We Are 1 Team

Address to Impress

Parent Newsletter

National Youth Motivational Speaker and Founder of We Are One Team Character Program – James E. Jones, MBA

This month’s We Are One Team Character Play (lesson) is “Address to Impress”.  This lesson focuses on kindness and using our manners.  The key is to have the students ask themselves, “How do I represent myself and treat others?”  As technology increases, children’s face-to-face social etiquette is rapidly declining.    This lesson teaches good, old fashion manners, social greetings and respectful introductions.  The students will learn how to greet others, how to shake hands, how to introduce people, and how use their manners to apply kindness to others.

Most children like attention and will always find ways to get attention.  The goal in this lesson is to teach the students that proper greetings and manners will generate a lot of positive attention, which is impressive to adults. This month, the teachers will be working with them to develop those important positive social skills.

The foundation of this lesson is about respect, with an emphasis on how we respect ourselves.  I don’t think a person can truly respect another person until they respect themselves first.  How a person treats others is a good reflection of how they feel about themselves.  I like to word it this way, “Don’t talk about it, Be about it”.  Don’t just talk about being a kind person, be a kind person.  Let’s get in the habit of applying kindness and using our manners.  When people take time to recognize and honor others, those people feel they have been respected.  It is in that feeling that one starts to define what it is like to be respected.  They feel that they matter and are important, and that other people care about them.  So in this lesson, the focus is less on saying, “Show Respect” and more on teaching “what behaviors can the student exhibit that allow others to feel important, that they matter, and that they are cared about?” Remember, if your child can show that other people are important and do matter, and that they care about them, then they are more likely to feel the same about themselves.

Take time to notice how your child is applying this lesson at home by helping to make others within the family feel important.  Really focus on manners this month with them.  Are they using “Please” and “Thank You”?   As parents, I think we come pre-wired to say to our kids, “What do you say?”  Sometimes it is more effective to just pause and wait for them to figure it out.  They will look at you and say, “What?”  You can just say, “I’m sorry, I thought you were going to say something to me after I packed your lunch?”  The more we slow down and wait for them to respond appropriately, the more they will start to figure it out.  As they figure it out and realize what is expected in YOUR FAMILY, the more they will actually start to feel important themselves and will start to build not only manners, but self-esteem.  Remember, more is learned than is taught.  So, the best way to help them is to make sure that you are displaying the behaviors that you are looking for yourself.