Free Giveaway!

We are honored to offer a free giveaway of one the most exciting products getting recognition for promoting manners to children!

Blunders—a fun board game for 2-4 players ages 5 & up—has children learning manners while they pretend to be members of the Blunder family, honing their etiquette so they'll earn an invitation to the Mannerlys' pool party. One of the Today Show's "Favorite Things," Blunders has received numerous awards and excellent reviews, including a recent 5 Star rating from WTS Toy Review.

Blunders inventor and etiquette consultant Aimee Symington also created Manner Mats, a set of tear-off placemats with etiquette-centric games, puzzles, and other activities that are perfect for home or dining out at restaurants.

We have one Blunders game and one set of Manners Mats to give away!

These are excellent products for parents, teachers, or anyone with young children in their lives.

For your chance to win, leave us a comment (one per person) in this post before 8 a.m. EST Friday, May 11. We will announce the winner (selected via Random Number Generator) shortly after on this blog.

We had a chance to interview the genius behind Blunders - thank you, Aimee!

5 Questions with Aimee Symington

Perfectly Polished: Why is it important to teach etiquette to young children?

Aimee Symington: What people learn as children will shape who and what they become. For example, if you teach children to show respect and kindness to others even on the playground and at school, they will forever know how they should behave towards adults. Children with polite manners are given positive reinforcement which increases their self-esteem, they have more friends, and they perform better in school. So, I guess the question is… why shouldn’t we teach children manners?

When it comes to children and manners, what are the "repeat offenses" you see most often?

In young children, it’s having bad table manners and being unwilling to try new food. This is something that parents can easily do something about, however. Parents need to take the time to teach their children to have polite table manners and then expect it 100% of the time, not just when they go to grandma’s.

The worse offense with older children is being mean to others. Gossiping, teasing, and bullying are happening more than ever now that kids can say something via text, email, Facebook, or through other social media, and hind behind a screen. Kids need to learn that everything they put online will stay there forever and that their words can hurt others just as easily as if they have physically hurt them.

How did you create the "Blunders" game?

After one of my etiquette sessions, a mom asked me what she could do at home to make learning manners fun. I thought about it and realized that there was nothing on the market that families or teachers could use to make the task of teaching manners easy and somewhat enjoyable. So that is when I said, "I’ll create a board game on manners. How hard can it be?” Well.. I quickly found out it was hard, but it was well worth the blood, sweat, and tears.

How did you come up with the idea for the activity mats?

I received a lot of comments from parents that they wanted a game or activity that they could do at the table before and during dinner to teach their children social skills and dining etiquette. Some restaurants have placemats that kids love to play with while waiting for their meal, so I thought—what a good idea it would be to have the same type of games and activities on a placemat, but that would actually be educational! I created a pad of 38 different placemats that parents can use with their kids at home or take along to restaurants to use while they wait. The placemats also encourage conversation, give information on what people do in other countries, and teach you how to say “Please” and “Thank you” in different languages.

Your products are making a name of themselves. How does it feel to get that kind of recognition for products that promote manners?

After so much hard work it feels great! Also, it’s nice to know that there are people out there who recognize how important it is to teach children to have polite manners and good social skills. 

UPDATE: Comments are now closed! The winner is: 

"Sounds like a great idea! Interrupting is a big one in our house too. (Partly cause Dad and I cut each other off all the time, I suspect.)"

Posted by: HEJ May 9, 2012 6:49 AM

Congratulations!