ABSTRACT
A feature story of the front page of the Toronto Globe and Mail, the leading Canadian newspaper, on 3 July 1999, bore the headline: ‘Minding one’s manners a matter of course: social skills’. The article was about a summer camp in Vancouver for primary-school children from 5 to 12 years old where children are taught in five days such aspects of etiquette as basic
table manners, how to shake hands, how to answer the telephone politely, and holding doors for older people. The article concludes with a debate as to whether parents who send there children to this social-skills camp are admitting failure and abrogating their responsibilities as parents to teach social skills. The last paragraph in the newspaper story contains an admonition from a professional consultant that these skills have to be taught as part of everyday life, not as a special set one-week summer course.
