Kindness and Manners by Judy Lyden

I'm posting this comment from a reader because it's so near and dear to my heart. The little girl mentioned here has about the best manners of any child I know. She is also intelligent, artistic, interested and beautiful. But these attributes won't take her as far as her brilliant manners:

The best compliment someone can give me as a parent is to tell me my child is well mannered. This is something we talk about and work on nearly every day - it's that important to our family. We even discuss situations that she has experienced when other children were ill mannered and how that makes her feel. I think sometimes she learns more from the bad manners of others and how it makes her feel than anything we could teach her. Hopefully the lessons she has learned at home and her time spent at GS will carry through her lifetime.

Who is noticed in a classroom today? Mostly it's the kids who can't sit, can't keep quiet, can't put their own desires second to the order of the group. But the experienced teacher sees that the few who always sit quietly, always listen will recognize these children as their golden kids.

Why is it that so few children understand that the order of the day, the order of the group is important to the very life of things at hand? Because the very idea that you come before me has become an alien idea in a push shove world. We have pampered ourselves to the point that our needs, our likes and dislikes, our desires come first. The person next to us only matters if they can add to our lives and what we want. So the idea that kindness to others for the sake of kindness becomes lame. Why should I?

Does a life of kindness towards others mean our own life becomes meaningless? Must we depend on tax money to be our "kind" agent? Children don't know about tax money yet, so do we just nix the idea of kindness toward one another until they do understand?

Every day there are thousands of opportunities to be kind to those around us. Kindness is the route of good manners because kindness is the emotion that surfaces in the human heart when we recognize the needs of others and rally to their cause. Teaching children to recognize the needs of others seems almost impossible sometimes unless parents are teaching the same lesson at home.

Here's a classroom scenario: A child raises her hand and is called on. "Miss Jones, Brian doesn't understand this page, can you help him please?"

"That's none of your business," snaps the teacher.

Brian continues to egg on the other child for the answer. The teacher sees the two children talking and punishes both.

In a fast paced careless age, it's easy to think the one child is tattling on the other and the two children are making mischief in the back of the classroom. But by listening with the heart to the two, another result should have emerged. It's not always easy to be a listener - especially when half the class is poorly mannered. Sometimes a tired teacher will take the low road and learn from the kids, and that's a shame.

The question to ask the self is: What do I see when I look at another person I don't know? Do I see a potential friend or a potential enemy? Do other people pose a threat or are other people mostly benign? The way you see the world is probably the way your children will enter the world because they will be watching you watch the world. Personalities are often developed by unspoken information.

When children enter the world at school, they watch the adults and they often emulate what they see. Teachers who restrict kindness, who pull away from children, who refuse to personally and emotionally enter the life of the classroom will only strengthen the idea in a child that self matters most. On the other hand, great kindness and great involvement will teach children that other people can be a great source of pleasure to them and will add immeasurably to their lives.

A life of kindness and compassion is a life of joy. You can't teach this; you can only experience this when you copy the life of someone who behaves that way. To say that loving one's neighbor first hand makes time spent in the world delightful goes lame and becomes a dead end if the intent behind it only strengthens the selfish side.

In the same way, manners put on for "a result" are not manners at all. "Getting something" because I said the right words or played the game for fifteen seconds is not the mirror of kindness. Real manners come from a way of life - putting the self after the next person for the sake of harmony is the beginning of a life of kindness.

And children need to learn that everyone won't receive their kindness with the same enthusiasm with which it's delivered. A child's disappointment needs to be worked out at home by a loving parent. In time, and with maturity, children will learn that no act of kindness is wasted even if it's not received well. They should learn that some people will refuse to participate in good manners and a life of kindness no matter what he or she does.

The lesson to learn is that loving those around us is the core of good manners. It's a whole other world of understanding some people will learn and others won't. That's what the child in the italics learned very early, and she learned this from her parents who also live that way.