Question
I'm hoping for a response from Katherine Saltzberg, as I am referencing her response titled "5 year old table manners".
In your response, you state that each bad habit needs to be tackled one at a time. You also state that finger-licking is to be expected for young children. At what age would say it is no longer acceptable to not only lick their fingers, but have terrible table manners despite consistent expectations?
My son is 9. We have many problems with him, and it has only been since reading John's book, 'Parenting by the Book," that I've begun seeing where I have been going wrong all this time. Now that I have all the right puzzle pieces, I am trying to learn how to fit them together.
My son has poor manners in general, despite always being taught proper manners. He wipes his hands on his pants , if he bothers to wipe them at all, wipes his mouth on his shirt, wipes his nose on his sleeve, slouches back in his chair, talks with food in his mouth, chews with mouth open, lets juice drip down his chin, touches things that don't belong to him with greasy/dirty hands, and refuses to eat what is given to him. When I try address particular issues, such as lounging inappropriately in his chair, he will being whining and acting as if he is helpless and it is too uncomfortable to sit proper. Anything else I address usually gets a dramatic response or eye-rolling.
I know that my methods have not been on-point, and have been working on systematically changing each and every one of my parenting failures. However, I don't know if I'm being too demanding, ie: asking more adult behavior out of him than should be expected at his age. I really don't think at his age he should still be this poorly mannered, but I've also been impatient, naggy, and inconsistent until now.
Up until the past few days, we have felt pretty hopeless and exhausted with all of his behavior problems piling up. Any advice/comments would help!
Thank you kindly,
