Teaching Manners Isn’t Always Easy

Sometimes, teaching manners is interrupted by laughter. Ask any parent – your child can say or do something that deserves your attention and explanation as to WHY they shouldn’t do a certain something due to it being in poor taste or bad manners. However, you’re too busy trying to stifle laughter (so as to not encourage a particular behavior) to say anything. Even the best attempts at stifling laughter are sometimes impossible and before you can even attempt correcting them, you’ve burst into hysterics. We had such a case just the other day…

I’ll precede this story with a small fact to put everything in perspective. Friday evening, we ate at our local Mexican restaurant. While I had rice with my steak and cheese burrito, the rest of my family had beans with their entrees.

Yeah. That small fact is important.

Saturday, several times I had to remind our son that passing gas is not something you do as an attention getter – or at the table. Instead, you leave the room or if you’re at the table, you say excuse me, leave the table, go to the bathroom (in a restaurant) or in another room at home – do what you have to do and then return to the table. Of course, after he put the “leaving the room when farting” manner into practice, I then had to explain when you DO leave the table to handle your business, you do not return to the table and give everyone a play by play. The entire purpose of leaving the table is to not only shield those at the table from having to experience the aroma and/or sound effects, but to also shield everyone from having to think about farts while they are trying to enjoy their meal.

*Sigh*

Sunday night, son was sitting in his favorite spot (in the recliner on husband’s lap) while we all watched TV. Daughter and I were talking about something when we were interrupted by a small explosion from the little guy’s nether regions. Just as we’re looking over and I’m about to once again stress the importance of good manners, son, while fanning the air says, “Whew!! I’m smelling special!!”

Yep, the manners lecture was out of the question. Husband, daughter and I couldn’t stop laughing long enough to say much of anything. It’s going to be a while before I agree to another dinner at the local Mexican place though – unless we invest in some Beano first.