When I was pregnant with our first child, Tom and I went to the home of one of his co-workers to have dinner. Shortly after we arrived, the couple’s two little kids appeared in the foyer and their dad introduced them.
Even though one was only in Kindergarten and the other was maybe two years older, each one of them came over, looked us in the eye, held out their little hand for us to 
shake and said, “It’s nice to meet you.”
It was one of those moments when Tom and I realized that one of the most important things we could do as parents was to make manners a really big deal and to practice it continuously. We were SO impressed with those kids, and it was such a delight to be around them because their parents were putting in the hard work of teaching them great manners.
So we wanted to pass along this great checklist we recently ran across on the Readers Digest website: 16 Forgotten Manners Every Parent Should Teach Their Child. All of the manners on the list are great, but we think these 5 are particularly important.
- Saying “thank you” to service workers
- Using indoor voices
- Taking turns talking
- Introducing themselves
- Saying “you’re welcome.”
