Episode description

Do you struggle with manners in your family? Do you wonder if they are outdated and even worth teaching? In this week’s episode, Brooke Romney shares her simple system to effectively make manners part of our everyday lives with kids. 

Brooke Romney is a writer, speaker and leader of an online community who helps moms of teens and tweens to create meaningful, healthy, and enjoyable relationships with their children through practical application, education, and community. Her goal is for every family to feel confident and connected.

The mother of four boys ages tween to adult, Brooke knows parenting perfection isn’t real and takes an honest and hopeful approach with her audience. Her best-selling book 52 Modern Manners for Today’s Teens (Volumes 1 and 2) provides weekly tips to help parents and teens navigate the complexities of today’s world. The follow-up 52 Modern Manners for Kids features tips for kids and tweens aged four through 12. 

Brooke and her family live in Utah. You can find her on Instagram HERE.

You’ll love Brooke’s emphasis on manners that will allow our kids to be aware, kind, and connected. She also shares a glimpse into her own motherhood journey and how she went from being stuck in perfectionism and overwhelm to truly enjoying motherhood and being present and engaged in her own family.

In our conversation, Brooke outlines five ways to teach manners to kids:

1. Focus on one manner a week. You can talk about it directly or leave it out for kids to read so they have some autonomy in learning. Bonus tip - add your manner time to something you are already doing well, like Friday movie night or a weekly family night.

2. Teach the why. Kids are smart and understand.

3. Role Play! It is a way to practice at home and a fun way to prepare.

4. When you are reading books or watching movies together, talk about when the characters are using the manners you’ve learned about or when they don’t. What are the consequences? What’s the impact on those around them? 

5. As a parent, look for when you are seeing the manners you’ve been talking about and reinforce them with a thank you or share around the dinner table when everyone used their manners.

Expect that kids won’t get it right away. That’s okay! Think of it as planting seeds that will start to grow when they are ready. This is a proactive approach in parenting to give our children the best chance of success in navigating relationships. When our children know what to do or how to act appropriately, it empowers them and builds their confidence over time.

A great resource to make this simple is Brooke Romney’s 52 Modern Manners for Kids book (and her two books for teens). She designed it to stand upright to easily sit on a counter so everyone can read it easily throughout the week. The manner and the why are on the front page, and role plays are included on the back. Talk about setting up the environment to make it easy to do the thing you want to do!

You can find Brooke’s books here:

52 Modern Manners for Kids

52 Modern Manners for Today’s Teens Volume 1

52 Modern Manners for Today’s Teens Volume 2