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101 of 104 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good for the kids, and the adults, June 15, 2003
This review is from: 365 Manners Kids Should Know: Games, Activities, and Other Fun Ways to Help Children Learn Etiquette (Paperback)
We have had this book for about a month now, and we have been thoroughly enjoying it. My stepdaughter really enjoys the lessons, but of course it does not make her manners great. While we learn the ideas of new manners, the old ones go out the window unless they are constantly reinforced. Overall, this book is nice as we see improvement and an awareness of how we all can be more pleasant to others, and that the basis of manners is making others like to be around us. This book is great for those of us who have been brought up with manners, but it can be very frustrating when we try to enforce some of the more old-fashioned manners and other adults tell us (in front of the children) that "it's okay" or whatever. When I tell my stepdaughter to call adults Mr. and Mrs. So-And-So and then those adults say not to, that bothers me. Or if I tell my stepdaughter not to push to get in front of adults and they say "that's okay", that bothers me too. It seems that manners are not expected of children these days and I guess that is why we don't see them so often. Plus it takes guts for we adults who believe in manners at all ages to stand up to adults who don't expect manners from children! Well, I think kids are really excited about manners, as my stepdaughter asks all the time to have her dad read from "the manners book". And this book has all the manners that you remember as a kid: table manners, the lost art of the THANK YOU letter, etiquette when you are a guest at someone else's home (what to bring, what to say), etc. I really like it so far! Another reviewer mentioned that the lessons are laid out for each day of the year. That doesn't really apply to us either, since my stepdaughter isn't here every day, so we just started at the beginning and use a bookmark to pick up at the next lesson. Some lessons are very short, some are longer, and the book is broken into chapters so you can look up specific situations as well if you need to. We've enjoyed it and we highly recommend it. I actually recommended it to a lady in a restaurant who had a remarkably polite two-year-old. You don't have to wait until bad manners are a habit to introduce good manners. Kids are so eager to do the right thing if they are introduced to it from the beginning! And we adults have learned a few things ourselves!
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47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Information, Poor Layout, August 26, 2005
This review is from: 365 Manners Kids Should Know: Games, Activities, and Other Fun Ways to Help Children Learn Etiquette (Paperback)
This book is FULL of great ideas and information. It is however, listed in calendar format which cannot really be used practically. February 16 is about swimiming pools and unless they are indoors, not many are swimming at this time of year. And there aren't exactly 365 differnent manners because some of them are repeated and build on each other.
None-the-less, themes are still grouped together such as, Telephone Talk, Table Manners, and Body Basics. There is even a section on different religious places and ceremonies which is great if you get invited to service you are not familiar with.
There is a section on Tea Parties that I can't wait to practice with my little girls!!! This book covers the basics such as dances and correspondances a great area of patriotism. There are ideas on how to practice many of the manners this book covers a great deal of information and situations.
Absoulutely worth it, just don't expect to teach your child a new manner each day as the title and book suggests. Instead, you can focus on a group of manners over time and use this book as a great reference. I know I learned a lot and look forward to my children knowing and using their manners, also.
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42 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Can be useful, April 25, 2007
This review is from: 365 Manners Kids Should Know: Games, Activities, and Other Fun Ways to Help Children Learn Etiquette (Paperback)
First the positive. This book has a lot of ideas about manners, teaching manners. There is enough in this book to fill up a years worth of lessons (obviously).
The problems with this book is that many of the manners are broken down into tiny tiny parts and these parts are spread through out the book. For example, it might teach you how to address men (Mr.) one day and then a week later teach you how to address women who are married (Mrs.)
This gives it a feeling of being disorganized because each part of a manner is broken down and it is spread through out the book, rather than being in one place.
If you are considering buying this book I'd suggest this is one you want to look at and see if it provides what you want in a manner you can use.
The children and I refer to this book but for the most part it sits on the shelf unusued.
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