Our kids had THE WORST table manners of any human being I have ever met. They were so bad that I even resorted (after threatening for months) to making one of the kids eat dinner on the floor in the laundry room like an "animal" because her manners were atrocious. THAT is where our little friend comes in.
I would like to introduce you to our friend Mr. Piggy. He has resided with us for about 5 months now. I LOVE him but the kids don't really care for him. Mr. Piggy sits in the center of our dining room table and joins us for meals.
If one of us uses bad manners then Mr. Piggy gets to sit with that person. If a different person uses bad manners then Mr. Piggy goes to sit with that person. The person who has Mr. Piggy at the end of the meal gets the priveledge of cleaning the kitchen! Ha! Now you know why I LOVE Mr. Piggy and the kids do not.
The most fantastic thing about this magical ceramic swine, besides that it cost me a buck at the dollar store, is that it only took each child 1 time of cleaning the kitchen to learn to use acceptable manners at the table. It also provoked a lot of conversation about what is acceptable and what is not. They learned a lot about manners that may be acceptable when hanging out with friends as opposed to what is expected at a nice restaurant.
I wish I could say this little angel was my idea but it was not. I found it on Pinterest from a blog by Becky Madsen. I also used her idea of the rummage box. Where she would pick up things her kids left behind and put them in "the ransom rubbage box". To get an item out, instead of paying money out of their allowance (which is what we used to do until they no longer got allowance), they had to pull out a chore. This is so much better than paying because your house gets clean in the meantime. My kids sometimes don't care if I take things away...how horibble is that....so I told them that if after a week the item was still in the box it would be donated to charity. That worked wonders also! :)
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