Garden of Good Manners

When I saw this craft kit, a recent incident immediately came to mind. We were at a baseball tournament and one of the other parents had brought along candy for the kids. When he offered some to my kids, I said okay and like I normally do, I said “Make sure you say thank you.” to my kids. His son, who was standing next to me, said “I don’t want to. He’s my dad, I don’t have to say that to my dad.” I was shocked, to say the least. Saying “please” and “thank you” are habits I have been instilling into my children since they were first able to talk – and I STARTED by making sure they said it at home, to us.

The Garden of Good Manners isn’t really a book – but it’s sold at Amazon.com so I decided it qualified, lol. It is an adorable mini bulletin board set that lets children build their own beautiful garden of manners by earning flowers, bugs and banners for things like thank you, please, I’m sorry and other common courtesies.

Here is a review of how this worked for one mom:

I have found that when it comes to teaching my children manners the best way to do it is by showing manners myself when they do something for me. In time they started to pick up what I was trying to get across and started using their own manners. Then when they reached about 5 or 6 they forgot them again. It didn’t seem to be as much fun as it was when they thought they were mimicking me or pleasing me.

I found this cute little craft item and decided to get it to see if it helped. Believe it or not it did. Once it was put together and placed where they could see it every day they began to use their manners again with very little prompting from me.

They enjoyed building their manner garden too. They got a kick out of putting the flowers and bugs in their garden. The flowers held the manners and came in bright fascinating colors that my children just loved. The bugs were an extra that gave them more fun in their creation.

Now we have a manners garden. They use their manners most of the time and even have a tendency to remind each other when manners are forgotten. May I, thank you, please, excuse me and even I’m sorry are now a permanent part of their vocabulary. I’m so proud of them and they are excited to see that with the use of manners their garden will continue to grow and prosper.

• Turn Old T-Shirts Into Keepsake Pillows
• But Mom, I'm BORED!!!
• Save Money on Groceries: 9 Simple Ways
• Free But Romantic Valentine's Dates
• Frugal Family Valentine's Day Traditions