The Mask of Manners

Child specialists agree that manners are more than the facade — the curtsy, the bow, table decorum and social niceties. Underlying them in any situation must be a consideration for others, and this consideration stems from a sense of inner security and dignity. 

— Photo source, Etiquipedia private library

Mere “Mask” Of Manners Is Assailed

“EVENTUALLY,” Amy Vanderbilt, author and authority on etiquette, said recently, “good manners will be almost the only status symbol left — but only if these manners are second nature.”


Child specialists agree that manners are more than the facade — the curtsy, the bow, table decorum and social niceties. Underlying them in any situation must be a consideration for others, and this consideration stems from a sense of inner security and dignity.


To judge a person’s character by his manners can be misleading, these authorities point out: Manners can mask true feelings.


“The child who is ‘too good’ is a child about whom you worry,” said Mrs Lucille Stein, director of parent counseling for the Child Study Association of America. “This applies to adults as well. The whole facade of manners can keep an individual from having real contact with people — sort of like never getting your hands dirty. It may be a symptom of emotional illness.”

Learn Rewards

The problem for parents is one of steering between rigidity, which may produce a stifled personality, and permissiveness, which may leave a child unprepared for social communication, anxious and selfish.


Children are born self-centered. However, they can learn at an early age that to, “do unto others” brings rewards. They also discover that manners can be fun — as, for example, the little girl who enjoys playing hostess at a tea party. The child thus develops self-confidence and the ability, according to Mrs Stein, “to detach from his mother, and find his place in the family and his age group and to move out into the world.”


No parent, however, can expect his child to learn all the desirable manners at once; age must be taken into account. Nor can the parent expect perfect adherence at all times; lapses must be expected. Nor should the parent be a stickler for a particular form of expression — “What a swell gift!” May be one child's way of saying, “Thank you.”


“Sometimes parents get upset by poor manners or lack of sharing,” Mrs Stein noted. “Their standards are beyond those which the child is able to work with. A child of 4 can understand the concept of sharing, but not until he is 5 or 6 can he appreciate the purpose of trying to behave at the dinner table with adults. The ability grows with the child.”

Special Challenge

Often, parents of the pre-adolescent — the child in the 7 to 11 age group —must overlook a great deal of negligence and manners. It is normal during this stage of growth to see children bolting out of the door to join their friends, leaving all semblance of manners behind.


The teenager, however, offers a special challenge to the parent. This time in life is one of rebellion, or even anti-social behavior. This is a time when parents must find a compromise between continual nagging and total permissiveness. The most important stimulant to good manners, authorities agree, is the example set by parents.


And it is in this area that parents often are at fault. Parents who are concerned about their child's poor manners, would be wise to examine their own.


“Manners come best,” said Mrs Aline B. Auerbach, director of parent-group education for the Child Study Association, “in families where the feeling of consideration for one another is part of daily life. The form isn't so important —it's the feeling.” — The New York Times, 1960

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Fostering Good Manners in Children

The old ideal of training in behavior was based largely upon the principle of the child’s consideration for its elders; the modern principle demands also the elders’ consideration for the child. -1915

Have you better manners than your children?

In the course of a very interesting article, entitled “Your Children’s Manners” in the Woman’s Home Companion, appears the following wise commentary: 

“Good company manners depend upon good home manners. As for table manners, the active child, who from his earliest years has been accustomed to regular meals of simple food with sufficient variety for his health and pleasure, will be hungry enough at mealtime to eat anything that is put before him. If, from the beginning, he has been encouraged by example, then good table manners will be as natural as breathing. They will be a part of him, and he will make use of them wherever he is.  

“The place for a parent to begin training the manners of her child is with her own manners. Whenever a mother complains of the bad manners of her child, she is unconsciously lodging a complaint against herself as a mother. The old ideal of training in behavior was based largely upon the principle of the child’s consideration for its elders; the modern principle demands also the elders’ consideration for the child.” — San Pedro News, 1915

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia©️Etiquette Encyclopedia

Japanese Candy Etiquette

Candy etiquette for Japanese children in the US was just as stringent as the etiquette for those in Japan, ten years later. 

It Is Not Considered Good Form to Partake of Sweets 

(or any other foods) on the Street in Japan...

Children Observe Rule

Homer Croy writes of the Japanese in Leslie's: “One day as I was going along the street I saw a candy man sitting on a stool beside his cart fashioning delicacies with his two flying thumbs. Taking a ball of candy mixture, he would give it a few pinches, a twist, dab on a red spot and there would be a fish. Taking up another ball he would give it a few twists and he would have a radish. Half a dozen of these, he would put into a thumb-made candy plate, the size of a chocolate wrapper, and sell for half a cent. Buying a plate of tiny delicacies I gave it to a girl, expecting to see her down it in good old American fashion, but instead of falling on it greedily, she made a courtly bow and tore down the street as fast as her wooden shoes would let her. 

I looked after her in astonishment, thinking that this upset every child theory I had, and I determined to try it again. So I waited until the two flying thumbs had molded another delicacy and proffered this to a second child. Down the street she flew, too, her walnut knot of hair wobbling excitedly. When I bought the third delicacy I gave it to a child that was weighted down with a baby on her back and followed after, while she went bobbing down the street, the baby's head rolling heavily. I found her sitting on the floor, eating the sirupy fish and candy radishes with many delighted sucks and appreciative grunts. Then I understood; it was not polite to eat on the street, but under her father's gray tile roof it was the height of form to dispose of the sweets with all the gustatory gurglings that her delighted soul wished. – Sausalito News, 1916

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

A Plea for Elementary Etiquette

The teacher who adopts the rule of saying with a smile, “Thank you,” will be more cheerfully obeyed, and we all know that we comply more cheerfully when asked “Will you kindly do so and so?” than when we are commanded “to do so and so.”

In all of the ultra-fashioned schools girls particularly are taken through a regular course of etiquette, to fit them for the social world, and why not the children less fortunate who have no advantages of home training. A woman of refinement teaching a public school must often feel revolted at the manners of the little people who are so easily corrected when approached in the proper spirit, and it would seem less unpleasant to reform these tender sprigs than to train the hardened shoots of later years. A teacher who meets the children confided to her with a pleasant “Good morning” fosters a habit that a child will never outgrow. The teacher who adopts the rule of saying with a smile, “Thank you,” will be more cheerfully obeyed, and we all know that we comply more cheerfully when asked “Will you kindly do so and so?” than when we are commanded “to do so and so.” No one is ever the loser through extending courtesy, and we all know how much pleasure these trifles add to life. The politeness clauses should embrace a series of “talks,” or as the Italians say “conversaziones,” in which various topics should be discussed. 

An amiable teacher with a well developed vein of humor would find such classes a pleasant relaxation, but she should cultivate the tact that steers clear of both ridicule and sarcasm. A sensitive child, who felt its lack of polish, would be deeply hurt by ridicule in the presence of a whole school, but this self same sensitive young one would be the quickest to profit by such lessons. In this splendid country of ours, where fortunes are made in a day and the sons of laborers have an equal chance, through brains and, ability, of rising to the very highest positions in the gift of the people, where the daughters, through beauty of person or that indefinable charm of grace, may wed millionaires, the necessity of this species of training is obvious. Many of these children know nothing of the graceful amenities of life, which they are so anxious to learn. They are ambitious and self-reliant, as all American children are, and yet are hampered by the total ignorance of the merest rudiments of social ethics. In Washington, those having the interests of the rising generation at heart, cannot fail to appreciate the value of a course of “polite lessons” in the schools. – San Francisco Call, 1903

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Kids’ Manners Last to Awaken

Siblings thawing out as the day goes on... “Once we get a chance to work off a bit of our bad manners in ill-humored speech or need we feel better immediately and the day takes on a more hopeful glow. We begin to thaw out and our manners steal back one by one, like guilty sheep that had gone astray.”

Our Children and Morning Manners

Manners are always shy at getting up in the morning. Perhaps they are the last of our accomplishments to waken, but surely, whatever the reason, they are conspicuously absent in the general family breakfast gathering. The children scrambling to be off on time for school, add to the unpleasantness. They are without a shadow of manners before noon! “Shut up!” snaps Jane. “Why don’t you step on my ear?” growls brother George. “Can't you remember there’s somebody else at the breakfast table beside yourself?” flares big sister. “I’m striving hard to forget it,” retorts Big Brother and having for once been equal to the occasion be forthwith unbounds and in beaming good humor passes the sugar to his offended sister. There's something about us that works that way. 

Once we get a chance to work off a bit of our bad manners in ill-humored speech or need we feel better immediately and the day takes on a more hopeful glow. We begin to thaw out and our manners steal back one by one like guilty sheep that had gone astray. There is none among us who has not been guilty and who has not wished and hoped for a happier morning mood. “Perhaps!” we muse, “the children will manage better. Their manners may hold over until the morning. Perhaps!" For the children’s sakes, let’s hope so. It is as hard to be had mannered as it is to bear the bad matters of those who wreak them upon us. What can wo do to prop the children’s morning manners? Begin the night before. Send them to bed on time and in the right mood. Watch them fold and arrange their clothes so that they will be easy to find and put on in the morning. That's a big part of the battle. Call them on time and see that they get their turn in the bathroom. 

Bathroom etiquette has a great deal to do with the good humor and consequent good manners of the family In the mornings. The person who monopolizes the bathroom for shaving or hairdressing or private laundry work is an outcast and an alien, and should be dealt with accordingly. Also the person who splashes about like a mislaid whale and flaps out leaving his watery wake to fluster the next comer. Who wouldn't be snorty at finding the tub one-third full of milky water, with a dreary washrag floating about in it, or a hairknot, with a buuch of hairpins sticking in it, afloat on the edge of the lavatory? Morning manners are always bad, always have been bad, but perhaps we might do a little toward improving them even if it were breakfasting alone when the mood was too bad or staying up all night and prolonging the genial manner of the mellower hours? Anyway try to make It a bit easier for the children. – By Angelo Patri, 1923

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

Children’s Social Etiquette Education

Any attempt at overdressing is at once frowned upon by wealthy mothers of today, and it would surprise many a poor mother to see the garments that the rich children, whose inheritances are matters of almost national gossip, wear habitually. Plainness, when it does not mean ugliness, is what is insisted upon! 

Their Dress and Deportment - Work Time and Playtime - Childish Manners and Development

The small child of today begins her social education when she is six or eight years old by going to the juvenile dancing or gymnasium class. A most successful Swedish teacher in New York, who has the names of many prospective little millionaires on her books, says that she endeavors to teach her small charges that they must strive to do as she instructs because they are gentlewomen, and that being gentlewomen, they cannot possibly be guilty of the many breaches of manners and decorum that are all too often indulged in by heedless childhood. 

At the gymnasium, a little bloomer suit of white Henrietta or cashmere or mohair is worn, with white stockings and white canvas rubber-soled shoes. Boys and girls stand side by side and learn the same exercises, and the nursery maids stand outside and follow the lesson throughout, so that they may intelligently aid the little pupils in practice at home. The dancing class is a part of the regulation gymnasium curriculum, aud such of the little folks whose parents desire it are taught solo dances, which really bring out quite a little of the child's personality.

At an entertainment where children undertook all of the performance, one little girl appeared in a dance and chorus which did not take very well, and so was not encored. At its conclusion she betook herself to her mother's box and watched the part in which her cousin appeared. This was wildly encored, and the mother feared that her small daughter's feelings might be hurt. But the little one smiled and said: "What do you think, mother; they made Maisie's class do their dance three times over. I guess they did not do it quite right the first time, and so they had to do it over again. 

Very quickly do the youngsters nowadays appreciate what is good form in dress and other matters. Any attempt at overdressing is at once frowned upon by wealthy mothers of today, and it would surprise many a poor mother to see the garments that the rich children, whose inheritances are matters of almost national gossip, wear habitually. Plainness, when it does not mean ugliness, is what is insisted upon. 

For the dancing school the favored style is a fine lingerie frock, with delicately tinted or white hair ribbon, and sometimes a sash. Either white or black silk stockings aud black patent leather slippers are worn, colored footwear being considered in very poor taste. Colored silk stockings or slips are permitted only to girls who have seen at least a dozen summers: they are supposed to find no place whatsoever in the wardrobe of her younger sister. – Los Angeles Herald, 1906

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

Praising Halloween Etiquette

1950's ‘Trick or Treaters’ – If children will be saying “trick or treat” make sure they also say, “please” and “thank you.”
And how does one manage kids with sensory issues at Halloween? The best way to prepare a child who is on the spectrum (ASD) for Halloween is to first ask them if they want to do it. They may not want to ‘trick or treat’ but they may want to still be involved in having a costume and being there to receive ‘trick or treaters’ as opposed to door knocking. Make sure you purchase a costume ahead of time to ensure that they get used to the feeling of the fabric and walking in the costume. Also consider buy a costume with a mask so if they decide they don’t want to get into costume they may still decide to wear a mask. If they decide they do want to ‘trick or treat’ then there are a couple of things you can do to help ensure they are properly supported. Social stories are a great way to begin and you can either write your own or at least support the idea of ‘trick or treat’ in reality by planning a route on paper together and then pacing it out before the big night. -  tips from BrisbaneKids.com.au

Word of Praise

Dear Editor: A word of praise for the smaller children is, in my opinion, never out of place; in fact, praise would be given anyone should he or she merit it. Therefore, I think the children who took part in the Halloween Art Contest sponsored by the Healdsburg Rotary Club and the Healdsburg Chamber of Commerce, should be commended and praised for their good manners and behavior during the contest. 

I was with them a great part of the time, so I know they were great. On Halloween night there were well over 100 children that stopped at our house for “trick or treat.” Each one said “thank you” as they left. So I for one have nothing but a word of praise for Healdsburg's well behaved children. They deserve it. –R.L. Whitwell to the Healdsburg Tribune, Enterprise and Scimitar, 1955

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

Etiquette and a Willful Child

 A person of tact can always distract the child's attention from its own obstinacy, and in a few moments lead it gently 'round to submission. 

Breaking the Child’s Will

No art is so useful in the management of young children (nor is any art so neglected) as that of avoiding direct collision. The grand blunder which almost all parents and nursemaids commit is, that when the child takes up a whim against doing what he is wanted to do—will not eat his bread and butter, will not go out, will not come to lessons, etc.,— they, so to speak, lay hold of his hind leg, and drag him to his duties; whereas a person of tact can always distract the child's attention from its own obstinacy, and in a few moments lead it gently 'round to submission. 

We know that many persons would think it wrong not to break down the child’s self-will by main force, to come to battle with it, and show him that he is the weaker vessel; but our conviction is that such struggles only tend to make his self-will more robust. If you can skillfully contrive to lay the dispute aside for a few minutes, and hitch his thoughts off the excitement of the contest, ten to one, he will give in quite cheerfully; and this is far better for him than tears and punishment. — Red Bluff Independent, 1874

 Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

Etiquette and Our Elders

As a rule, your parents and your teachers are your best counsellors. They have traveled the road before you, and have your highest interests at heart. Listen to them.

Duty to Older People

“The mildest manners, and the gentlest heart.” —Pope

1) Show especial deference—not indifference—to your superiors in age, office, and the like. Do this not once, but always. Watch for opportunities.

2) Rise, when an older person who is standing begins to talk to you.

3) If you wish to become a musician, you seek help from the finest musical instructor within reach. Just so in the greater art of living effectively, seek help from those who have learned wisdom. As a rule, your parents and your teachers are your best counsellors. They have traveled the road before you, and have your highest interests at heart. Listen to them. Don't make your life a wild experiment in blundering; it doesn't pay.

4) Never regard age, even advanced age, as a joke. To do so blunts your own sensibilities.— From 1921's “Manners and Conduct in School and Out” by Fanny R. Smith

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette and "Mother's Secret"

He looks angelic, but were his manners as assured and correct as those of a grown man?

I once knew a lady whose son, a little lad of ten, was the admiration of everyone for his beautiful manners. While he was perfectly simple, frank and boyish, his manners were as assured and correct as those of a grown man. His mother could send him in a carriage alone to the station to bring a lady guest from the station, certain that he would give her every needful attention. He would take the checks, care for the baggage and bring her to the house with every courtesy. And always when visitors were at his home, he did his little share of entertaining them. He was quick to wait upon them and to show them every respect, and, though he was not forward, he was ready to converse with them if they seem so inclined.

"How do you manage it? What course of training do you pursue?" People used to inquire. "Well," I heard his mother answer, laughingly, at one time, "for one thing I never snubbed him. He has no idea that there are people in the world who do not like boys. He supposes that everybody is as friendly as himself. Then I have always brought them up to take care of me, and to be polite to me, and I am as careful to be considerate and courteous to him as I am to his father. So he never has to be put on his good manners; they are the habit of his life. I think that is all about there is to it." —From American Youth, 1893

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Moderator for Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Teaching Children Table Manners ~ The Art, Science and Tools

On children learning table manners ~"Every human being without exception must pass through this rite of passage, being forbidden the motherly breast or the bottle and taught to eat solid food. The child must learn for most of its mealtimes to give up sucking, the skill with which it was born.  The area inside the cheeks of small children is well provided with taste buds, which adults' cheeks are not; babies taste not only with their tongues but with their cheeks. This is thought to be why they like packing their mouths with food. They must be made to take less at a time." Margaret Visser, The Rituals of Dinner

Art and Ingenuity
Teaching children etiquette is an art, but it is also a science. Ingenuity and creativity are needed to get children to learn table manners. Repetition of what they have been taught is also needed. Take for example these patented items below. They are for teaching children how to eat properly and were designed to instill good table manners. The patents exhibit the 19th and early 20th century historical standpoints of attempting to not only design, but to teach. And all of the rules being taught, still matter today.

These 2 forks above, one hand-crafted in the late 1800s and the other patented in July of 1900, were specifically designed to teach a child how to eat properly. You may be thinking, "Those are simply 'youth-sized' forks." And they are youth sized forks, but looking on the back sides of them, they reveal another story...

I have lightened the photo up a bit, so that you can see fork one reads, "For the Left Hand". The lower fork has a "finger guide" for a child to place his or her finger into, though the artist at the time, drew the illustration with the wrong hand using the fork.  At the time, artists for this type of work were not well paid and were generally from a lower social strata. It is quite possible that the artist drawing this particular graphic did not know how to use a fork properly.  Regardless, the advertisement went into Munsey's Magazine, etiquette flaw and all.

A "child training fork" properly used in the left hand.

Above ~ Eliza is showing the correct hands for using the knife and fork, while still practicing her technique. An interesting tidbit on etiquette and children: Sixteenth-century rules of etiquette were that children leave the table before the end of dinner, take their place settings with them, and take the chairs with them as well.   

The 1932 patented plate, shown below, was designed with a variety of children depicted and added to the plate, after it was made. All have large indentations that are marked as to where a child's fork and spoon would go. The patent itself is more than just vague on what the indentations on either side are for, as I am certain that many inventors and designers did not want to give others any new ideas.

This patent's description for a metal attachment to plates, from 1900, is much more clear on how it is to help children learn to eat with utensils: "In using the device the plate is filled with edibles -- say soup, for instance. The child naturally attempts to fill its spoon by pulling the spoon through the dish and ordinarily will drag the spoon and its contents over the rim of the plate; but in the present instance the spoon will be arrested by the abutment 'e' and then the child will have to lift the spoon clear of the attachment, and thus will be prevented from wasting its food and caused to lift the spoon properly.

It will be seen from the foregoing that the objects of the attachment are to enable a child to feed itself without causing the spoon or other article to slip from the plate, owing to its awkwardness and handling the same, and to avoid the soiling of the table-cloth and other surroundings. By means of this attachment the use of a spoon, and etc..., is considerably facilitated, and the child will be able to feed itself in a very short time and is not tempted to use its left hand in eating as an accessory to the spoon or other article, nor, as is so often the case, to disregard all accessories and make use of its hands alone."  

Assorted "etiquette spoons," a training fork and other youth utensils ~ "It is ironic that we repeatedly encourage babies to burp after eating.  Within a short while however, we are just as vigorously teaching them not to burp at the table." Maura Graber, The RSVP Institute of Etiquette

Though these spoons were not new, being marketed as "Etiquette Spoons" was a new development in the late 1800s.

Below is another "child training" utensil patent from 1947.  While newer designs for children's utensils, and their patents, still show up now into the 21st century, they are designed many times more for convenience and for novelty, as opposed to learning proper utensil use.  The period from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, really was the golden age for utensils and other table items designed for teaching table manners to children. 

This 1947 "training implement for infants" had a "swivel" feature that I am sure kept toddlers entertained, but probably did little to teach the child to move the spoon in the swivel motion himself, or herself.

Contributor Maura Graber has been teaching etiquette to children, teens and adults, and training new etiquette instructors, for nearly a quarter of a century, as founder and director of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette.  She is also a writer, has been featured in countless newspapers, magazines and television shows and was an on-air contributor to PBS in Southern California for 15 years.