Kids these days need to learn manners

To the editor,

I’d like for Christmas, 2016, for parents to teach children to be sensitive and considerate to physically disabled people and the elderly.

I am almost 60 years old with an inherited nerve/muscle disease. My balance is obviously not good. An example: I am very slowly going down two flights of stairs (with only one handrail) and 4 or 5 kids in heavy, loud snow boots go screaming past me to the basement. The mother was following close behind me. No excuses, even if we are in Alaska there could be indoors behavior versus outdoor behavior, which parents could instill. I was a retailer for 28 years — seems like the calm parents had polite, nice kids.

Maybe some of this problem is the overstimulation our culture seems to promote. I believe it is too much for children — let alone adults.

My second wish is that parents would teach their children to cough on their sleeve, NOT into their hands! Teachers would have to reinforce this I suppose. Many in our population have weak immune systems or diseases that do not do well with added sickness. Also, the elderly — when I was a kid — if any of us got sick, we kindly stayed away from grandparents — even on Christmas.

I’d appreciate it if people could ponder and act upon these issues.

Karen Hurst

Palmer