mansion manners

How do you know when to use a dessert, dinner or salad fork? What about a cocktail fork, soup spoon and butter knife?

If you don't know, who's teaching your children?

Area parents say it's not difficult teaching children manners but requires constant reminders.

"You have to start out early, like when they start talking," said Lori Klipfel, a mother of a 12-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son.

"If you teach them 'yes, ma'am' and 'no, ma'am' and 'thank you,' it will stick with them," she said.

The family also tries to sit down for dinner, or at least on meal, each day. That helps with the lessons on table manners, Klipfel said.

"It's easier now since they aren't teenagers," the Cape Girardeau mother said.

And having good manners is essential for everything from your work to your social life, parents say. Manners teach children about respect as much as they do about social skills.

Nearly 80 percent of adults surveyed in January by the Public Agenda research group said that Americans of all ages are lacking respect and are just too rude.

And the problem is increasing, the survey respondents said. Poor manners shows a lack of respect, they said.

Tamara Walker wanted to be sure her daughter was mannerly, so she instilled those lessons in politeness early.

"Growing up, we were always taught to say 'yes, ma'am,'" she said. "I wanted that for her."

Even some of her daughter's 12-year-old friends say she's more polite than they are, Walker said. "They'll comment because she's so polite."

Teaching manners isn't tough, but grandparents are also helpful, said Rob Bequette, a father of three young children.

"It's because they have so much experience," said 7-year-old Hayden Bequette.

Hayden knows he's been taught to share more with his siblings, Holden, 3, and Kaylyn, 1. He doesn't remember any lessons on manners, "but at least I know," he said.

But some parents go the extra mile when trying to teach their children proper manners and respect for others. During July, 16 children gathered at the Governor's Mansion in Jefferson City, Mo., for lessons in etiquette.

The children shyly walked into the Governor's Mansion for their lesson in formal manners, each wearing their "Sunday best," saying "Please and Thank You."

They rotated through the dining room, hallway and sitting rooms on the mansion's first floor. Mansion staff taught them table manners, table settings, written communication, verbal communication and body language.

The half-day manners class, entitled "Put Your Best Foot Forward" cost $50 and benefited the Governor's Mansion preservation fund.

At the first class, children learned that the main key at the table setting is remembering to start on the outside and work your way in. Three girls and 9-year old Gerhard Schnieders sat a round table adorned with China settings, silverware and crystal-clear glassware.

Schnieders learned to seat the three ladies.

Ladies have their own trick at the table. They shouldn't put all their weight on the chair when a gentleman is seating them.

In a sitting room near to the mansion entrance, four young ladies learned nonverbal communication or appropriate body language. They sat in an S-shape with their hands folded on their laps as Coni Riley and Saundra Allen taught them to stand up from a sitting chair when greeting someone.

When entering a building, the most senior or "most important" is to enter first, Allen explained. That is unless a man and woman enter a building, then he must open the door.

Eleven-year old Erin Swisher of Columbia, Mo., said her mother didn't make her attend the manners' training. She came on her own. "I learned how to sit at a table and eat, how to be polite and respectful," she said. "The kids at school aren't respectful," she added.

After two sessions, children went through a receiving line. They placed petit fours and finger-sized cookies on glass plates. They were joined by their parents or an adult at lunchtime to show what they learned.

The class was taught to teach young people to be more confident in a social setting, said Missouri Mansion Preservation Director Mary Pat Abele.

"Etiquette helps kids understand how to treat other people," she said.