Kid’s Etiquette in the 1980’s

You don't sleep in tents and cook hotdogs on a grill at these camps; you take dance classes and learn “the right way to do things.”

Courtesy Camps

What comes to mind when you think of summer camp? Daddy Long Leg spiders? The time you short-sheeted your counselor's bed? Whatever you think of, it probably deals with lots of dirt, and lots of fun.

But what would you do if you found out you were spending the summer at a "manners" camp? You don't sleep in tents and cook hotdogs on a grill at these camps; you take dance classes and learn "the right way to do things."

One of these camps, The Emily Post Summer Camp, meets at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida. The session lasts for four days. Kids take dance classes to learn both old-fashioned and modern dancing. They learn telephone manners, how to write thank you notes, and how to behave properly at the table. They even have time left over to swim and play games!

But not all the kids who go there are happy about it. Barbara Smart, who handles public relations for the camp, says "It would be fibbing to say that they're all delighted to be here. None of them are kicking and screaming. but it may be the step just before that." Smart says the kids end up enjoying the camp, though: "They have two hours of class and the rest of the afternoon free they may not have been to a place like the Breakers before. and they make lots of friends here."

Christopher Brett, a thirteen year old from Palm Beach, went to the camp last year. He liked it so much, he's going back this year. "It was really fun, but at the same time you got to learn all this stuff. I think it was funner than other camps, especially at the place it was."

Another camp, the L'Ecole des Ingenues, in Atlanta, Georgia, takes manners even more seriously. The camp director. Anne Oliver, calls it "more than just an etiquette camp." It's more like an old-fashioned finishing school for teenage girls. They learn how to act when they go to the ballet, which fork to use during a meal, the proper way to behave at tea time and other social events.

Oliver says there is an "etiquette epidemic" right now. When the camp started in 1976, fewer people were interested in manners. "When I opened, parents were sending their daughters. Now, almost ten years later, the girls are asking to be sent." – By Julie Langsdorf for Gannett News Service, 1985

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