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Published: Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Mrs. DeGroot’s Wallingford Charm School ‘Putting Manners Back in Their Place’
FULL PLATE
By Riki Mafune
We
live in world in which parenting experts are encouraging us to try to
have at least one sit-down family meal per week with our kids.
Opportunities for social interaction around the family dinner table
have been eroded by our busy schedules and technological forms of
communication. As our priorities shift, it’s no wonder that proper
etiquette and the good graces that were once taken for granted feel
like a thing of the past.
While it’s true that many kids may
rarely sit at a formal place setting, good manners and proper etiquette
offer more than just selecting the correct soup spoon or salad fork.
Etiquette is about being prepared for any situation. It is about
courtesy, respect and confidence – qualities we should all hope to
instill in our children as they navigate the sometimes rough waters of
childhood into adulthood.
Mrs. Dawn De Groot, owner and teacher
of Wallingford Charm School and parent of 13-year-old Sophie, agrees.
“When my daughter started kindergarten, I was surprised to see that
many of her classmates lacked basic manners,” says DeGroot. “I saw an
opportunity to teach children to have respect for themselves and
others, and to learn that this positive behavior really pays off.”
DeGroot’s
etiquette classes offer kids a place to learn what she describes as
“the magic of good manners.” The lessons begin the moment the student
reaches the threshold of the Wallingford Charm School, held in her own
home. DeGroot warmly greets each child at her door, shakes his or her
hand, and asks, “What color are your eyes?” to encourage the children
to make eye contact. Every moment they are in her company, their good
graces and confidence start to bloom.
The students are
encouraged to interact and ask questions, and a sense of humor and fun
is interlaced with each lesson. “I take the students into the bathroom
to wash their hands before we sit down for tea. I encourage them to use
the guest hand towels and give them tips for guest bathroom etiquette,”
explains DeGroot.
Part of her lesson includes the possible
consequences of taking a peek inside the host’s medicine cabinet. “I
put a container with marbles in the cabinet that fall out into the sink
when the cabinet is opened,” DeGroot says with a twinkle in her eyes.
“It makes quite an impact when I ask a student to open the cabinet.”
DeGroot then tells the students about the time she forgot to remove the
marbles after a class: “The next day, a repairman was working at the
house and asked to use the bathroom. He was snooping in the bathroom
and, much to his surprise and embarrassment, the marbles came crashing
out of the cabinet.” Lesson learned!
DeGroot offers classes for
children ages 8 and older, explaining that “8 years old is the ‘age of
reason’ when children are ready to absorb more of the concepts of
manners and etiquette.” For younger children, she emphasizes the
importance of reinforcing basic manners by parental instruction and the
modeling of expected behavior. “I always treat my husband and daughter
with respect – the way that I would like to be treated. Little things
like ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ are important and necessary for everyone.”
DeGroot
instructs her students in dining etiquette for both casual and formal
situations, and high tea is included with each group session. And at
the end of her classes, each student leaves with a place mat diagramed
with a formal place setting, an easy craft idea students can create for
hostess gifts or party favors, and a writing guide and packet of
stationary for “Thank You” notes.
Thirteen year-old Stacia
Cammarano was enchanted by her experience at Wallingford Charm School.
“Almost every night, my mom asks me to set the table. Before Mrs.
DeGroot taught me how to set the table properly, I would just throw the
spoons here, throw the knives there … now my mom can ask me to set the
table when guest are coming over, and she can trust me to set the table
properly,” Stacia says. “Mrs. DeGroot’s Charm School was so much fun. I
always looked forward to my weekend classes with her. The atmosphere
she created for her students was always warm and friendly … as you were
walking out the door it almost felt like you were leaving a magical
place.”
This is exactly what DeGroot hopes to achieve. “I feel
so privileged to have touched these children’s lives and to teach them
skills that translate to everyday life.” Indeed, the Golden Rule is
alive and well in Wallingford.
For class schedule and information, go to www.wallingfordcharm.com or call 206-354-9933.
Riki Mafune is a Seattle area writer and mother of two and a public health educator specializing in nutrition. Better from McDonald’s, Preschoolers Say
If you want your child to eat baby carrots or other healthy foods, try putting them in a McDonald’s wrapper.
A
recent Stanford University study found that 63 children, ages 3-5,
preferred the taste of five items in McDonald’s packaging to identical
items in plain wrappers. This applied to French fries, chicken nuggets,
milk and, to a lesser extent, hamburgers – and even to baby carrots,
which McDonald’s does not offer. Fifty-four percent preferred the
carrots in McDonald’s wrappers, compared to 23 percent who liked the
plainly-wrapped sample. The discrepancy was clearest for French fries:
Although both samples were McDonald’s fries, 77 percent of the children
preferred the ones in the McDonald’s wrapper, while only 13 percent
preferred the others.
The study was published in the August
issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. The
children were drawn from several Head Start preschools in San Mateo,
Calif. The researchers found that preferences for food identified as
McDonald’s was more pronounced in children who had more televisions in
their homes and in those who ate at McDonald’s more frequently.
They
concluded that “branding of foods and beverages influences young
children’s taste preferences,” and came up with two opposing
recommendations. Either we should step up regulation of marketing to
young children and/or we should use the power of branding to improve
young children’s eating behaviors. Soda Bottles for Worm Poop; Drink Pouches for Handbags
More than 30 million soda bottles are discarded
every day and end up in landfills across America. This is a shame, when
they could be filled with worm poop.
The eco-friendly company
TerraCycle is dedicated to being a “zero waste” operation, and so
packages its worm poop fertilizer in used soda bottles. A year and a
half ago, the company created its National Bottle Brigade to collect
the bottles, to give kids an opportunity to make a difference through
recycling, and to help schools and nonprofit organizations raise money.
For
each 20-oz. soda bottle a student collects, TerraCycle donates 5 cents
back to their school or organization. Local collection sites are: Grace
Lutheran Church, Everett; West Mercer Elementary School, Mercer Island;
Whitman Middle School, Seattle; HDR Engineering, Bellevue; Lake Forest
Park Montessori School, Shoreline; Clarkmoor PTA, Fort Lewis and the
Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Bellevue.
This fall, the
company, in cooperation with Honest Tea, has created the Drink Pouch
Brigade to collect all brands of drink pouch containers. Participants
earn 2 cents for every Honest Kids® drink pouch, and 1 cent for other
brands, to be given to the charity of their choice. Schools or other
organizations who sign up for the program will receive collection bags,
which hold 100 pouches each, and have prepaid shipping labels attached.
There is no cost to sign up.
The companies hope to collect one
million pouches in the next 12 months and to have them made into
handbags to be sold at retail stores next year.
For more information on the bottle or drink pouch brigades, call TerraCycle at 609-393-4252 or visit www.terracycle.net.
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