Asma Balfaqih
Good manners
Why good manners begin at home
In my years as a teacher in Taiz and Mukalla I kept observing the same thing. The children who treated each other most respectfully in class were rarely the ones who knew the most rules by heart. They were the children who saw adults at home listening to each other, saying thank you and asking for forgiveness.
For a child, good manners are nothing abstract. They are the tone at the breakfast table, the way siblings share a toy, and the moment a father says: I am sorry, I was too loud. These are exactly the scenes I collected for the series "Good Manners at Home", because children recognise themselves in them immediately.
My advice to parents is therefore very simple. Do not look for the perfect poster of rules for the kitchen wall. Read a short story aloud, ask one single question about it and listen to what your child tells you. More grows out of conversations like these than out of any reprimand.