Whether you are visiting the theatre or going to a concert this autumn, you will be in a crowded public space and your behaviour will have an impact on other people.
Theatre seats are a costly investment – we read reviews and listen to word of mouth before we take the plunge, but we can never guarantee that our night out is going to be an unqualified success, and we understand that there is always an inherent risk that we will not enjoy the play or concert.
However, there are other impediments to our enjoyment that are gratuitous. Many of us will have had the trauma of seeing our much-anticipated night out being ruined by restless neighbours, compulsive coughing, whispered conversations, mobile phones or rustling sweet papers. These disruptions are entirely avoidable, so brush up on your theatre etiquette, which is also applicable to concerts and operas, and ensure that you’re never the much-resented audience-member that is transgressing:
1. Arrive in good time, ideally at least 15 minutes before the performance begins. This will give you time to buy a programme, visit the loo if necessary, and find your seat while causing minimum disruption to everyone else. Bear in mind that latecomers are not admitted to the auditorium until a suitable break in proceedings, and in some cases will have to wait until the interval.
2. If you’ve got to squeeze your way down a row to get to your seat, repeatedly apologising, smiling and muttering ‘excuse me’ and ‘thank you’ will go a long way towards mollifying people who are already comfortably settled in their seats. Traditionally, etiquette dictated that seat-takers always faced the seated person, rather than presenting a back view.
3. When you reach your seat, make sure that bags are stowed away under your seat so that the limited space available is not obstructed. If you are carrying a lot of bags and packages, check if there is a cloakroom facility (available at many venues) where you can check them in.
4. Switch off your mobile phone before the performance begins. This may seem blindingly obvious, and many theatres will make reminder announcements before the curtain goes up, but ringing tones can still be heard from time to time in hushed theatres. It’s maddening for the performers and audience, and the reproachful glances of your near neighbours will also make it intensely embarrassing for you. Bear in mind that you are not allowed to use your phone to take photographs or film during performances.
5. Don’t switch your phone to silent and use it to text during the performance. In a darkened auditorium a phone that is in use is a major light source, which will be an irritating distraction for your neighbours.
6. You really don’t need to speak to your companions during the performance (unless there is an emergency, for example you’re suddenly feeling ill). All your observations or commentary about the play can be reserved (briefly) for the pauses between acts or scene-changes, or ideally for the interval. Whispered conversations are always audible to neighbours.
7. It’s always a good idea to come to a theatre or concert performance equipped with a bottle of water. If you have a ticklish throat you might be able stave off a noisy coughing fit with a sip of water – of course, coughing is sometimes unavoidable, but try and keep it to a minimum.
8. Theatres sell treats, such as sweets and chocolates, and you may well feel tempted to indulge – just bear in mind that noisy rustling of sweet papers can also be a distraction for neighbours. If you feel compelled to unwrap a sweet or chocolate during the performance, try and wait for a suitable opportunity (applause, a particularly cacophonous passage of music, noisy audience laughter).
9. If you’re in the middle of a row, try to return to your seat promptly after the interval; that way you’ll minimise disruption for people sitting nearby.
10. Applaud loudly and generously at the end of the performance – even if you have been disappointed, you owe the performers an acknowledgement.
Following these rules will ensure that you have done your best show consideration to fellow audience-members and respect to performers. Of course, there will always be inconveniences that are beyond your control – if you are unlucky enough to be seated behind an exceptionally tall person, you’ll just have to grin and bear it, and remind yourself that – however obstructive their back view appears to be – they should not be held accountable for their height…
This is the time of year when many parents are forced to come to terms with the fact that their children have become adults and are setting off on their own journey. For many parents, the ritual of the trip in an overladen car to university is a bitter-sweet experience: of course it would be churlish not to participate in your son or daughter’s excitement, but at the same time you are having to face the fact that an era is over and your own family life will never feel the same again.
Confronted with the reality of the empty nest, it is all too easy to refuse to accept that you are now the parent of a newly-fledged adult, and this refusal is manifested in desperate clinginess and curiosity about their independent life. Repeatedly calling your son or daughter, demanding regular updates on the minutiae of their everyday life, is soon going to feel oppressive and intrusive.
You will have to learn to trust your son or daughter, and give them space to explore their newfound freedom. This means modifying your behaviour in the following ways:
• Stand back and let go. Accept that interference in your offspring’s life will be met with irritation, resentment or rejection.
• Lose the habits of a lifetime, and stop treating your grownup offspring as children. This means listening to what they’re saying, taking them seriously, respecting their opinions, and resisting the temptation to lecture, tease or nag.
• As far as possible, keep your opinions to yourself. Quibbling with your offspring over everything from their choice of car to life partner will only alienate them. Everyone should have the freedom to make their own decisions – and, sometimes, mistakes.
• Be supportive. Give your sons and daughters positive encouragement in everything (within reason) they choose to do – even if you can’t understand why they’re doing it...
• Don’t aid and abet regression. You may find your offspring are all too willing to return to the parental home for pampering, and are more than ready to regress into sloppy adolescents. This is a dangerous precedent, and will only happen if you are colluding with them. Instead, ask them to help out around the house and garden, give them tasks and errands, and keep them busy. Don’t offer to do their washing!
• Don’t let them take you for granted. All too often your desire to continue playing a central role in your offspring’s lives can turn you into a doormat. They can rely on you for subsidies, lifts, loans, and much more. If they don’t learn to ask you politely for assistance, and thank you graciously when they receive it, they will not be acquiring essential social skills that will be vital in their adult life.
• Don’t pry. They will not tell you everything, and you must respect their privacy. Looking at their text messages, following them on social media, snooping on Facebook, or peeking at their diaries is simply not acceptable, no matter how desperate you are to know the truth. You just have to hope that, providing you build up a good, mature relationship with your offspring, they will feel able to tell you everything in due course.
• You will always worry about your sons and daughters, but be careful about expressing your anxieties directly to them. All too often, your worry becomes an extra burden, and they may choose not to off-load their problems on you, because they fear your reaction. This may lead to a cycle of secrecy and restraint.
• Try, as far as possible, to take the lead from your offspring when it comes to keeping in touch. Your son or daughter may find daily phone calls oppressive, so it’s probably best to stand back and let the younger generation come to you. Gradually a pattern of communication that is acceptable to all concerned will be established, and you will then be able to play your part in maintaining it.
• Make it clear that you’re always happy to see them, but don’t beg them to come and visit (unless you have a very good reason). They may be very caught up in their own lives, and will see your repeated invitations as needy and demanding. By rejecting your obvious desire to see them they may make themselves feel guilty, and therefore resentful, towards you, and a dangerous vicious circle will be set in motion. Wait for them to come to you.
• Be positive. All the members of your family will need your support and affirmation throughout their lives, so don’t be afraid to give it. Compliment them on their appearance, their new house, their partner’s success. Tell them how proud you are when they get a degree, a new job, a promotion. It’s never a bad idea to show them how much you care.
Crowded pavements, texting pedestrians, speeding bikes, electric scooters, wayward dogs, gargantuan buggies… The list of pedestrian hazards is ever-growing. Simply walking along a busy pavement in a town centre can be a frazzling experience, involving countless irritations, adjustments and accommodations.
The main problem is that many pedestrians are unobservant, lost in their own worlds and unaware of the impact of their behaviour on the people around them. The key to good public manners is to engage with the world. Negotiating a crowded pavement without bumping or jostling fellow-pedestrians requires care and attention.
Follow these simple guidelines and make our pavements a better place:
• Pick up your pace. If your tendency is to saunter along at a snail’s pace, you will inevitably cause frustration if people are stuck behind and cannot overtake (exception is of course made for older people, people who use walking sticks, people with small children and so on).
• Stick to two-abreast. Marching down a pavement shoulder-to-shoulder with a group of friends is an aggressive form of colonisation. There is no room for anybody else, and the result is that oncoming pedestrians are forced to scatter and stand aside to allow the juggernaut to barge past. What could be ruder?
• Mind your mobile. Multi-tasking and thinking all communication too important to ignore for even a few seconds is tempting but self-aggrandising. Realistically almost everything can wait for a few moments. Scrutinising a screen while walking along, especially when wearing headphones, may cause accidents or impede other pedestrians.
• Keep moving. Coming to a sudden halt and standing stock still in the middle of a pavement is clearly hazardous for anyone who is close behind you. If you’ve suddenly opened a revelatory text or had a game-changing brainwave, take a few seconds to sidle over to the side before you lapse into immobility.
• Move aside. If you bump into an acquaintance on the street, move to one side to avoid blocking the way for others. Standing chatting in the middle of the pavement, with streams of pedestrians forced to divert around the encumbrance you’re creating, is the height of bad manners.
• Look out. We’ve all been cut dead on the street by a texting, unfocused, unconscious acquaintance. We know their mind is elsewhere but we still find it a bit hurtful. Try not to be distracted, look at the faces of those around you, engage with your environment, and you will avoid cutting friends dead and being reproached for your unfriendliness.
• Keep dogs on a short lead. Never use a lead that stretches across the width of the pavement, or you will risk entangling pedestrians’ legs. It is important that you keep your dogs under close control on crowded streets, so there is no risk of them jumping up at strangers.
• Be perceptive about pushchairs. Some pushchairs are the size of small tanks and manoeuvring them through crowded streets is quite a challenge. Parents should be hyper-aware of the pace of pedestrians in front or they risk getting too close and barking their ankles. Two pushers abreast, deep in conversation and oblivious to the world, carry all before them, scattering pedestrians as they go. This behaviour is only tolerable on exceptionally wide pavements.
• Be a considerate smoker or vaper. With smoking banned in public places indoors, smoking on the street has become a common practice, and smokers are frequently joined by vapers, whose presence is advertised by billowing clouds of vapour. Smokers and vapers should make sure they congregate in places where they won’t form a major impediment to other pavement-users. It goes without saying that littering the street with cigarette ends is anti-social.
• Beware brollies! If you’re wielding an umbrella, you need to be spatially aware and have some regard for height differences, or you’ll risk poking passing pedestrians in the eye. If you find yourself head-to-head with a fellow umbrella-user, adopt the following strategy: the person on the inside edge should move closer to the wall/buildings, while raising their umbrella to avoid collision; the person on the outside lane should lower their umbrella and edge towards the road.
• Resist grazing. It was once considered the height of bad manners to eat in the street, and it should still be approached with caution. We are seduced by a cornucopia of street food in our towns and cities, but if you can’t resist indulging, it is a good idea to try and find a bench or seat, or at least to stand to the side of the pavement while you are eating. Munching as you walk along is yet another distraction that might impede your movement and awareness.
• Remember, pavements are for pedestrians. While we all accept that pushchairs, wheelchairs and mobility scooters are also entitled to use the pavement, people on bikes or electric scooters should be using the roads or designated bike lanes. If, for any reason, a cyclist is forced to use the pavement, they must behave with the utmost discretion. This means cycling slowly, and giving way to slow-moving walkers. It does not mean hurtling at full speed down the pavement, ringing the bell or shouting obscenities at pedestrians. This behaviour is not only offensive, it is illegal.
• Bin it! Whether you’re eating, drinking, or smoking, it is absolutely imperative that you dispose of all rubbish properly. That means holding on to it until you can find a rubbish bin, and if necessary taking it home with you. Many of our town centres are defiled by litter dropped by inconsiderate pedestrians, so don’t contribute your own rubbish to the blight.
The pandemic made the British more soppy than ever about dogs, and pandemic puppies were seen as a salvation for house-bound, lonely self-isolators. But how do we accommodate our pampered pooches into our post-pandemic lifestyle? Restaurants, anxious to make up for pandemic losses, are falling over backwards to attract customers, and are more willing than ever to accommodate dogs. It is completely legal for dogs to join their owners in restaurants and cafés in the UK, as long as hygiene protocols are respected. However, whether your favourite restaurant chooses to admit dogs is a matter of discretion, so it’s always advisable to check first.
How do you prepare for a dog’s dinner? As with all social encounters, it is important that you are observant and self-aware; you will need to monitor your dog’s behaviour and also check that there he or she is not upsetting fellow diners. If that is the case, you will have to accept it with good grace – not everyone is a dog-lover, hard as you may find it to believe, and some fastidious people may be offended by your dog’s behaviour.
1. Dogs should be well trained before you even consider taking them out to eat. This means that they respond to commands like ‘sit’ and ‘stay’. They should be used to lying quietly or playing with a dog toy at home while you are eating.
2. It’s a good idea to take your dog for a walk before you go to the restaurant – it will wipe them out and with any luck they’ll sleep peacefully under the table.
3. It’s also a good idea to feed your dog before you take him/her to a restaurant. You may still have to contend with longing looks at your plate, but the dog will feel more lethargic about jumping up and begging for morsels.
4. Come well prepared with a dog bowl (the waiter can fill it with water for you), dog treats (great for distraction and reward) and a dog toy.
5. Keep your dog on a short leash while you are in the restaurant, and attach it to something solid like a table leg.
6. Choose your position carefully – ensure that your are away from doggy distractions such as small children and other dogs, and also make sure that your dog doesn’t sprawl between tables, creating an obstruction.
7. You might think your dog is a miraculous near-human, but your fellow diners are unlikely to agree, so don’t let your dog sit up at the table, sit on your lap and put its paws on the table, and under no circumstances should you let it lick your plate – many people will be grossed out by the sight of a dog slobbering on the tableware. Do not feed your dog with scraps from the table – you can always ask the restaurant for a doggie bag.
8. Be very alert to your dog’s behaviour – you need to look out for doggie hazards such as other dogs, toddlers, and – if you’re eating outdoors – wildlife such as squirrels. If someone accidentally drops a tasty morsel on the floor nearby, your dog is liable to become over-excited and begin straining at the leash.
9. Be very aware of the fact that not everybody is an ardent dog-lover. Small children may be very scared of dogs, and some people are a bit phobic. Complacently making pronouncements like “he’s just being friendly” is really not good enough.
10. If your dog becomes over-excited and starts barking, be aware that diners who are hoping to enjoy a quiet night out might soon start to feel frazzled. In these circumstances it’s a good idea to take your dog outside for a quick break, or even admit defeat and leave.
A warm smile will ensure that you make vital connections when you first enter a room. If you smile at others, there is a good chance that they will smile back. You will already be aware that you smile when you are happy and when you feel positive about the people around you. It has also been proven that smiling not only elevates your own mood – it is a form of natural anti-depressant – but will also alter the moods of other people for the better.
A smile can be a spontaneous reaction to joy and delight, but it can also be an intentional choice, intended to express warmth and cordiality. Even if you have to consciously remind yourself to smile, as long as you channel good emotions it will look genuine, and will be contagious.
Why is a smile so important? It is the first expression we experiment with as a baby, and a smile is recognised around the globe (albeit there are some nuances in different cultures). As the well-worn cliché goes, when you smile, the world really does smile with you.
Smiling will convey a number of messages: it proclaims your self-confidence, receptivity and self-belief, and it communicates that you are genuinely delighted to be interacting. It is therefore an excellent expression to have on your face when you are first introduced to a stranger, as it will inevitably leave a positive impression.
There are, of course, two sorts of smile, real and fake. But what is the difference?
It is all in the eyes. A real or full smile associated with positive emotions is more likely to create eye creases and a fake smile will not. While identifying a fake smile is not inevitably straightforward or accurate, it seems reasonable to assume that, if you can reframe the conditions just a little, less faking is required. For example, if you feel under pressure at an interview, you can smile when you meet the interviewer because you are genuinely grateful for the fact that you have made it to the interview, rather than because you are consciously thinking ‘Now is when I must smile’.
If you have to fake a smile, don’t overdo it – a fixed, rictus grin can soon start to look lunatic. A plausible faked smile will still attract positive feedback.
Smiling at strangers, for example in the street or on public transport, will not inevitably be well-received: Brits, particularly urban-dwelling ones, can tend to be suspicious of friendly overture, however sincere they may be. You may be innocently full of the joys of life, but others may interpret a broad smile as creepy, mocking, or worse, a come-on.
On the other hand, smiling in a social or business setting is an essential way of communicating friendliness and establishing trust, even across language barriers.
There are many ways in which you can confer joy and happiness when you meet people, and a smile is the most obvious. But what if you can’t see people? Does that mean you just have to fall back on friendly words? In fact, you must keep smiling because the people you speak to can hear a smile. A smile changes the shape of the lips and the soft tissue of the palate, and we hear it as clearly as we can see micro (or macro) expressions in the face. In fact, if in a phone call you use emollient words but don’t smile, you will start ringing alarm bells in people’s brains. They will hear in your voice that you don’t mean it.
Anyone who has to argue a point, debate, or disagree with other people (politicians for example) will recognise that even a fierce argument will be defused by smiles. You simply need to convince yourself that you are confident in your own views and do not feel angry with your opponent for disagreeing with you, and you will be able to use a potentially lethal weapon, the disarming smile – often the best way of dismantling arguments and disrupting the opposition.
However, if you are lying, or arguing a viewpoint that you do not find truly credible, it is quite likely that your smile will turn into a smirk. This disagreeable smile is generally seen as smug or condescending, the kind of expression that indicates that you feel in an advantageous position, perhaps because you know something that your interlocutor does not.
It would seem obvious that the positive and agreeable associations we all make with smiling would indicate that it is not the right facial expression to use when confronted with bad news, tragedy, sadness or grief. However, it is also important to acknowledge that not all smiles indicate positive feelings. Scientists have identified a comprehensive range of smiles that can also accompany a number of less than positive emotions: pain, embarrassment, discomfort, incredulity, defeat. Interpreting facial expressions is never a simple matter, but in general a positive smile will capture your attention and suffuse you with reciprocal feelings of positivity – this is an unlikely reaction when the smile is masking negative or ambiguous emotions.
We also must accept that telling other people to smile (remarks of the “Smile! It may never happen…” variety) is extremely intrusive. There are a myriad reasons why somebody might not be smiling, and it really isn’t any of your business to comment upon other people’s facial expressions.
The car has been unloaded, your new accommodation has been inspected, you’ve said goodbye to your parents. Finally, you’re on your own, and a whole new chapter is just beginning.
Starting university, particularly when you don’t know anybody, can be a daunting experience. Finding friends is a number one priority, and your first week will feel like a frenetic flurry of socialising. It is important that you participate fully, and resist the temptation to cower in your room, waiting for the world to come to you.
When you move into your halls, start as you mean to go on. Prop your door open, put on the kettle for tea or coffee, open a bottle of wine. You will come across as accessible and hospitable, and passing residents, who will also be on the lookout for new friends, may well drop in and say hello.
Basic social skills will be part of your fresher’s survival strategy. Smile warmly, even if you’re feeling scared or homesick. Now is not the time to try and look cool and standoffish. Introduce yourself early on when you have a casual encounter (in the communal kitchen for example). Ask questions and show an interest in other people’s answers – it helps if you ask open-ended questions that will stimulate chat (“I wonder where the union bar is?”), rather than asking people questions that will only be met by ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. If you hit it off, always swap phone numbers – you’ll soon find a chain reaction of introductions and networking will sweep you off your feet.
Freshers’ week can be a crazy time – you’re launching yourself as an adult and putting your childhood behind you. You may be experimenting with a new look, or forcing yourself to be braver and more outgoing. But take it easy, and don’t do anything in your first week that you’ll spend the next three years regretting – getting in with a dodgy crowd, falling in love with the first person you meet, or blowing your entire budget on a ludicrous extravagance.
You may find the first few days a bit of a rollercoaster. It’s normal to feel a bit untethered and homesick when you start university. Don’t panic if you feel your fresher’s week hasn’t been a triumph – you might not have found your new best friend or dream social circle in the first few days, but university, especially once you start going to lectures and classes, will provide you with endless opportunities to meet and bond with new people. Be patient and remind yourself that this is just the beginning of your adult adventure…
Follow these golden rules to ensure that you start your university course as you mean to go on.
• Operate an open door policy when you move into your residence hall. People will inevitably drop by and they may even become real friends.
• Have tea, coffee, some cans of beer or a bottle of wine available (remember to bring a kettle, mugs, glasses etc. when you pack), and greet everyone with a friendly hello.
• Use the communal areas, frequent the bars (even if you don’t drink). Get out of your room and socialise.
• Accept that – at first – conversational gambits are going to centre on your A level results, where you're from and the course you’ve chosenr. These are ice-breakers, and may lead on to more interesting things.
• Listen to what other people tell you, and ask questions. Don’t bang on about yourself all the time, or your new friends will soon be making for the door.
• Introduce yourself to strangers at Freshers’ Week parties. Everyone is in the same boat, so don’t worry about making the first move. If you like the look of someone, go up to them, tell them your name, ask them a few questions, and listen carefully. Keep smiling.
• Swap phone numbers if you want to see them again. Don’t tell complete strangers where you live or you may find yourself besieged by unwanted visitors. You can always use social media to vet your new acquaintances and you may find you have second thoughts.
• Avoid getting very drunk – first impressions count and it's best to keep a (relatively) clear head while you're still finding your feet.
• You may not stick with the friends you make during Freshers’ week. If you realise that they’re boring, fanatical, mean-spirited geeky etc, you can always move on. So approach the whole social maelstrom in a spirit of adventure and discovery.
• Be a joiner. Freshers’ fairs lay out a tempting array of societies and clubs, but don’t go mad. Sign up for things you’re actually interested in (liking the look of the student manning the stall isn’t a good enough reason!) and you might actually stay the course.
• Be open to new experiences, but exercise a little caution. Don’t blow all your money on a flat-screen TV or commit to sharing a second-year house with someone you've just met. You may end up regretting your freshers’ week antics for the next three years…
• Above all, be friendly. Keep smiling, and accept invitations whenever possible. You’ll only be a fresher once…
The teenage years may transform your delightful child into an alien being. Agonisingly self-conscious, sullen, lacking all social graces, angry, mind-blowingly self-centred…these are the teenage traits we have all come to dread.
Enslaved by a riot of hormones, stressed by exams, sexually self-conscious, desperate to break free from over-protective parents – being a teenager isn’t easy. When you’re the ‘victim’ (ie parent) of a typical adolescent, you’ll find it hard to focus on your own embarrassing memories of teen trauma, but it’s very important that you do just that.
Don’t be fooled by your teenager – they may be doing their utmost to project themselves as ultra-cool rebels without a cause, but they’re still young kids. They need lots of positive feedback, compliments and affection.
Give them a bit of space – they’ll probably spend hours microscopically examining their acne in the bathroom mirror, or trying on hundreds of different outfits, or experimenting with hair gel and make-up. Just live with it. Banging on the bathroom door, demanding “what are you up to in there?” will enrage them. Let them have their privacy.
Teenagers want to be different, and will enjoy shocking you. Piercings, tattoos, weird and wonderful hair colours, bizarre clothes – this is all ammunition in the ‘shock the parent’ game. Don’t rise to the bait.
Above all, listen to what they’re trying to tell you. It’s all too easy to fall into the outraged parent mode, hectoring and haranguing, convinced of your superior wisdom, intent on pointing out the errors they are making. But growing up is about making your own mistakes and learning from them – it’s painful to watch a much-loved child go through this agonising initiation, but you can’t do it for them.
You may have come to terms with your teenager’s anguish in the privacy of your own home, and may well have learnt to accommodate their behaviour, but how do you cope with them when you’re out in the world?
You may find that your maddeningly gawky and grumpy teenager turns into an absolute charmer when you wheel them out to visit the grandparents or have your own friends round to dinner. If that is the case, just be grateful and don’t dwell on the fact that you are not treated in the same way – remind yourself that you are being victimised because they love you and feel safe with you.
If, on the other hand, your teenager is a social embarrassment, who can’t engage in eye contact, communicates in Neanderthal grunts, and provides a passive-aggressive eye-rolling commentary on all your social interactions, think very carefully about forcing them to socialise. Other people may well be discomforted by your teenager’s antics, and the last thing you want is to make your guests feel awkward.
You may have to accept that – for the time being at least – your teenager is standing apart from society. Their agonising self-consciousness is too much of a social burden, and the safest thing for them to do is to sequester themselves away in their rooms. In these circumstances, it is really best to let them withdraw, rather than fighting to maintain your existing social arrangements. This can be a very difficult step for parents who are used to introducing delightful small children to their friends, and watching proudly as they captivate all and sundry. But you need to reconcile yourself to the fact that this magical childhood chapter is now over.
It is one thing to allow your teenager to withdraw when outsiders are present, but do not let yourself go down that tempting route when you are alone as a family. No matter how dispiriting and depressing it feels, try to eat family meals together. Keep up your own standards in relation to table manners and conversation, and you will find that your teenager is continuing to absorb valuable lessons about how to behave and how to socialise, which will stand them in good stead when they leave adolescence behind.
It is very easy to see a teenager’s revolt as the end of a family era. The destructive, frustrated presence in the midst of the family can cause long-established traditions to fragment, and civilised behaviour flies out of the window. But the teenage years, no matter how painfully arduous they may feel, are only a passing phase; providing a bedrock of normal, unchanging family life will ensure that your teenager can return to a safe haven, confident that you have been able to absorb the worst they can throw at you, and ready to embark on adulthood.
• Give them some personal space. Respect their privacy, knock before you go into their rooms, don’t poke around in their stuff, or snoop on their social media.
• Listen carefully to what’s being said, and take time to respond. Don’t get caught up in a stalemate where you’re issuing diktats and refusing to explain why – the response “Because I said so…” is, understandably, a red rag to a bull.
• Try not to be too judgmental – if you radiate an air of open-minded tolerance it will create an environment in which they’re more prepared to confide in you.
• Don’t be provocative. If you’re faced with a super-sullen teenager, trying to tease them out of the mood may well escalate the grumpiness.
• Keep calm. Teenagers are prone to flying off the handle and – if you reciprocate in any way – disputes can easily escalate into out and out conflict. Moderate your behaviour at all times.
• Give them some respect. You may find their views preposterous or just plain silly, but pointing this out is not a good idea. Don’t be too critical, and never pull the adult card, as in “When you’re my age you’ll realise…”
• Try and break through “don’t touch” barrier; be affectionate, positive, complimentary. This is a time when children need lots of encouragement to build their confidence and self-esteem.
• Try and find the time to talk to your teenagers – but choose carefully. One to one or family occasions are best – trying to socialise with your teenager and friends may cause scorching embarrassment.
• Don’t get trapped in disputes over trivial issues. Accept that you are no longer able to control every aspect of your child’s life, and only have confrontations over the things that really matter.
• If your teenager is rude to you, don’t accept it. Keep calm, but state clearly that you don’t like the way they’re speaking.
• Be polite, even under severe provocation. Your good manners may (eventually) rub off on your teenager…
In centuries gone by, shopping for necessities was a personal interaction. Grocery shoppers arrived brandishing a shopping list, stood patiently in a queue, greeted the shopkeeper who stood behind the counter, and probably enjoyed an exchange of pleasantries while an assistant filled out their order, measuring out and parcelling up items such as flour, sugar, rice, butter and cheese. At no point did the shopper ever handle the goods on display.
But all this changed in 1948, when Britain’s first self-service supermarket, the London Co-operative Society, opened in Manor Park. Supermarkets had been flourishing in the US since the 1930s, but this was the first attempt in Britain to in introduce a new kind of shopping, where the customer was king, and economies of scale led to bargain basement prices. Those early shoppers were overwhelmed by the novelty of wire baskets and the accessibility of stacked shelves; they were also delighted by the opportunity to browse the goods on offer and pick out their own shopping.
Supermarkets were soon opening at an unprecedented rate and sales and profits rocketed. As more and more people began to own cars, further accommodations were made for bulk purchasers, with free car parking and out of town superstores. The era of personal shopping was long gone.
Has the advent of supermarkets inevitably led to a complete disappearance of shopping etiquette? Most of us appreciate the cheapness, choice and convenience of these huge stores, and trundling around the aisles with over-stacked trolleys, bombarded with promotions and multi-buy offers, has become a part of our everyday life. Many of us find ourselves on a kind of retail auto-pilot, performing actions and making choices that are so ingrained and routine that we never pause to think about them.
But supermarkets are full of other people – shop staff and fellow-customers – and, despite the shopping-induced daze, we need to ensure that we are aware of our surroundings and our behaviour. It will make the weekly shop a much more positive experience.
• Always greet staff with a friendly “good morning” or “good afternoon”. Ignoring them will make them feel like part of the wallpaper, and they will appreciate being acknowledged.
• Steer your trolley with care. Don’t absent-mindedly abandon it in the middle of the aisle while you wander off to compare prices or ask for directions – you will cause a trolley-jam and frustrate your fellow shoppers.
• Keep your eyes open for older people, who may not be able to reach items on the higher shelves, and always politely offer to help (look out for shorter people too – some supermarkets are built on a truly gigantic scale).
• If you need directions for specific items, always approach a shop assistant with a polite “Excuse me”. Don’t just barge up and bark out “Where have you put the baked beans?”. We have all been frustrated by our local supermarket’s tendency to regularly rearrange its stock, but don’t take it out on staff.
• If you have to shop with small children, try and keep them in the child seat of the trolley (plan ahead and bring a toy or book to distract them). Over-excited children hurtling down the aisles and screaming blue murder will make shopping fraught for everyone.
• When you get to the checkout, greet the sales assistant. Once you have loaded your goods on to the conveyor belt, make sure you add the divider (if available) for the next shopper. Exchange small talk pleasantries with the sales assistant if they seem amenable – chatting about the weather is an invaluable standby. Thank them politely.
• It is the height of bad manners to talk on your phone while going through the checkout procedure. Ignoring the sales assistant while you chat on the phone indicates that you are treating them as a mere functionary. Always put your phone away.
• Queues for checkouts can get long and tempers short. Tut tutting or complaining to an overworked sales assistant is really not going to improve the situation. Try and remain calm and agreeable.
• If you opt for a self-service checkout, accept that – at some point in the procedure – there may be an unexplained hitch of the “unexpected item in the bagging area” variety. Don’t vent your frustration on the poor sales assistant whose job is to intervene.
• Once you have packed your car, take the time to wheel your trolley back to the storage zone and stow it away neatly. We’ve all encountered stray abandoned trolleys taking up entire parking spaces.
We’ve all observed, or been victims, of this behaviour, which is a pattern of repeatedly targeting, humiliating and harming others. This is an all-too familiar playground problem, often starting as physical aggression and then becoming refined into a more exquisite form of torture, involving spreading rumours, disrupting friendships and social exclusion.
The best way to stop a bully in his/her tracks is for bystanders to intervene; bullies thrive on attention, but are cowards at heart. Parents should teach their children that this kind of behaviour is not tolerable and that there is strength in numbers when it comes to raising red flags. If you can encourage your child to be a champion against bullying, who is willing to stand up for friends and call out unacceptable behaviour, you should be very proud.
Children are often reluctant to discuss problems with bullying with their parents. They can all too easily perceive their victimhood as a humiliating failure, or will simply react to bullying with fatalistic acceptance – after all, they have limited experience to draw on and will find it hard to put their experiences into perspective.
• Coming home with damaged or missing clothes or inexplicable cuts and bruises.
• Unaccountably having trouble with schoolwork.
• Showing a marked reluctance to go to school or out to play.
• Being inexplicably, or disproportionately, emotional or irritable.
• Listen. If your child feels able to talk about the experience, don’t be dismissive, or come up with hackneyed tropes like “it’s all part of growing up” or “we’ve all been through it”. Suggest your child keeps a diary, detailing bullying incidents, or at least cooperates with you in creating one – it might be useful if you’re involving third parties in the problem.
• Offer support. Your child will need reassurance that the bullying they are experiencing is not their fault; it is not something they have brought upon themselves. It can help if you are sympathetic and empathetic – you may have your own stories of being bullied as a child. The main thing is to reassure them that you are in this together.
• Gather your thoughts. You will feel understandably angry on your child’s behalf, and you must resist the temptation to rush down to the school and berate the bully yourself. This will only make the situation worse.
• Enlist help. It’s really hard to tackle bullying on your own, and nobody should have to suffer in silence. Inevitably, you will have to involve teachers, parents, and the children themselves in finding a solution. You might discover that a bullied child finds it difficult talking to their parents, and is happier confiding in a friend of his/her parents, a godparent, or a grandparent and you should certainly encourage this.
• Consult. As long as your child is happy for you to do so, it is a good idea to make an appointment with their teacher, who may not be aware that there is a problem or may have heard a very contradictory account of the incident.
• Record. Agree what action the school proposes to take to solve the problem and agree on a timeframe. Make a note of this proposal and stay in touch with the school. It is important to let them know if the situation is improving, or if there are still problems.
• Take if further. If you feel the school is not providing an adequate response to your problem, you can speak directly to the head, or get in touch with the school governors.
Your school should have a written anti-bullying policy and coordinator, who should be able to address any problems.
Every parent dreads being told that his or her child is a bully. However, it is important that you address the problem, rather than just reverting to a kneejerk, defensive response, which is blinding you to the reality of the situation.
If you can overcome your initial feelings of defensiveness and denial and bring yourself to accept that there is a problem, you will have to have to help your child to modify their behaviour. You will be more supportive if you can understand why your child is behaving in this way – is there a problem at home? Has there been a major disruption in home life (a death, divorce, separation, redundancy etc.)? Is your child also the victim of a bully? The victimised are often prone to adopting bullying behaviour.
Ultimately, you will need to talk all these issues over with your child. They may not fully understand the impact their actions have had on the child they have bullied, so you need to address the question of empathy – “how do you think you’d feel if someone did this to you?” It is also constructive if you can enlist the assistance of the school, which may well be aware of the situation and ready to help.
Playground confrontations, or incidents in classrooms or dining halls are witnessed and reported. Online bullying is a much more insidious form of torment. Increasingly, children may find themselves teased, threatened, embarrassed or humiliated online by bullies who are exploiting the full potential of social media and mobile phones. Often children are trapped into foolish behaviour online and are terrified and ashamed. They become isolated and anxious, sometimes with devastating consequences.
If you want to protect your children from this danger, take the following steps:
• If your child seems upset or withdrawn consider the possibility that cyberbullying is taking place. Sometimes it’s easier if the computer is set up in a family room, where you can monitor your child’s reactions.
• Talk to your child about online bullying and advise them that not responding or retaliating is the best policy – don’t let cyberbullies know that their abuse is working. Sometimes switching off the computer and walking away is the best defence.p
• Make sure your child knows how to block abusive messages online.
• Report anyone who is bullying your child online by notifying the platforms that host the abusive images, -messages, videos or audio.
• Talk to the school about online bullying – all schools have a responsibility to protect their pupils from bullying, whether it is happening in plain sight or on the internet.
• If online bullying strays into the areas of hate crime or pornography, you should report it to the police.
For some mothers and fathers the school gate ritual is a highlight of the day – a chance to meet and socialise with other parents. For others it is a minefield, littered with needy, pushy, or boastful parents who must be avoided at all costs. Some school gates are dominated by tight cliques of old friends, who are not particularly welcoming to newcomers – hanging around on the periphery, day after day, with nobody to talk to can be very demoralising.
No matter how anxious the school gate routine makes you feel, it’s always a good idea to present yourself as friendly and accessible. Especially when your children are very young, you are the main organiser and mediator of their social lives. If you want your child to enjoy play dates and party invitations, you will definitely need to make yourself acceptable to the other parents, and school gate friendships will be invaluable when there are emergencies and you need someone to pick up your child after school. Above all, remember that your child’s welfare is the main priority.
Picking your child up from school should always be a pleasure, never an ordeal. Follow our suggestions, and you’ll make the school gate a better place:
• Direct the conversation away from your children. Make general remarks (it is safe to assume that you are all reasonably local, so talking about the problems, and advantages, of the neighbourhood, or hot local issues will give you some clear common ground) and head people off school-related topics – an obsession with education can get very monotonous. You might actually have some interesting chats and make some good new friends.
• Never boast about your child’s achievements. Droning on about your child’s advanced reading age to the mother of a dyslexic child who’s struggling to keep up is the height of bad manners. It’s no good excusing yourself by saying you didn’t know; this is an area that’s full of pitfalls, and it’s much more tactful to play your cards close to your chest.
• Never question other parents about how well their child is doing. Even if you’re madly competitive and obsessed by your child’s comparative progress, this is not the way to proceed. Other parents may well respond with boasting or exaggerated modesty – you’d do better to have a quiet word with your child’s teacher.
• Don’t gossip about the shortcomings of certain children to other parents. Yes, you may have suffered at the weekend when the class troublemaker trashed your garden, but this is something you should only discuss with the child in question’s mother or father. They already have enough problems, without becoming aware that they are the subject of playground gossip.
• Don’t gossip about other parents at the school gate. You may think you’re being discreet, but his sort of poison leaks out (possibly with the children as the unwitting conduit), and can cause real distress.
• Take your criticisms of the school directly to your child’s teacher or to the head. Moaning about perceived shortcomings to other parents will just stir up dissatisfaction without actually achieving anything.
• Look out for the lone parents and try and include them. Not everyone finds the casual socialising of the school gate easy. Often whole groups of children have been together since nursery school, and by the time they get to ‘big school’ a playground mafia may already be fully established. Parents who are coming in from outside the clique may find themselves facing a seemingly impenetrable group of old friends. This can be an alienating experience; it may also mean that their child suffers from a lack of invitations.
• Make it clear that you’re always willing to help with pick-ups, after-school visits, school-runs etc. Other people will reciprocate. Volunteering to accompany school trips, helping out at the school fête, or assisting with classroom reading groups are all activities that will seal your reputation as an energetic, positive, committed parent.
