Teaching your child to greet others out of habit, translated…
After reading “Teaching Your Kids to Greet People”, I saw that the author wrote toward the end, “We all want our kids to be courteous, so, let’s all, make models of ourselves then.”, I’d agreed with what the writer said.
My child, when he was younger, he’d taken after both of us, being talkative and all, and, would say “hi” to people that we know without being asked, I’d recalled that when he was just two, whenever he’d heard someone holler at the door, “Is Ai-Leen home?”, he’d automatically place a pair of slippers by our front doors, to welcome in our guests.
from this…
With the coming of age and his stature, my son’s temperaments slowly, changed, when he saw people, he’d become, so shy that he’d not known how to act, and, the grin he’d worn from before, turned into, a frown, and his smiling face became, aloof. As I saw, I’d worried about it, and it was the belief of giving my son a role model that helped me solve this problem.
Every time I’d dropped my son off to school, as I saw the guard or the volunteer crossing guard parents, I’d always worn my smile, and said a loud “hello” and “good morning” to them, then, I’d, turned my head toward my son, and, encouraged him to do the same. At first, my son spoke in a voice only he could hear, “auntie, uncle”, and I’d reminded him, “if someone said hello to me in such a small voice, but I’d not responded, it’s because I didn’t hear the person, not intentionally ignoring her/him.”, my son knew what I was getting at, and would smile that shy smile, then, slowly, he’d gotten rid of his timorousness.
to this…
not my photo here…
Once I’d taken my son to school, as I was about to back my car out of the school, I was called by the security guard, I’d panicked and stopped, thought that my son did something awful in school, but, the security guard smiled at me, said, “You are an amazing mom, since I’d started working, the boys in the older years never said hi to us anymore, but, your son is always courteous as he entered and exited out of the schools, thank you, for teaching him so well!”
After school, I’d relayed the message that the security guard told me to my son, and, there was that ray of confidence that shone from his eyes. Now, every time as my son came home, when there are shoes at the entrance that weren’t ours, or if he’d heard the guests, he would call out, “Hi uncle/auntie”, his voice had, arrived home, before he had.
So, being courteous is a behavior that’s learned, as this mom focused on teaching her son to greet everybody around him, and, although the son was originally a bit shy about it, but, after awhile, he’d gotten used to it, and started doing it on his own, which shows, that courteousness can be taught, so long as the parents showed the kids how it’s done first, and this, is the importance of setting a good example for your child to follow.
Life, the Obstacle Course 