Mum and Dad are still the best teachers

ON A recent assignment to investigate the growing trend of parents sending young kids for classes on manners, I sat in on one myself to find out what the fuss was all about. I must admit that I didn't really quite get it.

Following the publication of my article last week, I was chagrined to receive e-mail messages from parents who wanted to know where they could send their young to be professionally coached on the finer points of courtesy and social graces.

Raised by parents who believed in full-time parenting, I felt it incredulous that a certified image consultant had to be tasked to teach a classroom of children aged four to 10 how to behave – even at home.

To my amusement, the instructor, having only two hours on hand, had to condense what I had learnt over a few years into a ream of PowerPoint slides. One hour and 15 minutes into the class, all 15 of her pupils were restless and fidgety. A handful were monkeying around right from the beginning of the lesson. I could hardly blame them, and neither did their patient instructor, who never once lost her temper in fulfilling what I would say is a tall order.

I remember, quite distinctly, that it didn't take my parents only one telling-off to get me to stop dragging my chair or to close the door gently. Phone etiquette also took me some practice. Yet, when I told my full-time homemaker mother in disbelief that more parents seemed to be unable to take their children in hand, she sighed and said: "I would have sent you to manners class if we had been able to afford it."

I was flabbergasted. I'd not pretend that I was the best-behaved child on the block. But, given a chance to raise my own offspring in future, I wouldn't do anything drastically different from what my parents did.

With due respect to all image consultants, I am proud to say that my parents are solely responsible for taking me in hand. Most memorably, they taught me to say my first "thank you".

Among all my childhood memorabilia is a much-treasured black TDK cassette tape recording of my warbling from a few months to a few years old. In one particular recording, I – at two or three years of age – was delighted to receive a brand-new Sesame Street picture book as a gift from my father. Mum: "Who bought the bookfor you?"Me: "Papa!"Mum: "And what must you sayto Papa?"Me: "Thank you!"

I can only surmise how much satisfaction my parents derived from educating me, and how scared they must have been, as young, first-time parents, about screwing up. I guess some of that insecurity never goes away. After all, raising a child is an irreversible – trial-and-error –process.

The image consultant told me she had observed more dual-income parents resorting to professional etiquette trainers. So imagine my surprise when I observed that most of her pupils were taken home by a parent, not their maid.

Child and educational psychologist Lisa Pittman, whom I consulted for my article, agrees that it is ideal for a child to associate discipline with his or her own parents, not an outsider. Dr Pittman has worked with parents on modelling appropriate behaviour and manners in their children, be it in the setting of a home or counselling room.

The difference between doing that and sending the child to a professional image consultant, she pointed out, is that the parent is fully involved in the process. In other words, parenting can't and shouldn't be outsourced.

By Rachel Chan, My Paper.