especially during parties when they would shove their way to the front of food lines.
And so a few years ago, when he was a teacher in Gilbert, Ariz., Ivanyi began teaching etiquette to seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders, giving a 15-minute lecture on “lessons from the past,” he said, from holding doors open to offering to seat people, taking their backpacks, carrying books when others are overloaded or injured, waiting while being spoken to and using phrases such as “in my opinion.” The students soon started championing the rules themselves, he said.
At a turbulent time in America, with guns invading workplaces and gender politics dividing college campuses, some adults are trying, in small ways, to impart lessons of old-fashioned civility, even chivalry, to children.
The Etiquette School of Manhattan started a program last year to train nannies and caretakers on how to teach children, from babies to young adults, about proper behavior.
In the curriculum, which is being translated into Spanish, are lessons on how to help children build listening skills, overcome shyness and calm themselves when they are angry so they can learn to express themselves with kindness and consideration.
Heather Haupt, a mother in Dallas who home-schools her children, created what she calls a “knights in training” program for her boys, ages 7, 9 and 11, when they were toddlers. She armed them with fake shields and foam swords and gave them rewards for showing bravery, honesty or gallantry toward women. She uploaded the curriculum to her blog Cultivated Lives in 2011 and said parents are still sharing and downloading it.
Scott Farrell is the owner of Chivalry Today, a company in San Diego whose offerings for young people include sword fighting and falconry, but also ethics and a sense of honor. “The ideals of chivalry, of being honest and fair and polite, they don’t need to be rooted in the society of our grandparents’ day,” Farrell said.
Swords are optional, of course. Debbie Hays enrolled her two young sons in a sixweek session at Polite Is Right, a Torrance, Calif., etiquette school teaching “life-skills classes for kids and teens.”
Her older son, Grant, 16, said: “I talk to adults in a more grown-up way, I guess, than most kids my age and I shake hands with them. I don’t give them a one-hand shake. I hate when people do that.”
Some parents have been motivated to turn to chivalry as a small measure of taking control after seeing violence and aggression on the news. “With our culture, where it is going, we don’t honor and respect one another,” Haupt said.
If chivalry is making a small comeback, social media deserve a thank-you note, said Dianne Marsch, the director of the Etiquette School. Parents worry that their children are spending so much time on text, Snapchat, and Instagram, she said, that they don’t know how to have a quality face-to-face conversation.
Another, less gentle impetus: to give children a leg up in school interviews. “The competition is fierce, so the parents are calling me,” Marsch said.
Dates and parties are also covered. “Throw any of my students into a situation, and they will know what to do,” said Denise Honaker, the owner of Polite Is Right, who charges $140 for a six-week session. She tries to make the lessons fun, taking students to the mall to teach them to pick out clothing, and to a restaurant to learn proper dining skills.
“I had fun doing it, especially the eating,” Grant said. “I remember eating pasta, chicken and steak in a restaurant setting so we learned to behave. I apply it in my everyday life.”