People often judge homeschool families by the first impressions they make. Today on Home School Heartbeat, Mike Farris, Chairman and General Counsel of Home School Legal Defense Association, talks with June Hines Moore, author of The Etiquette Advantage.
Michael Farris:
June, we’ve discussed your etiquette material on Home School Heartbeat in the past, and it’s great to finally have you here in person. Welcome to our program.
June Hines Moore:
Thank you, Michael. It’s good to be with you.
Mike:
If I’m at a nice dinner and my 2-year-old son dumps a plate of food in my lap, how should I respond?
June:
Well, your first response would be a terrific reaction, I’m sure. But we need to remember the Golden Rule. We want to treat the child as we would want to be treated. If this is an accident, then we need to treat it that way. If it’s just playfulness at 2 years old, it could be either one. But this is not the time to discipline the child, especially in front of other people.
Mike:
Can you give me an example of a distinction between etiquette and manners?
June:
Well, let’s say that I go to someone’s office and he says, “Oh, Mrs. Moore, we surely do need a lot of etiqwette taught.” Well, he has mispronounced the word of the subject that I teach, and I would like for him to know how to say it correctly. But I must not correct him, so what I’d do in that situation is just use the word etiquette every time I talk about manners rather than use the word manners, and sometimes he corrects himself. But we have to be gracious and accept them where they are in their knowledge of the rules.
