A big part of getting ready to travel to American is trying to prepare ourselves for living with Americans who are not used to our ways. This is difficult when we don’t really know what people do in America (besides normal manners). I am often telling our kids, “I don’t know what people do in America anymore!” One of our kids is working on a family furlough handbook. There are a lot of family jokes in the book that wouldn’t make sense to anyone but us. Today I’m including the At Table section of the book.

At Table

A child should always sit up straight,

And never bang his spoon and plate,

And keep her head above the table,

At least as far as she is able.

Dinner is the best time to display your manners, consideration, and refinement. If you are rude, noisy, and cross, you will not be invited to any dinner parties, and you will have to stay home by yourself and eat burnt green soup.

• Do not put your elbows on the table.
• Do not lie on the table.
• Do not squat in your chair.
• Do not put your head under the table. Do not throw your food out the window.
• Do not jump up and run to a private place every time you need to sneeze.
• Do not put unwanted food on the table – just push it to the side of your bowl.
• Do not throw food under the table unless you are eating over the ground.
• Do not pull on the tablecloth.
• Do not make a big fuss if you find a hair in your food – just quietly pull it out.
• Do not throw food at your siblings.
• Do not climb over the table to kiss people.
• Do not fight when holding your sibling’s hand.
• Do not force people to hold hands while praying if they don’t want to.