School is back in session, and the stretch between now and Thanksgiving is shorter than it looks.
Every year the calls come in November. Usually the week before a big family dinner, sometimes the day before a holiday party. A parent has watched their child at a table full of relatives and decided something has to change. I understand the impulse entirely, and I have to tell them the same thing every time: this is not a lesson that can be delivered in a panicked afternoon.
Children do not absorb manners from a lecture the night before. They absorb them the way they absorb everything else, through practice, repetition, and a little friendly pressure from someone who is not their mother or father. That takes weeks, not hours. Which is precisely why September is the moment to begin.
What the Holidays Actually Ask of a Child
It is worth being specific about what the season requires, because most of it never comes up in an ordinary week:
- Greeting adults they have met once, or never — eye contact, a handshake, a name remembered and used
- Sitting through a long meal at a table set more formally than the one at home
- Making conversation with a great-aunt, a family friend, a cousin they see twice a year
- Receiving a gift graciously, including one they did not want
- Writing a thank-you note afterward, by hand, without being nagged into it
- Knowing where a phone belongs and when it comes out, which is to say not at the table
None of that is intuitive, and all of it is teachable. A child who has practiced it in a low-stakes setting in October walks into December already knowing what to do — which means no one is correcting them in front of the relatives, and the evening belongs to everyone.
The Point Is Confidence, Not Correctness
Parents sometimes worry that an etiquette class will make a child stiff or self-conscious. In my experience it does the opposite. Nearly all of a child's anxiety in a formal setting comes from not knowing the rules: which fork, when to begin, what to say when an adult asks them a question. Give them the answers and the anxiety leaves with the uncertainty. What remains is a child who can relax and be themselves at the table, which was always the point.
Ages six to eleven remains the sweet spot — old enough to understand why any of this matters, young enough to take it on before self-consciousness arrives.
A Welcome to the Team
I am glad to welcome Gabrielle Garofalo to Simply Greer Etiquette as Head of Business Development and an etiquette coach. Gabrielle spent more than twenty-five years in advertising, branding, and live media — the New Yorker Festival, the Billboard Music Awards, and the launch of the Wall Street Journal's branded content division — before adding a coaching certification and, more recently, certification from The Swann School of Protocol. She brings children exactly what that career taught her: how to walk into a room, how to put other people at ease, and how to be comfortable being yourself. Read her full background on our About page →
This Fall in Norwalk
Our A Season at the Table class is a single session dedicated to reviewing introductions to peers and adults, back-to-school basics on classroom, hallway, and on-the-field behavior; we also cover dining etiquette: table settings and best behavior around the table. Join us on Wednesday, October 21. A healthy snack break will be provided. Ages six to eleven, $195 per child, and seats are limited.
If the holidays are already on your mind, this is the month to book. November is late.
Ready to bring this to your child?
Our classes run ninety minutes, are capped at sixteen children, and are built for ages 6–11 — held at clubs, schools, and venues across Fairfield, Westchester, and Monmouth Counties.