Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. I was out at a restaurant this week where a little girl and her quite small brother, kindergarten age girl, was making everyone smile around her. She got up after the waitress took the order, she got up and she went across and she was speaking to the waitress, she followed her across and then came back carrying glasses of water, the little girl did, with the waitress sort of coming behind her with the others smiling and then off they went and the little girl came back with some knives and forks for the family and began walking around the table setting them out and she was doing it with real earnestness with her little brother, maybe a three-year-old, just sort of trotting along behind helping where he could and I watched this and it was relatively clear that the parents were used to this drill because they were smiling too, they weren't embarrassed, they weren't anything other than, yep, she does this sometimes, kind of look on their face and they caught my eye, they were sort of right in my eye line through that meal and these two little children needed, like any kids, they needed a little help with this and that during the meal but one of the things I did notice is how good their manners were and how they, it's a funny word, but comported themselves over the entire experience, they don't mean just eating, I mean the way they got up, the way they held, both of them held the parents hands to get out of a very busy restaurant which otherwise could have flipped them out, you know, it was one of these fast-paced Italian type places and they weren't being flipped out, they were held by the rituals and by the manners that their parents had taught them, I was quite quite sure of it because I remember as little ones, my little kids, it being very very similar, is that when kids have a series of known ways of being that they're taught at home, when they go out into busier environments, that's what anchors them and helps them not get out of themselves, it helps them not get goofy and overstimulated and then that goes on and it gets too much and then the arguments start and then they start running around and you have to bring them back and then the tears start and, ah, recognize it? We've all been through it to some extent but what having our children learn manners and just, it's a little more than just simple pleases and thank yous, although that's important too, that's really important, it's just here is the way we do this, here is the way the napkin gets put on the table, in this case table manners, here is the way that the knives and forks get laid, this little girl, actually she, that was her job at home and she wasn't quite old enough to realize yet that, you know, people do that for you when you go out and so she went and did it because that's a part of manners as well, you know, she's laying the table.
Then when the meal came and the family held hands for a moment and said a little thank you for the food they were about to, that was just a part of their ritual, that was a part of their manners and each time a plate of food was brought both children said thank you to the waitress who was bringing it and she said with a smile on her face, you know, you're welcome and it was just a part, there was this ritualistic exchange. Now why does that help kids navigate, yeah? Now, you know, it's not particularly complicated, you know, you might see where I'm going with this but what having good manners does is that it makes things predictable on a micro level, you know, there's predictability and rhythm, all the big rhythms in the day, all the stuff that you do when children get home after school and bedtimes and then wake up times and getting ready, they're lovely, the lovely big macro rhythms but there's also micro rhythms and the micro rhythms, these small little rhythms are one of the best ways to bring this to children is through good manners because then what you have is predictability because when that little girl said thank you for the pizza or whatever it was that was being put on her table and the server said you're welcome, the little girl knew that the you're welcome would come and it did. So therefore the world is safe, the world is secure and each time a child knows how to act in an environment, knows that this is what we do, knows that we don't barge, for example, we don't barge through a door.
If we're the first to the door, particularly if it's a little child, you can coach them to open the door, they need to go through because they're not strong enough to hold it, you know, just with an arm reaching in but they can walk inside, hold the door open whilst their little brother and mum walks through and then they release the door and make sure that it doesn't bang too loudly. Little things like that because then they know how to enter a space. Now that's important that a child knows how to enter a space and yes it's good for manners and so on and so on but my main interest in this is that it helps a child feel secure and over the years when I've been visiting homes of countless numbers of parents and I've seen children who don't have that anchor in good manners, it's one of the things we work really hard on and it's not just because of behaviour at all actually, although that's great, but it's because it secures a child.
If a child is not feeling safe and secure, they will ping us as I write about in the Soul of Discipline book, they will echolocate us, they will send out bad behaviour in order to secure themselves and then we respond and then get into it and there's a discipline situation. So much easier to have warm, lovely, good manners and I don't mean by this mannered, you know, fake, insincere, you know, you only had to watch that little girl say thank you in this restaurant and the server say with a warm soft face, you're welcome. To know that this was not being mannered and fake, this came right from this little girl's heart and the response came right from the heart of this server who perhaps this little girl will never meet again.
It doesn't matter, what it matters is that it's saying to her the world is good, the world is secure, the world is predictable and you are safe here. What a lovely thought. Okay, bye-bye for now.
