Manners Matter on the Path from Child to Adult

Just a quick note this morning to alert you to a great article in this morning's New York Times.

Entitled: Making Room for Miss Manners is a Parenting Basic, the article is written by Dr. Perri Klass, one of the best-known writer/physicians in the country.

Here's an exerpt that I particularly enjoy:

"I like Miss Manners’ approach because it lets a parent respect a child’s intellectual and emotional privacy: I’m not telling you to like your teacher; I’m telling you to treat her with courtesy. I’m not telling you that you can’t hate Tommy; I’m telling you that you can’t hit Tommy. Your feelings are your own private business; your behavior is public.

"But that first big counterintuitive lesson — that there are other people out there whose feelings must be considered — affects a child’s most basic moral development. For a child, as for an adult, manners represent a strategy for getting along in life, but also a successful intellectual engagement with the business of being human."