Are manners old-fashioned? Or are they the key to turning toddler-sized Godzillas into civilised human beings?

Many people lump together good manners and etiquette, but they are different things.

"Etiquette is the rules of behaviour in certain situations, whereas having good manners is showing kindness and consideration to people. It's about making them feel good about themselves and it makes you feel good, too," explains June Dally-Watkins, who has been teaching Australians the courtesies of civilised society for more than 50 years.

Dr James Donnelly, head of psychology at the Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick, views manners as a "lubricant" for social interactions.

"Manners help us live together in a small space. It makes interactions go a little more smoothly and be a little more predictable."

Seven tips for teaching good manners

• 1. Use positive reinforcement. When children show good manners, tell them they're being great. "By far the best strategy is to catch kids being good. When a child is being considerate, give them praise and explain why you're doing it," says Dr Donnelly. "Shaming children doesn't help them develop morals or good self-esteem."
  
  
• 2. Instruct in small doses and do it as part of normal life. Don't make it into a lesson. Work on one skill at a time, like how to answer the phone or how to use cutlery.
  
  
• 3. If kids do something thoughtless or rude, don't overreact but explain what they've done wrong and how to do it right.
  
  
• 4. Set a good example. If they catch you showing bad manners, admit it, then talk about other ways you could have handled the situation better.
  
  
• 5. Remember that while young children will defer to you in social situations, later they turn to their peers to see how to behave. That's why it's important to teach them courteous behaviour as pre-schoolers and to keep it up at home.
  
  
• 6. If you're going on a visit or out for a special occasion — say to a restaurant — tell your children ahead of time what to expect and how you'd like them to behave.
  
  
• 7. Emphasise the idea that it's good to think of others and that you should treat other people the way you would like to be treated.

The essence of good manners is showing consideration to other people, whether it's waiting your turn at a bus stop, letting someone else have the last biscuit or asking a stranger who's fallen over if they're all right.

It's easy enough to get a pre-schooler to say "please" and "thank you" (if they don't say it, they don't get want they want), but older children and teenagers also need consistent guidance from their parents on the appropriate way to behave.

Dr Donnelly says that talking and engaging with your children is the very best way to teach them.

"Really young children do what they're told because the parents have the power. But when kids start to develop a mind of their own, say around age eight right through adolescence, parents really need to demonstrate how you deal with these complicated grey areas in social interaction."

He recommends that by age seven and eight, you should be talking to your children about how things went in the day — especially things that went wrong — and how they and their friends reacted. Together you can work through what might be the best response to a problem.

"This fosters moral development in a better way than just teaching them rules. You foster a process of the child working out what the civil thing is to do. You let the child work it out rather than just imposing rules — the more rules you impose, the more rules the adolescent has to rebel against.

"At the same time they have to know when to say 'that's not okay with me' and how to talk about being disappointed with someone else's behaviour. They have to learn how to do that in a well-mannered way," he says.

Then there is television.

"I believe that television is worst of all in encouraging young people to behave badly. Every night there is violence, there is sex, there is bad language," says June Dally-Watkins.

The explosion in swearing on TV has many parents alarmed. Dr Donnelly suggests you counter TV's influence by pointing out that the box is not reality, that they can't use it to decide how to behave in real life.