Tips For Teaching Your Child Phone Etiquette

Do your friends complain about the way your child answers the phone? Is your child showing a sudden interest in using the telephone, but you don’t feel they understand proper telephone etiquette? If you answered yes to these questions, the good news is that there are ways to help teach your child or children proper telephone etiquette. By simply following some useful tips you can have your child well on the way to answering and using the telephone in the proper manner; no more worries about friends complaining about how rude your child is or the fact that they have a hard time getting you on the phone.

Here are some tips to follow when teaching your child telephone etiquette.

Tip one:
One of the most important tips that you can get for teaching your children telephone etiquette is to start them early. When children are young they love to pretend and role play; this is actually one of the best times to teach your child all sorts of manners. When it comes to teaching them telephone etiquette, what you need to do is to unplug two phones so that you can use realistic props. Start playing with them and teaching them the proper way to talk on the phone.

Tip two:
An important part of telephone etiquette is the correct way to answer the phone. Many children, regardless of their age, simply do not know how to begin a telephone conversation. Often times children will answer the phone and say “This is Nick”, “What” or “Who is this?” which we all know is not the way to answer a telephone. When teaching your child how to answer the telephone, the proper response that they should use is a simple “Hello” and nothing more.

Tip three:
Another important part of telephone etiquette is to ask to speak to somebody. What your child needs to learn is to use their manners and ask if they could speak with their friend. The proper way to ask to speak with someone on the phone is “May I please speak to Nick”.

Tip four:
This next step is probably the most important step of the entire phone conversation, because it is giving your child hints about what kind of information they should give out. Before your child gives out any kind of information, they need to know who the person on the other end of the telephone is. In asking this question, good manners should be followed rather than using demands. Teach your child to say “May I ask who is calling please” or something similar.

Tip five:
Now that your child knows who is on the other end of the phone, you must teach them what they should do with that information. If the person is home, the rest is simple. All that is needed in this type of situation is to tell the caller to hold on one second while your child gets them. Where it gets complicated is if the person the caller is wishing to speak with is not at home. In this case you will need to teach your children what kind of information they should give out to friends and strangers alike. A good rule of thumb to follow is to teach your child to tell the caller that you are busy and can’t come to the phone right now.

Just remember that the best way to teach your child proper etiquette in any situation is to teach them by example. Children mimic what adults do, so if you want your child to have good telephone manners you should practice them yourself.