Retired Teacher Avril Lethbridge Makes 'Good Manners' App: Nice Bear, Naughty Bear

Grandmother Makes Good Manners App For Rude Children

A retired teacher from Oxford, frustrated with children's bad manners, has made an app in the hope of ironing out rudeness.

Frustrated grandmother Avril Lethbridge told the BBC she was inspired after being on a bus when an older woman got on and nobody stood up for her.

"The poor darling was wobbling about... all these hoodies just didn't move."

She told the Oxford Times: “In the end I offered her mine. And I was 77 at the time.”

The incident inspired the now 79-year-old to make 'Nice Bear, Naughty Bear'.

Her app for iPhones and iPads features 16 bear characters with their own rhyme to teach manners. The app started life as a book, but she hopes that the digitised version will be even more popular.

Children who behave badly get a groan from a naughty bear, but those who behave well receive a cheer.

In the end it comes down to old-fashioned parenting methods, Lethbridge explained.

"By the end of the week they might get their special comic or be allowed to stay up late. There's nothing like being rewarded. A bit of bribery and corruption basically."

Lethbridge hopes that her app will make children more socially responsible: "Manners aren't a pompous thing. They're just about being kind to people and it gives you a happier life."

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