The Importance of Table Manners

Series Summary

Social expectations of behavior at the dinner table vary among different areas of the world and among different levels of socioeconomic status. Table etiquette is the code that governs social behaviors at the dining table. The “cultural norm” is another way to define the word “etiquette.” Living up to a society’s definition of the social standard, can be daunting at times. There are many rules and regulations for various situations, including greeting one another, dining together, interacting together, dating, and conversing with one another. Violating these social codes can lead to public disgrace, hurt feelings, feuds, misunderstandings and, in some cases, murderous rage.

In this series of expert videos, you will learn all about table etiquette. Begin your etiquette lesson with a video on “What to do with napkins.” Expand your knowledge of etiquette with these instructional video clips. Learn the rules about bread and seasoning your food. Watch these videos to learn about the different types of silverware that may be at a formal dinner. Learn more about cutting and eating your food. Watch as our expert teaches the proper way to hold a wine glass. What do you do if you drop your silverware on the floor? Watch these videos to find out!

Video Transcript

"One of the great challenges that we face as parents of young children is teaching our kids table manners. Of course, we all want our children to be well behaved and polite and to have great manners, but it can be a very daunting task particularly if you are the parent of a picky eater. We all know how that can be. It's all you can do, you know get them to put a piece of food into their mouths and then when you throw in rules and table manners and all that into the equation, it could seem just completely overwhelming to a parent. My suggestion is that you really start out slow and take into consideration your child's age, maturity, temperament. Not every child is going to be ready at exactly the same age and if your dealing with a really picky eater you might want to add any level of stress to a very young toddler by trying to teach them table manners. As the child progresses though it is important that you instill good habits form an early age because if you don't what's going to happen is they're going to learn bad habits and to try to break them along the way is probably is going to end up costing both you and your child a lot of needless frustration. So I would say start very slow to pick one rule, one thing that you want to teach at a time and once they have that mastered then you can move on to something else. Don't overwhelm your children with rules and things that they need to remember when they come to the table because dining after all is supposed to be an enjoyable experience. In the next clips I'm going to give some tips and just some rules of thumb to remember when your teaching your children table manners."