YOUR KID IS TOTALLY RUDE TO GROWN-UPS

When your kid was a toddler, the grown-ups descending on him with broad smiles and open arms totally understood when your kid ran away or buried his face in your shoulder. (And if they didn’t, they’re jerks—I mean, really.) Even when your kid made it to preschool, he got a pass for looking away when an adult addressed him or for shrugging wordlessly when someone asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up or if he liked his baby brother or something equally tedious.

But as you may have noticed, your kid has grown—and behaviors that used to inspire understanding nods and affectionate pats on the head (also tedious) are now triggering impatience, annoyance, and general exasperation. This is not because the adults interacting with your kid have suddenly morphed into assholes who demand perfect manners and impeccable social graces far beyond his tender years—it’s simply because they would like for your school-age kid to return their greetings or to look them in the eye or to treat them with a modicum of courtesy and respect. And not to insult your kid—he’s the one holding the serving bowl of pretzels on his lap and not glancing up when people tell him hello and comment on how big and handsome he’s grown, right?—but they kind of have a point.

I know, I know: Your kid is shy and reserved, far too timid to comply with these expectations. He’s also just a kid, come on—there’s plenty of time for him to master the niceties of etiquette when he’s older. (How much older? one might ask. Well, how are you supposed to know? Just, like, older.) Plus, your kid is most comfortable spending time with people he knows well, with those embracing souls who accept his true self and don’t try to mold him into some “how do you do, sir, and may I take your coat, ma’am” automaton. To put it plainly, your kid Doesn’t Do Well Around Strangers, and people need to honor that.

To all this, I—and most of the people who encounter your kid—respond: Hmmm.

Yes, you have a point. After all, our child-revering culture is eager to completely absolve your kid of any responsibility for making nice with adults and to put the onus on grown-ups to find common ground with your kid’s generation. Add that to your constant fear of smothering your kid’s unique gifts and shredding his self-esteem by suggesting he may have some room for improvement, plus a general hesitation to burden your kid with unpleasant demands, and voila! You have made an excellent case for leaving your kid alone, at least until he needs a refill on the pretzels and maybe a glass of water, and not expecting him to smile and engage with the boring adults arrayed before him.

But before we dismiss them completely, let’s take a closer look at these dull, irritating grown-ups with whom your kid can’t possibly be bothered. Plenty of them are shy and reserved, plenty prefer being with people they know well, and plenty (including me) do not relish time spent with strangers, particularly strangers determined to engage me in a friendly chat when I have just downloaded The Girl on the Train (I know, I’m the last person in the universe to read it) to my Kindle or have just figured out how to totally kick my sister’s ass in Words With Friends. And not to be mean, but plenty of them don’t even care how your kid’s hockey season is going or genuinely notice that he’s grown since the last time they saw him. So why are they going out of their way to greet your kid, to smile at him, to try to engage him in a bit of friendly conversation?

Believe it or not, these adults are not out to aggravate your kid. They are just trying to uphold the basic social expectations that exist among the human beings of this world as to how we treat one another: expectations that we say hi, that we smile, that we share a few pleasant words; expectations that we not ignore or rebuff a cheerful hello, that we not meet attempts at polite small talk with a blank face, that we not stuff our mouths with yet another handful of pretzels and return to the business of inspecting the dreck on the bottom of our shoes while our would-be conversation partners ask if we are going to camp again this summer. And as irksome as they might be, these expectations totally benefit your kid—otherwise I’d have grabbed the pretzels from him twenty minutes ago, bought myself a new pair of earbuds instead of getting him a gift card to Best Buy on his last birthday, and interrupted his monologue on his new hamster to show off my awesome pedicure—and he should start fulfilling a few himself.

Hopefully you know me well enough by now to assume the following, but in case you just opened the book for the first time and landed on this page: If your kid has genuine issues, social anxiety, attachment disorders, a place on the autism spectrum, or something along those lines, of course I am not talking to you. But there are many, many kids out there who—according to their besotted parents—should not be held accountable for displaying manners or observing basic conventions of behavior, when the only thing truly standing between these kids and social skills are overindulgent and coddling adults. Here’s a quick way to determine where your kid lies: If you are convinced he’s a retiring hothouse flower, but he seems to have no problem informing a waitress that she forgot his fries, accepting a generous gift from a family friend, or explaining at length to an incredibly patient audience what he is constructing on Minecraft, then please read on.

Of course this is a gradual process, and believe me, no one is anticipating Emily Post when they decide to converse with your kid. But the best way for your kid to start developing basic manners is for you to stop making excuses for what he can’t do and instead focus on what he can and should. So please, take the pretzels away already, and consider introducing your kid to these rudimentary expressions of polite behavior. And would it kill him to sit up straight?

Stand up when an adult enters the room. Yes, I am totally serious. This is so easy for your kid to do, and so utterly charming. It may seem like an insanely outdated custom, but adults (especially older adults) remember it well and will deeply appreciate seeing it revived. Plus, it goes a long way toward instilling respect for grown-ups, which might serve your kid well. Just saying.

Smile and shake hands. Unless your kid is pathologically shy or the adult is dripping with phlegm, your kid should greet adults by smiling, looking them in the eye, and extending his hand. Even though this practice may sound awkward, it actually helps shy or uncertain kids immensely by providing them with a script and a step-by-step plan for handling social encounters. It is also far superior to, say, muttering, grunting, or perhaps growling upon being introduced to one’s parent’s friend from out of town. (True story! Although the growling child was, her mother helpfully explained, upset because she could not find her Rainbow Loom and was just expressing her frustration. Oh. Okay.)

Put other people first. A major part of polite behavior is demonstrating consideration for others, which in practice boils down to not going first and insisting on the best all the fucking time. This means teaching your kid to hold the door open for adults rather than pushing past them and scooching through (yeah, grown-ups are slow, sorry), standing up to offer an adult his seat instead of staying put while someone nine times your kid’s age looks around in vain for a place to rest her weary bones, and not starting an extremely noisy empty-wrapping-paper-tube fight with three similarly high-spirited buddies, like, ten feet away from a group of ladies complaining about their husbands over coffee and mixed-berry streusel. (Which is better than it sounds.)

Manage a conversation. The anatomy of a conversation between an adult and your kid should not consist of increasingly desperate/impatient/ridiculous attempts to get your kid to talk (from the adult) and silence/“huh?”/“yeah”/“uh”/more silence (from your kid). Knowing how to manage a conversation with a grown-up is tremendously important—and empowering—for your kid. Teaching your kid how to nod politely, hold up his end of the conversation (the words “Really?” and “Wow” will serve him well), and make a clean getaway (“That’s so interesting! Please excuse me, I think my mom needs me”) will not only make him a more considerate and well-mannered person, but will also enable him to handle uncomfortable situations with confidence and (appropriate) self-assertiveness.

These behaviors are just the beginning—but holy shit, what a great beginning. And while instilling these manners in your kid will not be a total snap, your firm and consistent guidance, plus the lavish praise and positive attention your kid will garner from his efforts, will make the process a lot easier than you are imagining. And the payoff is fantastic for everyone—for the adults interacting with your kid, for sure, but also for your now-infinitely-more-socialized-and-secure kid and for you, the parent whom every grown-up in a hundred-mile radius now thinks of as the best ever.

Trust me: Once your kid has mastered these skills, you will start noticing how they set him apart—and you will look with exasperation at the hordes of clueless parents who let their kids get away with less. Just don’t expect to chat about this phenomenon with me for too long; I’m fine with exchanging friendly smiles and a bit of small talk, but after a couple of minutes, I’ll be sneaking away (“That’s so interesting! Please excuse me, I think my kid needs me”) to read The Girl on the Train in the bathroom.