TABLE MANNERS FOR CHILDREN
AS a matter of fact, it is never too early to begin to acquire the technique of correct eating, and the nursery is the best possible place for the first lessons in dining-room behavior. Children should be taught at an early age the fundamentals of “table” manners in such a way that by the time they have reached the years of manhood the correct use of knife, fork, spoon and fingerbowl is to them almost second nature. But the parents should remember, above everything else, to instruct their children in such a way that the pupil takes pleasure in his lessons. This is the method which is employed today in every successful school or “kindergarten”; this is the method which really produces satisfactory results.
Thus, for example, if you are a father and your boy Edward persists in bringing his pet tadpole to the table in a glass jar, you should not punish or scold him; a much more effective and graphic method of correcting this habit would be for you to suddenly pick up the tadpole one day at luncheon and swallow it. No whipping or scolding would so impress upon the growing boy the importance of the fact that the dinner table is not the place for pets.
Another effective way of teaching table manners to children consists in making up attractive games about the various lessons to be learned. Thus, whenever you have guests for dinner, the children can play “Boner” which consists in watching the visitor closely all during the meal in order to catch him in any irregularity in table etiquette. As soon as the guest has committed a mistake, the first Child to discover it points his finger at him and shouts, “Pulled a Boner, Pulled a Boner!” and the boy or girl who discovers the greatest number of “Boners” during the evening is rewarded with a prize, based on the following table of points:
If the guest has dirty hands, 5 points.
If the guest uses wrong fork or spoon, 5 points.
If the guest chokes on bone, 8 points.
If the guest blows on soup, 5 points.
If the guest drops fork or spoon, 3 points.
If the guest spills soup on table, 10 points.
If the guest spills soup on self, 1 point.
Of course it is often well to tell the guests about the game in advance in order that they may not feel embarrassed but will enter thoroughly into the spirit of this helpful sport.
A CHILD’S GARDEN OF ETIQUETTE
Children can also acquire knowledge more easily if it is imparted to them in the form of verse or easy rhymes, and many valuable facts about the dinner table can be embodied in children’s verses. A few of these which I can remember from my own happy childhood are as follows:
Oh, wouldn’t it be jolly
To be a nice hors d’œuvre
And just bring joy to people
Whom fondest you were of.
Soup is eaten with a spoon
But not to any haunting tune.
Oysters live down in the sea
In zones both temp. and torrid,
And when they are good they are very good indeed,
And when they are bad they are horrid.
My papa makes a lovely Bronx
With gin so rare and old,
And two of them will set you right
But four will knock you cold.
The boys with Polly will not frolic
Because she’s eaten too much garlic.
Mama said the other day,
“A little goes a long, long way.”
A wind came up out of the sea
And said, “Those dams are not for me.”
Uncle Frank choked on a bone
From eating shad au gratin
Aunt Ethel said it served him right
And went back to her flat in
NEWARK (spoken)
Poor Uncle Frank! (chanted)
I love my little finger bowl
So full of late filet of sole.
Cousin George at lunch one day
Remarked, “That apple looks quite tasty.
Now George a dentist’s bill must pay
Because he was so very hasty.
The proverb’s teachings we must hold
“All that glitters is not gold.”
And mama said to George, “Oh, shoot,
You’ve gone and ruined my glass fruit.”
Jim broke bread into his soup,
Jim knocked Mrs. Vanderbilt for a loop.
Kate drank from her finger bowl,
Kate knocked Mrs. Vanderbilt for a goal.
Children who perform such tricks
Are socially in Class G-6.