Happy Meals: Dinnertime Dilemmas Solved!... Or Not.

     Napkins in your laps. Elbows off the table. Feet off your chair. Chew with your mouth closed. Don’t talk when you’re chewing. Use your fork! Sit up. Sit down. No, we are not having desert.  Yes, you have to eat your broccoli. All of it. No, you may not be excused.

     Assembling a crowd-pleasing meal every single night is hard enough, but constantly having to play Chief of Meal Police was threatening to fry my last frazzled nerve. Desperate, I called my friend Jodi, who happens to be an etiquette consultant and the author of several books on the subject.

     “I can’t do it anymore,” I wailed. “I’m ready to cancel dinner altogether.”

Jodi laughed. (As an etiquette expert, she was far too gracious to hang up on me or call me a spineless, whiny loser.)

     “You need to try Charm School,” Jodi insisted.

     “They actually have that?” I asked. I recalled countless times during my own childhood when my mother threatened to send me to such a place, but I assumed she was making it up—like the Crazy Farm she frequently insisted we were driving her to.

     “You don’t send them anywhere,” Jodi laughed again. “You do it at home.”  My friend went on to explain the nuances of Charm School, and it sounded far too simple to actually work. But without a Plan B to fall back on, I agreed to give it a shot.

     Before dinner, I placed a small dish of mini marshmallows beside each plate, including mine and their dad’s. (Any bite-size treat your kids like will work.) Next I dropped a dozen marshmallows into each bowl, called everyone to dinner and explained the rules: Each time we saw or heard them doing anything right—using their napkin instead of a sleeve, chewing quietly, asking politely for seconds—one of us would take a treat from our bowl and put it into theirs. If we caught them acting crude—eating with fingers, tilting in their chairs, whining about the menu—we would take a treat from their bowl and place it into our own. No reprimands, no warnings and no questions asked.

     They caught on immediately, and I have never heard so many pleases and claims of this is delicious in my life. The kids now beg for Charm School every night, but Jodi insists the secret is not to overuse it. I guess one pleasant meal a week is better than nothing.