“Hospitality is a great pleasure to people of a sociable nature, and its obligations have a most refining influence. The generous consideration of others reaches its acme when one is constantly entertaining little circles of friends, with no thought but to give happiness.”
Edith. B. Orday
Etiquette of Today
Author: Edith B. Orday Published: 1918
Personality
Family Etiquette
Conversation and Correspondence
Casual Meetings and Calls
The Personal Card and the Engraved Invitation
Behavior in Public
The Art of Being a Guest
Duties of Host and Hostess
Duties of the Chaperon
Etiquette of the Marriage Engagement
The Conduct of a Wedding
Etiquette for Children
Etiquette of Mourning
Military, Naval, and Flag Etiquette
CHAPTER XIII
ETIQUETTE FOR CHILDREN
ONE may be taught self-restraint and unselfish consideration for others at so early an age that such virtues become habitual, and minor maxims are to a large extent unnecessary. Of course, the child will still have to be shown the various ways in which he can show consideration, but he will quite frequently do of himself those acts which make for the comfort and well-being of others.
Habits of deference to elders spring from more complex motives, and the training in them may have to be more persistent and rigorous. Boys should be taught to take off their caps to their elders, both in the family and in the circle of friends, when they meet them on the street. They should rise when ladies enter the room, and remain standing until all are seated.
An important part in a child's bringing up is to teach him to put away his own garments and to clear up after his play or work. If this is instilled early into the child, there will never be any need of the pain of counteracting slovenliness, and also never any of that disagreeable haughtiness toward servants, which is fostered by nothing so much as by the inch-by-inch waiting upon a child.
The child who has been made a companion of, and not repressed or driven away by the older people of the family, has a sort of instinctive respect for them, which, though it may overstep itself in some daring familiarity occasionally, is the basis of a strong authority over him. The child who has been spied on, and whose idea of all adults is that they are a sort of modified policemen, will show respect only under compulsion, and will fail in all those fine courtesies which the thoroughly well-bred child grows to delight in.
Self-control and self-repression are equal virtues to be cultivated in the child. To permit the child to be indifferent and inattentive when one is trying to amuse or entertain, to be impatient to get at the end of a story or a game, to keep yawning; or making other expressions of weariness when being reproved or reprimanded, cultivates in the child a mental laziness which is as bad as its opposite,--parrot-like facility for chattering and asking questions, which gives a child no chance to think, and makes him develop into a man of only surface intelligence and thoughtless flippancy. Even a child can appreciate, if rightly taught, the motive back of a kind action, and can respect that even if the action does not interest him.
On the other hand, it is a serious matter to allow a child to be constantly bored with lectures on his conduct, or even with efforts to amuse him. He should be let alone, thrown upon his own resources, and not permitted to be taxed beyond adult endurance by well-meaning but futile efforts on his behalf.
Children should never be allowed to interrupt. For that reason parents, and those who have the care of children, should remember not to monopolize the conversation when there are children present, nor talk on and on for a long time, as no person, least of all a child, can follow such continuous talk without weariness.
Children should be taught that thinking will answer most of their questions for them, that they should wait and see if the answer will not be given by something that is said later on. Every effort made to drive the thought of a loquacious child back upon itself is an effort in the right direction; just as every effort made to express and reveal the thought of an imaginative child is much to the latter's benefit.
The sayings of a child should never be quoted in his presence, nor his doings related. He becomes hopelessly self-conscious thereby.
A child should be taught to respect the rights of the father and mother to the easiest chairs in the room, or those which they may prefer, and should leave those chairs vacant until the father and mother are seated elsewhere.
The boy who has been brought up at home, both by precept and by his father's example, never to seat himself at the dining table or in the family sitting-room until his mother is seated, will not need to be told that he should rise in a crowded street car and give his seat to an elderly woman. He will do it so instinctively that it will not be a burden,--indeed, the regret would be more keen if he could not do it.
If children are present at the dining table, it is wiser to help them first, and the grown people last, than the reverse. In everything it is well to follow the etiquette of adult life, as, for instance, by helping the girls before the boys.
Children should be taught to be punctual at meals, not simply for the sake of health, but out of consideration for the cook and for those who might otherwise be obliged to wait for them. They should not be allowed to hurry through a meal because of their impatience to get at play, although they may be wisely excused when they are quite through. There is no value in making them the bored, squirming, or subdued listeners to conversation quite beyond their comprehension or interest. They should be taught to eat leisurely, and to regard the mealtime as a chance to talk with their parents about interesting things, and not simply as a time to be shortened and slighted if possible.
Usually the child's first rigid lesson in punctuality comes at the beginning of school life. Then, most profitably, may be cultivated a sense of the rights of others, and of his individual responsibility toward the social group, represented for him by his teacher and schoolmates. If the emphasis is rightly laid upon the necessity of his not delaying the work of his classmates and teacher, he will naturally find many ways in which he may apply the same thought, greatly to his own advantage and to theirs as well, and to the permanent strengthening of his habits of work.
A keen sense of social oneness may also prevent the too frequent heart-burnings among shy and sensitive children. This is as easily cultivated as is the opposite, and is of great importance both in childhood and in later life. The seeming injustice of the teacher may often be made clear, and seen to be just, when the welfare of the whole school is taken into consideration. This is a matter of the natural enlargement of the child's mental horizon, and if the proper spirit has been fostered, the child will welcome it. Should it be done carefully and wisely, the roots of many social weeds will at once be eliminated.
Fault-finding should be discouraged in school and at home. It is never the best method of fault correction, and should not be countenanced.
The bringing home of tales of the teacher and of schoolmates, in a spirit of complaint, should not be permitted. Pleasant accounts of happenings at school should be encouraged, but grumbling against rules, as well as personal gossip, should not be permitted. The authority of the home must support the authority of the school or the child will nowhere receive that discipline and training which he needs in order to meet the experiences of life.
The child should be allowed a certain sum of money, which, even in the most lavish homes, should be a little under what the wants of the child require. The giving of this money should be done regularly at a stated time, and there should never be any extra giving, or increase of the usual sum, except under very unusual circumstances, which should not be allowed to happen more than once a year.
The child should also be held accountable for his money. If he is old enough to have any money, or to spend any, he is old enough to tell how he spent it, even to the last penny. Unless all is accounted for, the habits of accuracy and care are not formed. The record of this should be written down, even if done very simply and without special form, and later, as the child grows older, more conventional forms of bookkeeping should be required.
It should be also required that there be some saving, which is preferably a certain proportion of the whole, this for a beginning to which to add extra sums as the child may wish. This saved sum should be permanently put by, and drawing from it should not be permitted. It may be transferred to a bank at long intervals, always by the child himself, and his pride in doing it and keeping it there should be cultivated.
These matters may all be made a game and sheer fun. Their grave importance is apparent on every hand. For the child which has been taught early to do these things, will do them with such ease as to make it seem instinctive, and the child who does it will never, under any ordinary circumstances, come to want.
The proper behavior in church should be taught rather by trying to inculcate the spirit of worship than by making rules to be followed. A child is very susceptible to impressiveness of any sort, and if the reason for it is made clear to him, he will be quicker to respond to it by a reverent attitude of spirit than does an older person. Even the obstreperous child is at least temporarily impressed, if he sees that others are, and if he knows the reason for it.
Children should realize that it is their privilege and duty to serve guests, whether their own or their parents. The sacrifice of one's own comfort for the sake of the guest takes, with a child, the form of a sort of play, usually because of the excitement of the arrival of a stranger, and the possibilities of fun in the enjoyment of the stranger's stay.
The child should be taught respect for the guest's person, and should not be allowed to take the same liberties with a gown or a glove that sometimes the mother or aunts permit, no matter how great the novelty of the texture or how it appeals to the child's sense of beauty. The privileges of being a guest should be always duly respected, and the child be thus taught at once his duty as a host and his position as a guest.
Children should never be allowed to play with a visitor's hat or cane, or handle furniture or ornaments in a strange house, or show by ill-mannerly conduct the curiosity which a child, in unaccustomed surroundings, naturally feels. They can be taught so great a respect for the possessions of others that they would become able to stifle their curiosity, or express it only at a fitting time.
Children should not be sent to the drawing-room to entertain visitors, unless the visitors request it themselves. Nor should they be allowed to be troublesome to visitors or guests at any time, any more than servants should be allowed to be insolent. They should never be allowed the freedom of the rooms of the guests, nor to visit them often or long.
Children should not be permitted to enter into the pleasures of their elders when, to do so, would be to spoil the kind of sociability for which the occasion was intended. At all formal functions, children are out of place. When making formal calls, children are usually in the way, and the silent part they are forced to play is disagreeable for them. They are also out of place at a funeral, or in a cemetery, or anywhere that there is mourning. It is an injury to a child to see grief,--unless it be his great concern, and in that case it is no longer a matter of etiquette, but of necessary life experience.
Children should not dine out except by special invitation. It is as discourteous to permit a child thoughtlessly to inconvenience a neighbor, as it is wrong for the child to think that such uninvited visits are permissible.
A child should be taught never to touch what does not belong to it, except with the express permission of the owner. This applies to goods in a store, as well as to the furniture of places other than his home, and to the belongings of others in his home.
A child should not be allowed to intrude into a drive, a walk, a call, or a conversation. It is unfair to the child, and awkward for him, and is no kindness, as it takes away the benefit which he might otherwise derive from the pleasure either by continually snubbing his self-respect, or by repressing his energy and curiosity to the danger point.
Children should not be allowed to go to picnic parties, unless they have been invited and entertainment prepared for them.
Children should be taught to treat servants with all the politeness with which they treat their elders, and with much more consideration. The converse of the servants with children should be of the same careful and pleasant quality that the best parents use and desire. This may well be insisted upon. On the other hand, the children should be taught that servants are busy people, that they should never be imposed upon, and that unnecessary work should not be made for them.
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