<p>I haven’t found too many of my kids friends being awkward, both college and high school. They always chat with me a bit before they go off to do something else. Their friends still address me as Mrs. oldfort. There was only one boy who was afraid to come to our house because he knew I was mad at him for how he treated D1 at her prom. They have long since made up and are very good friends now, but he is still afraid to see me. :). </p>
<p>A lot of parents do not teach their children basic etiquette when they go to people’s house or how to interact with adults. They don’t require their kids to greet their guests, kids are allowed to stay in their rooms when there are visitors. When our kids lived at home, we expected them to greet our guests and chat for few minutes before they could be excused. Likewise, when they had guests over, we would greet and chat with their friends before we leave them alone. When we used to visit our kids school, if we ran into their friends, most of them would stop to say hello.</p>
<p>Hunt and Momcinco…we are of like minds. My kids have plenty of faults (believe me!), but one thing I think DH and I did was drill in their heads how to greet an adult. They both shake hands when being introduced…it does make me proud to watch. Actually my oldest just had his wisdom teeth out last week and when he was in the recovery room, drowsy still but talking, the oral surgeon came in and introduced himself. We chatted for a few minutes, then he told my son a few things and as he was getting ready to leave, DS put out his hand to shake the Doc’s and said “thank you”. I was insistent, even scolded when they were younger, that when adult says Hi to them, they weren’t to look meekly at the ground and say “Hi”, they were to be friendly and say, “Hi, Mrs. Smith”. When I see them do that, the adult is automatically friendly…heck I’m friendlier when their friends do that with me. Thankfully, I’ve had 2 adults mention to me how polite my kids were to them. I don’t know…maybe one of the few things we’ve done right…because sometimes I feel like there are so many things we do wrong LOL!.</p>
<p>Also…agree with the U.S. kid. My Dad is from another country and I lived a year there in H.S. All the kids…young, teens, 20’s always, and I mean ALWAYS when they walk in a room where there are adults, especially family, they go around an kiss the cheek of their Tios and Tia and say, “Hola Tio”…following by a kiss. All around the room. Very polite. so much more noticeable in the lacking here in the U.S. Why is this?</p>
<p>I am in the minority here, but I always thought insisting that children accede to adults requests to hug, kiss,pat, etc. them in greeting or in conversation was just telling them that adults have the right to override a child’s reservations or shyness. That “being polite” is more important than how they (the child) feels. And by “child” I mean right up through teens. As adults, we don’t hug people that clearly don’t want to hug us, but somehow that’s okay to put on a kid. We don’t talk to people we don’t want to talk to unless there’s some obvious need to, not because somebody else tells us we have to. </p>
<p>That being said, yes, teens are often not terribly communicative. </p>
<p>I think the point that was being made was the difference in cultures and expectations. It’s not the norm here to kiss and hug adults, etc. in greetings (I understand), so I don’t think anybody is expecting our kids to do that. The culture I was speaking of does kiss on the cheek and/or hug, but it could easily be just shaking hands. But adults are addressed…and you can tell the kids who are shy and those they aren’t…but they ALL do it. It then becomes natural and the norm. Plus, I think it’s polite AND will serve the child well growing up know how to approach people in general as they age. The shy ones need this direction even more than the outgoing. I wish our culture taught our children that when they enter someone’s home and they see the adult, the thing to do is to introduce yourself, and or always say hello first. I hate seeing my son’s shy friends slink by me without saying anything, and I don’t think shyness should be an excuse. I think their parents should have taught them this lesson and reinforced it. Of course, the child is going to do what they want outside the parent’s eyes…but more than not when they see the benefit of doing this they will continue. </p>
<p>Like I said, I’ve heard more than once from different people how much they like my kids. I’m sure they aren’t talkative more than the norm…but a “Hi Mr. Smith” and a handshake goes along way, and then the adult treats the child better and it snowballs from there. </p>
<p>I almost never hug or kiss anyone, but I will acknowledge someone’s presence. I never asked my kids to hug or kiss anyone they didn’t want to, but they always had to say hello. Whenever they went with us to friend’s house for any social gathering, they had to thank the host and say goodbye before taking off. d1 was very shy growing up, but she got over it. </p>
<p>Re: hugging and the ‘European’ kiss on the cheek. I find it really uncomfortable/unwelcome when anyone, except close friends or family, want to greet with a hug or a kiss (I guess it’s not as much anyone as it is men I don’t know or just met). However, I have yet to figure out a way to decline a hug/kiss without offending the person, so usually I just feel forced to go along with it. When someone comes to you with outstretched arms, trying to hug you, it’s really hard to turn them down when you know they don’t mean anything by it, even though it’s still unwelcome.</p>
<p>BarnardGirl has some good friends who always hug me when I see them now. They initiate it, but then, they always called me Mama LastName. One of them is a sorority sister of mine now and she texts with me regularly. They’re great girls and always talked with me a lot. My son’s friends are not quite as familiar but they haven’t spent as much time here and are more in their own world than the girls were. Perhaps the girls just identify with the mom figure more? I’m not sure. </p>
<p>I’m not sure exactly when in high school it started but DS13 and all his old high school guy friends usually do a “Man” hug when ever they see each other. The one armed hug with a pat on the back thing. Anyway I think it’s kind of cool they all feel comfortable doing that.</p>
<p>I agree there are cultural differences. My H is from a different country and he gets very upset when our kids don’t do proper greetings. He is also overly impressed by kids who do greet properly and is not at all sympathetic to the shy and awkward. We lived abroad for a while and I struggled with the air kissing and hugging, not to mention strangers feeling like they could just grab your kids. We aren’t talking molesters; there was this idea that children belonged to the community. The irony is that my H had a weak handshake until he lived here. He quickly realized he was being judged on his handshake and changed his MO. </p>
<p>I think the best way is probably somewhere in the middle. The shy and awkward can learn a few stock greetings to fall back on, then get away. The overly grabby folks can learn to ask if it is okay to grab. </p>
<p>By the time a person is 17 - looking at the ground when greeting a person is not “shy” it is rude. I took a summer when my kids were 6 and 8 and dedicated myself to teach them how to greet an adult. My 6 year old is more outgoing and he got it right away (he is now 17 and I get comments all the time about his politeness). My then 8 year old was more “shy” but I insisted that she be polite and say hello and make eye contact. She did not have to have a full blown conversation. It took her most the summer to be comfortable but she did it and now at almost 20 you would never know that she had a hard time with it. I have a friend who has a 17 year old son that doesn’t make eye contact or conversation. She is constantly making the excuse that he is shy - in my opinion he is rude because I know he doesn’t act that way around just teenagers. Some kids need to be taught - others it comes naturally. </p>
<p>I feel there’s a good medium between expecting children/teens to override reservations or shyness about greetings…especially ones involving physical contact and avoiding any basic acknowledgement of an adult’s presence. </p>
<p>Saying hello/hi in a forthright manner isn’t asking much though I’d be inclined to give young adolescents some leeway if he/she hasn’t mastered it yet. </p>
<p>Expecting hugs and kisses…that’s asking a lot…especially considering some US subcultures I know of frown upon such practices…especially among males. I myself had to really adjust myself to more touchy-feely greeting forms like hugs from other male students when I started at my LAC.</p>
I think our child would accede to adults’ requests too much by his nature. We therefore try to teach him that he has the right to not agree with an adult if he disagrees with him or her. If anything, he might err on the “too polite” site.</p>
<p>However, we admit we had not teach him much about social etiquette before he went off to college. He needed to pick it up in college years. It seems he got along well with the parents of his roommate or suitemate in college. One parent took his own child and DS to their home during a long weekend. I heard that while on the road trip to their home (one way trip takes about 4 hours), his roommate’s parent mostly had conversations with DS rather than his own son. The same parent is so nice to DS that I heard he even asked DS when he could help him to find a job at graduation.</p>
<p>I just had a conversation with DS about his GF. She does not speak to us and avoids us in our own house. She is now telling him, “Your parents hate me.” He feels like he has to defend us to her. I told him we just want to get to know her better, and a little conversation would help. He also said she’s afraid we’ll treat her like a child. IMO, she acts immature but I try to treat all young people like people.</p>
<p>Recently we had a conversation with a young adult about whether a young adult should allow his friend of opposite sex to have a platonic sleepover in his dorm room if she makes such a request. (To clarify: Sleepover here means to crash on the floor in the same room, not on the same bed. The friend means a very good friend but not a committed GF.)</p>
<p>Our opinion is that this should be avoided at all cost. However, his opinion is: It depends. If he trusts this friend very much - to the extent that their relationship is almost like a brother-and-sister sibling one, it should be fine. But if this is not the case, it is not OK. (BTW, is there a law in many states that prohibits siblings of opposite sex from living in the same bedroom?)</p>
<p>At issue is whether a young man and a young woman can somehow develop a pure platonic relationship and they can share the same room overnight for, say, a period of a week (or even a night only after a late party or just to save some hotel expenses when one happens to visit the city of his/her friend) even though one or both of them has other SO.</p>
<p>As parents, do you think we are too “conservative (or old fashioned?)” or he is too “liberal”? (I may not have used these two words, conservative and liberal, correctly in this context.)</p>
<p>BTW, I guess that if this is commonly accepted by this new generation, this would be a shock to the parents of the OP who recently posted that her mother is so overprotective toward her that she even does not allow her to go out with her brother.</p>
<p>To clarify, the “OP” I referred to in the post above is not the OP of this thread. She is the OP on another thread in the parent forum and she posted:</p>
<p>" In this particular case, I am forbidden from attending a concert that is 30 minutes away with my 22 y.o. brother."</p>