Games for Girls on Manners

Role Playing Games

• Role play scenarios are a fun way to interact with your child while teaching the fundamentals of good manners. Simple role play scenarios such as dining in a restaurant, standing in line at the grocery store or talking in a group of people are ideal. Parents can set up specific incidents within these scenarios, such as spilling something on someone while standing in line, and ask your child how she would respond.

Tea Parties

• A tea party with your little girl is an ideal way to teach her how to behave politely when she is invited to a gathering. Concepts to go over during this game include the appropriate ways to interact with others during conversation, the polite way to drink (such as not slurping) and how to be neat while eating.

Miss Manners

• Miss Manners is a newspaper column syndicated in newspapers around the country. Miss Manners suggests etiquette charades, which is perfect for a group of girls. In this game, one girl acts out a particular set of actions and other girls try to guess what she's doing and why it is impolite. Another Miss Manners game is Please and Thank You. Write these words on several cards and put them in a box. Allow girls to select a card, then go around the room and ask each girl to describe a situation that would be appropriate for the use of whichever word she drew, please or thank you.

Polly Polite

• A variation on Simon Says is Polly Polite. You suggest polite or impolite things for your child to say or do, beginning each with the phrase "Polly Polite says . . ." Your child should only do those things that begin with this phrase and that are polite to do.