Flourishing private etiquette lesson

By Park Moo-jong

Home education is no less important than school education.

Unfortunately, however, both appear unappealing to the parents of today.

A boom of private manners and etiquette lessons for children proves this trend.

Parents of kindergarteners and elementary school pupils are rushing to private schools teaching manners and etiquette in the wake of the latest series of imprudent behavior of the scions of wealthy families.

Many people may be lamenting, "Where has our traditional education at the dining table gone?"

The monthly tuition fee is as much as 1 million won (about $830) a month! But reservations are full.

Some "wealthy" parents are said even to hire private teachers to teach their children manners and etiquette at their home.

Over the course of two weeks (three days a week), the children learn politeness, how to greet people, how to speak properly, appropriate eating habits, respect, eye contact and how to help out at home among others.

Manners and etiquette for children is, indeed, ranked as the most important quality to nurture in the family home and good manners are essential for every child's self confidence and success in life.

The importance of domestic education cannot be overemphasized. But today such an essential thing is missing in the Republic of Korea.

There are many reasons to blame for the lack of home education.

We are living in the time of not only nuclear threats, but nuclear families with no child or one or two per family at the most.

A natural consequence is that only son or only daughter is virtually an emperor or empress in a family. It is no wonder that such a child is ill-bred.

The "new" social trend reminds me of a book, "How Children Took Power," written by Swedish writer-psychiatrist David Eberhard in 2013.

Calling on parents to seize back control of their families, he warned that Sweden's approach to parenting has bred a nation of ill-mannered brats and now Swedish parents are unwilling to discipline their children in any way. In 1979 Swedes became the first to adopt a total smacking ban.

He laments: "We live in a culture where so-called experts say that children are competent and the conclusion is that children should decide what to eat, what to wear, and when to go to bed."

"If you have a dinner party, they never sit quietly. They interrupt. They're always in the center, and the problem is that when they become young adults, they take with them the expectation that everything is centered around them, which makes them very disappointed," he says in the book.

This is not the story of Sweden only. This is also the story of Korea of today.

Korean parents' blind love and overprotection of their children, plus their unrivaled zeal to send them to prestigious universities, have been a poisoned well that lets them end up becoming egoistic and behaving badly.

An African proverb goes: "To raise a child, a whole village is required." This means that not only school education but teaching and concern of the whole society are needed for a child to grow into a healthy and righteous teen and then an adult.

Everybody knows that home is the first society and education scene a child meets. Yet, in this rapidly-changing society of nuclear families and information-technology, communication and dining together has been missing in the home.

Government statistics testify to the seriousness of the situation. About 36 percent of teenagers stay home alone or only with their brothers or sisters, after school, without their parents.

A survey by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family shows that teenagers who talk with their fathers and mothers for more than one hour a week account for only 31.8 percent and 53.1 percent, respectively.

In particular, smartphones are the main culprit for the lack of communication among family members.

Without fully realizing it, we have been gradually giving up the social education usually provided outside of schools for the growing generation. Few adults show up to scold young people who are impolite or do wrong.

This phenomenon is a natural outcome of the idea of "none of my business." We have to come out to scold, for instance, middle and high school students who light up cigarettes even in the presence of adults with no hesitation.

Before it is too late, we need to take a lesson from Singapore that launched the "National Courtesy Campaign" as early as 1979 under the initiative of the Ministry of Culture as a means of encouraging Singaporeans to be more kind and considerate to each other, so as to create a pleasant social environment. In 1997, the campaign was subsumed by the Singapore Kindness Movement.

It is very fortunate that there is a boom in private manners and etiquette lessons for children.

I have no idea about how private "etiquette" teachers educate their students. Personally, I hope the tutors will teach the growing generation to treat other people with respect, let others go first, let others speak first, make eye contact, hold the door for another, pick up a dropped item for someone and not to talk on the smartphone loudly in public places such as subway trains.

What is one of the most decisive means is take up the rod, so as not to spoil the child, as an old proverb advises.

Park Moo-jong is the advisor of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's first English newspaper from 2004 to 2014 after working as a reporter for the daily since 1974. He can be reached at moojong@ktimes.com or emjei29@gmail.com