This is probably one of the most important things I could write about when it comes to children. You see, I do not believe there are bad children, but there is definitely bad raising of children. That means, just in case you aren't sure, that the parents should be held accountable for their children and their behaviours, actions, etc.

A child must learn absolutely everything in life from someone, and they start learning from their parents or primary caregivers (or whatever your title is). Your life is how it is because you learned your behaviour somewhere along the line of growing up, then of course you added to or detracted from it as you matured. Your babies will do the same. If you give them a good foundation to work with, they will be better for it.

This brings me to manners again. Recently I was at a very expensive restaurant where three of us quickly racked up a $150.00 bill. A glass of wine was $9, and although it might seem too expensive to some, it was what we wanted to do. It's nice to treat 'self'' to something grand and delightful once in a while. It was a beautiful floating restaurant on a most beautiful, awesome lake. Lake Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Wow, it was simply spectacular . . . at least until two families sat at the table beside us.

One couple had a boy about 8 years old, and the other couple had a boy about the same age and a baby around 10 or 11 months old. I don't really mind kids sitting too near me, if they are well behaved and quiet, but these two couples kids should have gone elsewhere. If they could afford a restaurant like that, they certainly could have afforded a babysitter.

The baby would belt out a nerve shattering scream about every 2 minutes and believe it or not neither parent did a thing about it. When the baby didn't get the attention it wanted, it resorted to throwing food. While the couples drank their wine and chatted with each other the two boys played with their glasses, silverware, etc, flinging straws of water all over the place and in general making a total mess.

You might need to think about this for a bit, but I don't hold the kids responsible for their lousy behaviour. I think the parents should have been taken out and shackled for allowing their kids to carry on. Just think, one day one of those kids will be invited somewhere special and when they act like monsters at the table, stuffing their mouths so full that you can see their tonsils as they pile it in, or talking while spraying food over everyone sitting across from them, someone will take notice!

You see, those derelict parents are failing to teach their kids good manners, and the end result will be seen by a lack of self-respect in those kids when they grow up and find out that their behaviour is offensive.

I don't know what is going on with derelict parents, or why they even exist, but I certainly wasn't raised that way. As a child, I could go into any restaurant in the world and be quickly accepted and respected because my parents saw to it that I learned good manners. And I am so thankful for it. I have been at dinners in the White House, yes, our nations White House, and never once did I worry about what was served, how to eat it, what silverware to use, what glass to use, etc., etc. I knew it all, yet I was a very rowdy kid growing up. I just knew when and where I could get away with it. Social settings were not those places!!!

I am not saying that you need to teach your children how to dine with the Vanderbilt's, but face it, it might be fun to play around with it. Some day your teaching just might save your child's self-respect. Some day your efforts at teaching manners just might allow your child to grow into a very decent, respectable person.

The Fast Food Syndrome is destroying socially acceptable ways of eating by allowing play areas near food. The dinner table is where you eat, not play with the food or toys. If you want your child to play with toys, then let them play away from the table.

You know the old saying that there is a time and place for everything, and it especially applies to manners and eating. If a parent doesn't want to take their screaming toddler out of a restaurant it's only because that parent is selfish and doesn't want to miss out on a conversation while disciplining their child. Selfishness does not raise baby! If a parent goes without food while teaching baby manners, then so be it, that parent will teach baby a helluva lot faster won't they.

If a parent sees no reason to teach manners, then that parent should not take their children out, and if they don't take them out, then why have babies? The answer is plain and simple, take time with your precious children and teach them manners, teach them socially acceptable ways of interacting with others, even at restaurants, and give those children a step up in life. Just because a parent is okay with being a slob or a pig at a table doesn't mean that the child wants to be one.

A few years back a friends sister came out to visit and her 4 year old daughter corrected her at the table and told her to stop acting like a pig. Wow, I still wonder where the child got that from. So you see, our children are not necessarily destined to be like us. In fact, they aren't supposed to be, so do your job and give them a head start in life by perhaps teaching what you never got. Life is not concrete, it is flexible and can be filled with more than one could ever believe.

If you have children and are reading this now, or even if you don't have children, take a good look at yourself and see if you would fit in a fine restaurant or would you be too ashamed to go. And don't give me that bunk that if you felt like eating with your fingers that it would be okay, because, it is not okay. That's purely lazy thinking. Manners are one of those things that can easily be changed and/or self-taught.

Help Children, don't hinder them, and maybe

give them something you never got.

They will love and respect you for it.