Courtesy covers many areas of personal interaction. In short, courtesy is being kind with our words and our actions. In bushido, the traditional samurai code, being polite is about empathy and adequacy. Not only did they greet people properly, but if that person temporarily experienced a challenge or difficulty, the warrior would too.

A simple example of this would be meeting a friend on the street and it was raining. Let’s say you have an umbrella and your friend doesn’t. If it was appropriate, both of them would share their umbrella. If it wasn’t appropriate for you to share, you would put away your umbrella and stand in the rain with them. As you can see, this is a whole other level of courtesy.

Teaching children to be polite is best using stories. One that I like to use with my karate students is this one. I tell the student to imagine that one day a friend calls him and invites him to play a game. The student says, “Sure. I have to get dressed quickly and then I’ll go.” Arriving, the friend says, “Why did you dress so weird?” I then ask the students how that would make them feel. Of course they answer: “Not very well.”

I then tell the student to imagine that in the middle of the game they come up with a great idea for a new rule that will make the game more exciting. When the friend is told the rule, the friend replies, “That’s a dumb rule.” Again I ask them how it would make them feel. The answer, “Not good.”

Finally, they reach the end of the game. At this point, the friend has beaten the student. After his win, the friend says, “Ha, I beat you. You’re no good.” When I ask them how this makes them feel, the overwhelming response is, “Horrible.”

I then proceed to ask them how many times have they told someone they were wearing weird clothes, or talking weird, or having dumb ideas, or bragging about winning. At that moment it clicks for them. They begin to realize that they say those “not-so-polite” things more often than they’d like to admit.

I want children to learn to hold themselves to a higher level. I know you’ve all heard from your parents 100 times before, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything.” I go one step further. I tell them: “Just say nice things.”

Just say nice things. Easy, right? When was the last time you only said nice things? Where do you think your children learn their “rude” actions and words?