Whatever December holiday your family celebrates, good manners help make the holiday a happier time for everyone. If you aren’t already working on holiday manners with your preschooler, now is a good time to start. Holidays can be stressful for children as well as adults, and it’s important that you help your child prepare for social events in advance.
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Preparing Your Child to Meet Santa
Even a simple event like a photo with a local Santa will be more successful if your child is prepared in advance. But first you need to find out if your child wants a photo with Santa. It’s natural for many children to be frightened to meet Santa, and there’s no need to force it if your child doesn’t want a photo.
Will (6½) with Santa, 1991
My son never wanted a photo with Santa as a preschooler, although he enjoyed it at 6 1/2.
Will (7½) and Christina (2½) visiting with Santa, 1992
My daughter wanted her picture taken with Santa as a preschooler but was afraid of the mall “Easter Bunny” (which my son always loved). Those sorts of photo ops can be fun if your child is interested and prepared, but there are plenty of other photos you can get to celebrate the holiday if your child doesn’t want a photo with Santa.
If your child is interested in a photo with Santa, it will still help if you talk about what your child (and Santa) will say ahead of time. Demonstrating and practicing proper manners in advance is important. It’s even more important if your child is a bit shy, like my children were, or if your child has a sensory processing disorder.
During my master’s dissertation research on Montessori methods for teaching courtesy to preschoolers, I noticed that the most repetition was required for children to feel comfortable with greetings and introductions.
Meeting Santa is particularly difficult for many children and requires lots of role play practice for them to feel comfortable. If your child is interested in meeting Santa, given plenty of practice, and taught to say thank you and “Merry Christmas” at the end of a meeting with Santa, it will be a happy experience for everyone.
Christina (3½) with Santa and Mrs. Claus at the zoo museum, 1993
Here are some posts I’ve published that use Montessori principles to help your child feel comfortable and display the best possible manners over the holidays.
How to Teach Manners to a Toddler or Preschooler
Here’s a YouTube video and tips for teaching manners to a toddler: The Best Way to Teach Manners to a Toddler.
You’ll find my main post about teaching manners to preschoolers here: How to Teach Your Preschooler Manners Using Montessori Principles.
See all my manners posts in my grace and courtesy category.
Manners Greeting Relatives
Grace and courtesy games can be especially helpful in giving your child lots of practice with manners in a fun and non-threatening way: Grace and Courtesy Games at Home or School.
Greeting relatives and others at holiday time is very difficult when children feel shy, so allow plenty of opportunities for practice. And don’t worry if your child isn’t able to demonstrate perfectly the manners you practiced earlier. Here are tips for the best possible experience: How to Help Your Child Feel Comfortable Greeting Relatives.
Manners When Receiving Gifts
There are basic directions in this post: How to Teach Your Child to Say Thank You for Holiday Presents. There are also links to games and activities to reinforce saying thank you for presents in Grace and Courtesy Games at Home or School.
Table Manners
Your child can learn to set the table before holiday gatherings and will enjoy helping out. There are lots of ideas for teaching table setting in this post: Table Setting. There are also many free printable placemats if you check out my Pinterest board linked to in the post.
Give your child some basic introductions to table manners before any holiday meal: How to Teach Your Child Table Manners for Holiday Gatherings.
Helping Your Child by Helping Yourself
And don’t forget that your child will have the least stress if you’re not stressed-out yourself. I hope that some of the tips in 10 Tips for Avoiding Holiday Burnout can help your holiday be the happiest possible experience for your whole family. 🙂
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Thank you for these important reminders about manners. Common courtesies go a long way. My kids do well with role play too.
It’s funny, because while we “do” Santa at our house, my husband and I have never thought about taking our daughter to meet Santa…maybe because we never go to the mall, so the idea is never in front of us?
These are great tips! The holidays used to be such a stressful time for my sensitive son but after years of working with him he is now a wonderful host.
Great post Deb. We have been working with my daughter on manners, especially TONE lately 😉 She did well during all the holiday chaos tho! However, she is still quite shy at first so greetings are still hard.
This is something I really need to work on!
Love the post on manners ~ you’d think we would all be happy & behaving right =-)
Beth (TGIF)
Thanks so much, Beth! So true that you’d think everyone would be on their best behavior. It does seem that all the new experiences and stimulation make it difficult for most children to do that, though. It’s nice that there are things we can do as parents to help them. 🙂
It’s always fun to see your children when they were so young. I bet it is for you too while you are creating the post. Another nice feature on manners you have shared here. -heather
Thanks so much, Heather! Yes, I have a wonderful time going through photos from when my kids were little! I adore my kids as adults, too, but I still miss those early years!
Thank you for the info! We’re taking our kids to see Santa on Christmas Eve. I think it’s a little easier since it’s 5 kids together, but it still helps to prepare everyone.
Thanks for your comment, Barb! I agree that it definitely helps when siblings visit Santa together. I think my son helped my daughter feel comfortable at a younger age than she would have otherwise. Of course, nothing could help her with that scary mall “Easter Bunny.” 🙂
What a great post! I would love to hear more parents and educators impressing these types of lessons around the Holidays! Thank you!
http://ashtreemeadows.blogspot.com/
Thanks for this great reminder on manners! I really have been meaning to start these kinds of lessons, so these links are super helpful! We just did the Santa picture this weekend and although I thought we did enough talking about it before hand, we now have the classic screaming-his-brains-out-Santa picture! I giggle every time I walk past the fridge! Great post!! Thanks for all the wonderful ideas.
Thanks so much, Krista! Photos with Santa are definitely an experience! It’s amazing how much more practice it takes than a person would think – along with a child who wants to meet Santa – to get a smiling photo! Can you imagine being a mall Santa?! 🙂
I always love seeing photos of your children when they were younger. Nice post! Thank you for sharing.
Thanks so much, Discovering Montessori! I always love reliving happy memories! 🙂
we’ve taken our boy to visit santa this year for the first time.
He laughed at santa and the ‘elves’. he loved it! was so happy
🙂
– tork
Thanks for your comment, Dad Blog Tork! Glad to hear your son had a happy experience meeting Santa! 🙂
Thanks Deb – great information for parents during this time of year! I love the pictures of your children from when they were young! Thanks for sharing.
Sasha
Thanks for your kind comment, Sasha! I thought of writing about preparing children to meet Santa after I kept seeing posts with lots of “bad Santa photos” with crying children. It was nice that using Montessori principles made my children’s experiences meeting Santa happy ones. My son would have definitely had some “bad Santa photos” otherwise! 🙂