MIND YOUR Ps & Qs for Preteens

CLASS 1 — LEARN IT

Monday • Millie Lewis Columbia

In our first class, we begin with social situations preteens encounter every day. Students work on eye contact, introductions, conversation and listening skills, knowing when to speak and when to listen, phone etiquette, and becoming more aware of the message they give others through the way they communicate and conduct themselves.

Also in this first class, we begin preparing for Thursday’s dining experience. Students are introduced to what is expected from the time they enter a restaurant through the end of a meal. We practice approaching and sitting appropriately at the table, understanding a place setting, handling and using utensils properly, cutting food correctly, and pacing themselves during a meal.

Just as important, we talk about the social side of sharing a meal—how to take part in conversation, listen while someone else is speaking, finish chewing before speaking, and remember that dining with others is a shared experience, not simply food in front of us that needs to be eaten.

Throughout the class, we help students connect what they’re learning with why it’s important. Looking at someone while they’re speaking lets that person know they have your attention. Listening without interrupting shows respect. Putting away a phone tells the person in front of you, I’m present. I’m listening.

Small actions can communicate powerful messages.

Class 1 gives students the instruction and hands-on preparation they need before we take what they’ve learned into a real restaurant on Thursday.

CLASS 2 — PRACTICE IT

Thursday • Dining Experience at Melrose Market

Thursday takes what students learned on Monday and puts it into practice over a meal in a real restaurant.

Now the situations we’ve discussed begin happening naturally. Students order for themselves, interact with restaurant staff, use their utensils, manage the pace of the meal, take part in conversation, listen when someone else is speaking, and practice being present and aware of the people around them.

It’s one thing to talk about social and dining etiquette in a classroom. It’s quite another when the menu is in your hands, the food arrives, conversation is happening, and you have an opportunity to use what you’ve learned.

With only four students in the class, there is time for individual guidance and encouragement along the way.

This is where instruction becomes experience.

CLASS 3 — OWN IT

The Following Monday • Millie Lewis Columbia

The following Monday, we come back together after students have had several days to return to school, home, meals, conversations, friends, family, and all the ordinary situations where these lessons show up. Now we have something especially valuable to work with—their own experience.

We talk about what they noticed. What did they remember without someone reminding them? Did they catch themselves making a different choice? What is beginning to feel more natural? What still requires a little thought and practice?

We review and strengthen the skills that need it, and then we take the conversation one step further.

At this age, students are beginning to make more choices for themselves. We want them to recognize that those everyday choices are also helping shape the person they are becoming.

We make the idea of character simple and practical:

Character is who you are becoming through the choices you make.

Choices we repeat can become patterns. Patterns can become habits. And our habits influence the way we naturally respond to the people and situations around us.

That doesn’t mean one poor choice defines a young person. Every new situation gives us another opportunity to choose well.

From there, we can have meaningful conversations about respect, kindness, patience, gratitude, self-control, awareness of others, and learning to make choices they can feel good about afterward.

It also gives us an opportunity to talk about something preteens are already beginning to recognize: what gets attention.

Sometimes the quickest way to get a laugh or a reaction isn’t the choice we feel best about later. We certainly aren’t asking young people to stop being funny, energetic, outgoing, spontaneous, or themselves. We want them to understand that they never need to give up something valuable about themselves simply to get someone else’s attention.

Never trade respect for attention.

That is what Own It is about—moving beyond “I know what I was told to do” toward “I understand why, and I’m beginning to choose it for myself.”