Mud Pies & Minivans: Common Courtesy

This week has just been absolutely CRA-ZY! We have officially hit "birthday season"!!! My birthday was this week, my husband's is next week, & then my 3 oldest ladies all have birthdays in the fall as well (I know, what were we thinking lol). So, party planning for our lil' girlies has officially begun & let me tell you it is a BIG task to take on (Though, I love very minute of it!). My husband is constantly telling me "lets do it small" & I definitely agree...at 1st. But as time goes on & those lil' birthdays get closer, that party planner inside of me just starts taking over & by the time I realize what I have gotten myself into....We are strapped in for the craziest ride of our lives that is SO worth it in the end.

In addition to most of our clan having fall birthdays, we apparently befriend fall birthday buddies as well. Everyone has a fall birthday it seems like, every weekend someone is celebrating something & even though it can be super fun cake overload definitely starts to set in-lol.

Fall also means selecting 4 lil' costumes, Thanksgiving planning, Christmas gift shopping, & holiday dress hunting! I do not take any of this stuff lightly & if you have a lot of kids then you also know that planning ahead for everything is VITAL.

But for now, I have managed to pry myself away from Orientaltrading.com long enough to post a lil' blog....

"Common Courtesy". My husband & I were just discussing this topic today. Its called "common courtesy", but the fact of the matter is that in today's times it has honestly become a lot less common. The principles of courtesy are things that we have to teach our kiddos & not just assume they know or put the responsibility on other people to teach them. Holding the door open for someone, helping a person pick up items they might have dropped, or not taking the last cookie are things we have to instill in our children & take very seriously. I came across this wonderful article recently entitled, "Ten Tips to Kids Common Courtesy" By Stephanie Clunn. I definitely recommend checking out the article! Here are the 10 she listed, but again PLEASE read her actual article because she goes a lot more in-depth with each 1:

1. No interrupting.

2. No hitting or name calling, ever.

3.Step up your game when someone comes over.

4.Good sportsmanship.

5. Learn to take a compliment.

6.Opening doors for others.

7. Respect differences.

8. Table Manners .

9. Say please and thank you.

10. The Big D!

Now that the "acts" have been listed, there are many ways to go about teaching them to our children. First off, I want to say that starting young & teaching our kids these thing from the get-go is definitely the easiest & best route to take because they will not know any different. Of course, from time to time you might notice them picking up various habits that you may not appreciate, but you can monitor & fix those thing as they pop up. Tip: Who you or your kiddos hang around, they are bound to become more like! On another blog I found, Babysitters.net, it listed "10 Ways to Teach Kids Common Courtesy". I also recommend reading this article as well, the more tools the better!

We can't exactly change the world with 1 wave of our wand & make a world that is more polite & caring, but we do have control of what type of people we are & what type of people we want our children to be!

-M&M Momma

Another helpful post of the past: Plays Well With Others