I decided early on that one of my jobs as a pedantic parent is to teach my children table manners. The Cap’n and I figure this goes hand-in-hand with our philosophy that kids will live up or down to parents’ expectations, and that it is never too early to establish the foundations of good manners. When our kids were still early talkers, we taught them the formula, “May I please…” and now have merely to remind them—in their occasional lapses into “I want…”—that “That is a ‘may’ question.”
As far as the Crunch family is concerned, table manners for young children consist of the following:
1) Sitting at the table for a reasonable duration of the meal. During the week, this means the 40 minutes or so of dinner, which consists of eating and 
hearing a short summary of everyone’s day. On Shabbat it means kiddush, motzi, and whatever of the appetizer course appeals. They are then excused to play until the “real food” is served.
2) Putting their napkins in their laps, using a fork or spoon for their food, keeping elbows off the table, and chewing with their mouths closed.
3) Asking others politely to pass them things.
4) Not interrupting conversations, but saying “Excuse me” and waiting until the conversation is ended (or paused) to be acknowledged.
For many families, table manners are something parents just don’t have the koach (strength) to enforce. True, correcting the same children on the same poor habits can be a bit like banging one’s head against the proverbial brick wall. But consider the consequences of giving up: Rearing up a child who as an adult holds a fork like a shovel, belches loudly at the table, announces, “I’m done” the second the food is gone from his plate, lifts his cereal bowl to scrape the last few cornflakes directly into his mouth, and eats salad with his hands. That might not bother some people, and people with manners like that have been known to get married, but I aim a little higher for the Crunch children. They understand from the categories on their chore charts (for which they receive daily stickers and an allowance commensurate with their week’s performance on Friday afternoons) that good table manners are as much expected of them as cleaning their rooms, setting the table, folding their laundry, and doing their homework.
In general, I enjoy eating with my children much more when they use good table manners. They’re neater eaters, dinnertime is more quiet and orderly, and I sometimes get to entertain the illusion that I’m eating with other human beings rather than barely-tame baboons. They occasionally take their knowledge of table etiquette too far, though, and have loudly corrected their visiting grandparents’ table manners (which was kind of cute) as well as those of friends who hosted us for a Shabbat meal (considerably more horrifying). The trick here, it seems, is to teach them manners as we would teach house rules: Adhere to what we observe, but don’t try to force it on others.
Shimshonit 
In the case of correcting their friends’ manners, I think it’s perfectly appropriate for them to do so when you’ve invited the friends over to your home. But yeah, doing it when you were the guests is oddly unmannerly. :-)
Shouldn’t you be in bed? As far as I can tell, you posted this at 10:30 pm or so Israel time.
Michael: I agree that correcting others’ manners at their own table is preferable than taking that bossiness on the road.
I think the clocks were a bit messed up; at 10:30 the Cap’n and I were in the middle of a DS9 episode.
Unfortunately some parents fail to see ahead and think that their own kids will somehow pick up good manners on their way to adulthood, as if by magic.
The fact that your children correct other people at least shows that what you have taught them is there to stay. But I guess that it can be embarrassing in some circumstances.
[…] Shimshonit writes about Table manners […]
I’ve been trying to teach my Israeli boyfriend, Eyal, some proper table manners. He’s over 30, and no one taught him proper ones up till now. But now he waits for me before he begins to eat, asks me to pass him things instead of just reaching over my plate and grabbing it, and asks if i would like to have the last piece of food instead of just devouring it. He has also stopped waving his knife around while talking.
I still have to get him to understand the concept of a napkin, and that a kitchen towel is not a napkin. I also want to enforce a nicer dinner habit – at a dining room table instead of on the sofa in front of the TV. This is fine for the occasional movie, but every day? That depresses me, and is not very comfortable.
I feel annoyed at myself for getting annoyed by these things, but I feel they are worth enforcing especially if we’ll ever have any children!
I second you on this wholeheartedly, Shimshonit!
I’ve eaten at several Israëli tables where people:
* don’t say ‘beti’avon’ or ‘birchat ha mazon’ before a meal
* start putting food on their plate and commence eating while other bowls are still being brought over from the kitchen, not waiting till everybody is seated and has put food on their plate
* put their left elbow on the table while shoveling the food in with the fork in their right hand
* leave the table while others are not finished(to do something inane like starting a phone conversation on their pelephone or turn on the tv)
* don’t complement the cook on the quality of the food
* don’t offer to pour others a glass of water or wine when one takes one him/herself
* have a pleasant dinner conversation without a full mouth
Correcting others(in a friendly way), I agree, is only possible in your own home at your own table.
Peter: Actually my beef about table manners extends to non-Israelis too, who either have poor table manners themselves or decline to teach their children at a young age how to behave at the table properly.
[…] the social graces the Cap’n and I hold so dear. (Read about ‘em here, here, and here.) When I sneeze, he says, “Ah-too, Mama.” When he asks for more of something and I […]