Manners involve a wide range of social interactions within cultural norms.
Emily Post, the guru of etiquette, said "Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others.
If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use."
This past month my 17 year old son in grade 12 came down with mononucleosis! Not fun at all. He was incredibly sick for the first two weeks and then started to have a quick recovery. But it’s a funny virus; you have to be very careful not to have a relapse. So when he asked me a few weeks later to go have a games night at a friend's house, I was a bit concerned about what time he would return home to get his needed rest.
I asked him to be home by 11pm. He replied that the game would not be over by then. He said that you couldn't start a game that you cannot finish. What I realized is that my son had learned that even playing board games requires good manners and good sportsmanship. So I let him go but made him promise that the next night he would be in bed extra early. I’m still a mom!
The operative word here is awareness. It's agreed that manners need to be taught. And teaching your children manners gives them lifelong survival skills. In fact, kids who don't have social graces are likely to have a more difficult time with friends, family and teachers.
We have all seen kids behaving in an unmannered way. In a restaurant or grocery store or even at Disneyland, whining, kicking, running around, fights, yelling or crying. If children are never taught any better, they will never do any better. Teaching manners doesn't have to be a punishment. You can use games to make teaching manners fun.
For young children, there are games for teaching manners like "Mother May I" you can add "Mother May I Please" The exchange before moving is "Mother, May I please take 2 steps?" "Yes, you may," "Thank you," "Your welcome." After each four-phrase exchange the child moves and the next player asks.
Board games that teach manners such as The Picnic Basket Manners Game (by Playskool Noodleboro), Blunders (by Successful Kids), Don't Pick Your Nose (by Bambini), and Wise Alec (by Griddly Games) are all great tools to support this development.
The lack of good manners and sportsmanship can have serious consequences. We've all read stories in the news about a sporting events gone awry because of poor sportsmanship. I can't help but cringe every time I read such an article. It seems the level of unsportsmanlike conduct and incivility continues to grow all around us in society.
So how do you teach your children to lose gracefully? It takes time to learn to not throw playing pieces or argue over a board game. It doesn't mean that every game will teach good sportsmanship but that by using some strategies over time kids better learn how to lose gracefully. Good sportsmanship is learned.
Kids will imitate. So make sure you show good sportsmanship yourself. If you're a poor sport or have a hard time losing, then your attitude will surely show through. So the first way to teach is to live it yourself.
Joy is in the Journey. We all have to face disappointments along the road of life. And in the life of a child those disappointments will come many times a day.
It will take repeated reminders, but teaching that the fun is in the activity rather than the outcome will go a long way in teaching the proper perspective about disappointments. When spending time playing board games together with family and friends children can learn that the process is just as important if not more as the win.
A cool down period will also go a long way in helping settle their minds about losing. Leaving the end of the game with a cool down period is good as long as the child has something positive to think about during the period – such as thoughts of the fun during the game.
Equally as important as teaching to lose gracefully is teaching to win gracefully. Nothing can set off tempers quite like as someone gloating. Good sportsmanship goes both ways and it’s just as important to teach how to be happy for a victory in a game without being a poor sport.
Good sportsmanship has a lot to do with being polite. Expecting children to have good manners before during and after will have a big effect on their learning how to win gracefully. Don't wait for the game to end to talk about winning and losing. Acceptable game behavior needs to be described before the game even starts. Helping to set the stage properly can make for a better game experience overall. Playing a game to have an enjoyable time together is the goal. You just want to see them enjoy themselves, try their best and get better every time they play.
The more opportunities you give your children to practice their good sportsmanship the better they will do in learning how to win and lose gracefully.
At the end of every game take time to talk about the experience. What improvements you see in their reasoning or in their abilities to comprehend the strategy of the game. But one of the most important things to talk about is everyone's behavior. Talk about how enjoyable the experience it was playing with them and how great it was they played to make it fun for all.
Board games provide a fantastic environment for learning many of life's important lessons. Play is necessary to positive human development! Playing board games as a family or with friends or in the classroom is a great way to bond and experience some of that competitive spirit in a fun and healthy manner while giving children the opportunity to work on their emotional education.
Manners do count and playing board games is a great way to learn all those lessons!
About Griddly Games
Griddly Games creates award-winning party and board games that deliver innovative, engaging fun that brings people together while encouraging social interaction, learning, strategy and challenges that anyone (the entire grid of people) can enjoy. To discover more about Griddly Games, visit www.griddlygames.com.
