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Table Manners and Toddlers
Are Toddlers Old Enough to Learn Table Manners?
By Shannon McKelden
The dinner table is a great place for families to spend time together, to share their day with each other. Mealtime is even more enjoyable when everyone exhibits good table manners. Teaching a 2-year-old to eat without flinging food in every direction may seem like a long-shot, but really it's not.
"Children are born learning," says Sharen Hausmann, executive director of Smart Start, the early childhood division of United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta. "Keeping this in mind, it is never too early to start helping children learn table manners and appropriate behavior."
Though children are learning from birth, it's important to remember that mastery isn't instantaneous. "Teaching children good manners is a process that takes place over a long period of time, and the skills needed for proper table manners are difficult for young children to master," Hausmann says.
While it takes time for toddlers to become proficient at using manners consistently, it's really not all that difficult to teach them. "I am very amused when parents wish to teach their toddlers table manners but are lost as to how to do it," says Lonna Corder, a personal parenting consultant from San Francisco, Calif. "It's simple: Eat dinner with your child every night and model proper table behavior."
Toddlers are basically little mimics. Their parroting of grownup behaviors is a source of entertainment for parents everywhere. Therefore, if we wish our kids to learn proper table manners, it's important for us to show them how it's done. "The family must work on this together – model, model, model," Corder says. "Our children love to mimic us, good and bad, [so] why not model good? This can not happen if you are standing and talking on the cell phone while your toddler is spoon fed."
