Thanksgiving is a great opportunity to teach children basic manners. Whether you are having Thanksgiving in your home or at a friend’s (or family’s), why not teach a few basic social skills? This article focuses on table manners but I have provided a few other tips such as handshakes and greetings.
In today’s increasingly digital and connected world, it is more crucial than ever for children to understand how to behave appropriately in different social situations. Too many children aren’t learning social skills and it is negatively impacting their ability to thrive and succeed. Below, you will find three practical tips and all teachable moments to learn manners in everyday life.
Tips to Teach Thanksgiving Manners
Handshakes and Greetings: Show your children how to greet someone at your front door. Teach eye contact, a smile is always welcome, and basically how to say “hello”. Handshakes might seem a bit formal but remember this is a teachable moment. Teach them to shake with a firm grip and to make web-to-web contact with the other person. As your guest arrive, have your child ask them if they may take their coat or wraps. When your friends and family are leaving, teach your child how to offer to help with their coats. Walking guests to the door is very important as it is a sign of respect and kindness.
How to Set the Table: The video above shows a basic table setting. You may use this every day at mealtime or for your Thanksgiving table. The table setting shown is for a casual setting and is very easy for all ages. You may use this table setting any time of the year for any type of meal. Involve your child in decorating your holiday table. Make it fun. You can start practicing now, before the holidays so that they are familiar with the setting and navigate it easily.
Thank You Notes: If are visiting family or friends for the holiday, send a thank you note expressing your gratitude for the meal. Another teachable and family moment, thank you note writing can be fun and quick. A thank you note should not be a novel. Three or four sentences will do. Your children can decorate the notes if they like and pick out a stamp they like.
Manners To Go™ is a full-service company for those choosing to teach manners to children. You can make a difference. All children and teenagers deserve to feel what it is like to be confident and use good manners out in the world.
Manners To Go™ is taught in public, private, and charter schools around the world. The New York Times, Parents Magazine, and Fox News have all featured Manners To Go and the many benefits of teaching social skills to children.
Are You Interested in Starting a Business Teaching Manners to Children?
Would you like to find out more about how you can share your passion to teach children how to succeed and be happy and confident? Join the manners revolution! Click here to discover more.
If you are looking to start immediately and save money on travel and time, then this is your best option.You choose the dates of our trainings. Most choose to have their sessions once a week, others twice. This is a “live” and private training. It is NOTself-guided.
PRIVATE Training. That’s right, we meet in person, the two of us and our focus is completely on your business. Click the image above or follow the button below to learn more and to see a list of cities available for your training.
Manners To Go™ is taught in public, private and charter schools around the world. The New York Times, Parents Magazine and Fox News have all featured Manners To Go and the many benefits of teaching social skills to children.
British Manners: What We Can Learn from The Crown, a Netflix Series
Have you watched The Crown? It is a very popular series on Netflix. The Crown offers a history lesson and a look into the young personal life of Queen Elizabeth. The series delves into world events and the social manners of British society. There is a great deal that we can learn from this series. Not only a history lesson, The Crown offers many opportunities to observe how Queen Elizabeth handles herself as a young woman and as a wife with a tremendous responsibility to her family and the world.
British Manners: Tips We Learn from The Crown, Queen Elizabeth
Queen Elizabeth is crowned at a very young age. She engages in a public persona that is respectful and reserved. Her personal life is never intertwined with her public duties. She always projects strength and grace publicly.
Queen Elizabeth embraces generational differences with ease and maturity. Her favorite prime minister, was Winston Churchill. Instead of a relationship with unease and tension, this one turns into one of mutual respect and commonality. They both share a love of horses, racing and polo.
It gives me such pleasure to watch The Queen because she is such a lady. If you are teaching your daughters what it means to be a lady, have them watch this series. In fact, watch this one as a family. The confidence and glamor that is portrayed in The Crown is refreshing.
It gives me such pleasure to watch The Queen because she is such a lady. If you are teaching your daughters what it means to be a lady, have them watch this series. In fact, watch this one as a family. The confidence and glamor that is portrayed in The Crown is refreshing.
The Queens posture is outstanding.The Queen is played by Claire Foy. She comments in an article by Vanity Fair that she wore a corset during the first season to assist with the costumes as she had just given birth. It has since helped her continue with guidance to sit up straight and carry herself as The Queen.
Season 2 of The Crown Starts December 2 on Netflix
Season 2 I am sure will not disappoint. Watch as they move through the sixties with style and grace. How will the royal family handle the “sex, drugs and rock and roll” culture of the 1960’s?
Manners To Go™ is taught in public, private and charter schools around the world. The New York Times, Parents Magazine and Fox News have all featured Manners To Go and the many benefits of teaching social skills to children.
Our licensees are interesting women who have already accomplished a great deal. Many are in the midst of raising families and some have careers while starting their manners business. Some are teachers and we even have a retired banker. Another is a pediatrician. All of them are passionate about teaching manners to children.
Are you interested in learning more about becoming certified to teach the Manners To Go program? We now have two training options to choose from. Click here to learn more.
This brand has given me the honor of teaching manners to thousands of people across the globe – from Portland, Oregon to the Middle East.
The Manners To Go™ curriculum, which I’ve developed and refined over my 15-year career as a professional etiquette consultant, is taught in public, private and charter schools around the world.
Teaching manners to children can lead you down many interesting paths. Last week, for example, I boarded a train to Washington D.C. for a two-day conference for Character.Org, drove to Mahwah, New Jersey to speak at Polish Bilingual Day, and that evening taught dining skills to the Emerging Leaders Association for the YMCA in Philadelphia!
Life is busy and fun. You can teach manners to children, too. While attending the Character.Org conference, it was very clear that educators from around the globe are very interested and wholeheartedly believe that every child deserves to learn social skills. They recognize the importance of the “other side of the report card”. I met many educators from Singapore, and Germany, and even the assistant principal at a local private school (The Shipley School). Manners To Go has been taught there as an after-school program.
We read about globalization but are our children really prepared for it? Other countries do place importance on teaching manners and character. Every adult that is connected with a child, whether you are a soccer coach or piano teacher, is responsible for teaching and modeling good behavior and character.
Public schools (in the classroom, special events, and school assemblies)
Private schools
Charter schools
Independent schools
Girl and Boy Scout Troops
After school programs
Preschools
Country Clubs
Private instruction
Charm School
Tea parties
Birthday parties
This list can go on and on!
Would you like to learn more about launching your business teaching manners to children? It is a rewarding opportunity to share your passion and at the same time earn an income.
The journey of creating Manners To Go has become more than building a brand for me. The journey has become offering an opportunity for like-minded women and men to take control of their destiny and launch a business for the good of our society.
I can personally show you how to start and grow an etiquette business that allows you to do what you love and earn a profit while doing it.
We can start immediately. There is no need to wait or spend extra dollars flying to an event. You will have private instruction time with me, Lisa Richey the founder of Manners To Go.
About Lisa Richey
It has become a beautiful opportunity to spend time with others that are like-minded, who want to take control of their future and launch a business for the good of society. I am so proud of the testimonials about the curriculum from others that I have trained and certified to teach the Manners To Go program.
Building this brand and launching my own business has allowed me so many opportunities to travel to faraway and exciting places. From Oklahoma to the Middle East, I have taught social skills and confidence to thousands. You can do this, too.
Keep reading and I will tell you how I got started.
My career started with Speedo, which led me to Levi Strauss and then to Club Corp. I was promoted along the way and am so very thankful for my corporate experience. As I was admiring a Kate Spade handbag one day, I noticed a card inside which told Kate’s story. I was so inspired and hoped that I could own my own business. It happened!
I have spoken on business etiquette to companies such as Deloitte, Ernest and Young, Siemens, Columbia University, and the Ministry of Bahrain. Additionally, Eloise at The Plaza hosts me to teach afternoon tea and manners to their international clientele. Celebrities retain me to teach their children in the privacy of their homes.
Manners To Go has been featured in Victoria Magazine, The New York Times, Fox Business News, Parents Magazine, and Better Homes and Gardens.
Are you interested in expanding your experiences? Would you like to make a difference in society and launch a business that you love? Email Manners To Go or we can set a time to speak by phone.
If you are looking to start immediately and save money on travel and time, then this is your best option.You choose the dates of our trainings. Most choose to have their sessions once a week, others twice. This is a “live” and private training. It is NOTself-guided.
PRIVATE Training. That’s right, we meet in person, the two of us and our focus is completely on your business. Click the image above or follow the button below to learn more and to see a list of cities available for your training.
A Licensee that is Certified and Trained by Manners To Go
Aleta Greenspan is a new Manners To Go licensee in Mobile, Alabama. Read more about her reason for starting a business teaching manners to children. I enjoyed every conversation we had during her training sessions. She is an interesting woman who already has experiences as an entrepreneur.
Read more about Aleta and I especially love her answer about the advice she would give herself at twenty-one.
Each social or business environment has a prescribed code of behavior and speech (written or unwritten) that one must follow in order to be successful within that environment. I am persuaded the curriculum provided in the “Manners To Go” program provides the necessary and foundational training in acceptable behavior and speech that is applicable in both social or business situations. The possibility that I may influence a student to apply these lessons to structure a forever lifestyle that will multiply their influence with people, help them communicate more effectively in a way to reduce the number of conflicts with people in social or business circumstances excites me. This is why I am starting my own business teaching manners to children in Mobile, Alabama.
Decades ago, one Saturday morning, while my two little children were playing in the den, I watched an interview with Grambling University’s Football Coach, Eddie Robinson. Coach Robinson remarked in the interview that many of his players would graduate Grambling and either successfully play in the NFL (200 players he coached did) or become winning coaches themselves. Coach Robinson said part of his spring football training program included the “Home Economics” professor teaching his players etiquette and manners. He said he never wanted one of his players embarrassed during an awards banquet because they did not know which fork to use. That day Coach Robinson transformed my thinking and I began to intentionally teach my children good manners. Today, decades later, we all are very comfortable sitting at a table covered in a white table surrounded by lots of dishes, stemware and forks. The only thing lacking in my adult children is their willingness to pick up the check. I guess the roles have not reversed yet…we are still the parents. However, they do say “thank you” after dinner.
What is the best advice you have given as a mom to another mother?
Let the greatest legacy you leave to your children and grandchildren be the memory of you being a “Proverbs” woman as described in Proverbs 31:10-31. This woman was a business woman, active in the community, and always looking after her household and family.
What is one place everyone should experience with children?
Everyone should bring children to an open field with no fence. “Play” is in the heart of every child and they will run and go as far as their curiosity will take them. However, I discovered if you establish and communicate early on where your boundary lines are within that open field, playtime will be more relaxing and enjoyable for everyone.
How do you like to start your day?
I like to get up before sunrise, ease into the morning with at least 3 cups of black coffee; start a one-on-one conversation with Jesus; then read something new that inspires transformation within me.
What is your favorite meal to serve to children and why?
My favorite meal to serve children is breakfast. Breakfast is not just for mornings. To me, breakfast is like a holiday event. Everyone can get involved setting the table, making waffles and/or having fun with a can of whipped cream topping off fresh fruit. Even reading the back of a cereal box together can be fun. During a breakfast meal, even a picky eater can find something they find tasty.
If you could invite four fantasy people to your afternoon tea party, who would be on your invite list?
Nancy Drew, George Fayne, Bess Marvin and the mysterious Carolyn Keene. I collect Nancy Drew mysteries books. I remember the summer my dad built me a tree house. I sat most of the day in my tree house sipping iced tea from a mason jar and reading Nancy Drew books. When these gals were clueless, they stopped for a light lunch at a cute roadside café and always left with a plan. Where did these teens learn about the value of a “power lunch” ?
What advice would you give to your 21 year old self?
Look for a problem you would enjoy solving and then make it a career.
THE BOOK which is to say the Holy Bible, which tells you how the world really works. THE BOOK is really not about religion. It is a book about relationships, lifestyle decisions, finances, negotiation techniques and hospitality.
Are you interested in teaching manners to children? We have interesting people from all over the world teaching the Manners To Go curriculum. Those that teach the Manners To Go program have already accomplished a great deal in their life. Many are in the midst of raising families. Some are retired and ready to start something new. One is a children’s pastor. Another a pediatrician. All are passionate about starting something of their own.
Join the manners movement today. There are two training option to choose from.
Most likely we already have something in common. We believe that teaching children manners, character and social emotional skills are very important. Manners To Go™ is a full-service company for those choosing to teach manners to children. You can make a difference. All children and teenagers deserve to feel what it is like to be confident, and use good manners out in the world.
Manners To Go™ is taught in public, private and charter schools around the world. The New York Times, Parents Magazine and Fox News have all featured Manners To Go and the many benefits of teaching social skills to children.
My name is Lisa Richey, and I am the founder of Manners To Go™. The journey of teaching manners has taken me from Portland, Oregon to the Middle East. I believe that manners are not about judgment or rules. Manners are about self-interest. It really is about how using good manners makes you feel on the inside.
Manners To Go: Trained and Certified to Teach Manners to Children
We are thrilled to have Joanne Leggat join the Manners To Go team. She is located in Canada. Read more about Joanne below. She got a very fast start and taught her first manners class within days of becoming certified and trained. Good for her!
After many lunches out with my friends and their children, I came to realize that many children today don’t know how to behave politely and interact with waitresses, or strangers in general. It was not that they were terribly rude, they just didn’t smile or speak up or treat these strangers like they were very important. It made me think that a course on manners for kids could give them some guidance on how to feel confident in social situations and learn how to treat others as they would wish to be treated themselves.
What is the best advice you have given a mother?
One good piece of advice I have given to mothers originally comes from my sister-in-law, and I have passed it on to others. As a young mother, my sister-in-law put my nieces in a myriad of activities which involved much scheduling, much driving, and sometimes many headaches. At one point she decided, “Enough with the highland fling dancing!” and declared that she was only going to put the girls in activities that would develop life-long skills that they could participate in as adults as well. So today my nieces enjoy golfing, tennis, sailing, and skiing. And I have never heard them say they missed the highland fling dancing! Although I am sure it was great fun at the time….
What is one place everyone should experience with children?
Of course, everyone should get to experience Disneyland or Disney World at least once in their lifetime. But as a person of faith, and a full-time Children’s Pastor, I often suggest to families who are going to Disney World in Florida, that they take one day out of their vacation to visit the Holy Land Experience in Orlando. It is kind of a “Sunday school” theme park for families with live presentations, a huge model of Jerusalem, a wilderness Tabernacle, and many other interactive exhibits. There is even a Smile of a Child Adventure Land where kids can do fun things like rock climbing. I have enjoyed visiting the park with children myself, and every family I have recommended it to, has been very appreciative of the recommendation and said they and their kids had a great time.
What is your favorite book to read to children?
I often like to read story books to children on special occasions like Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving. My favorite story for Valentine’s Day is a book called “Adeline” by Bobby Strickland. I love the story and I love the illustrations as well.
Are you interested in owning a business teaching manners to children? Manners To Go gives you the opportunity to start your business today. There are two training options: Option # 1
“Live” training via video
Option # 2
A two day immersion “in-person” training
To learn more, visit our website where you will discover more details about becoming certified to teach manners to children. Here is the link:
Lisa Richey provides etiquette programs to businesses, schools, and individuals.
