Photo by Kelli S. Hewett.
Amy Rainer of Etiquette with Amy.
By the time the spaghetti hit the trays, Amy Rainer thought she’d seen it all.
It was spaghetti day in the Crestline Elementary lunchroom, and a table of girls was chattering over their food when one suddenly sneezed across her own tray and the trays around her.
Watching knees on the table and feet hooked around the bench, Rainer, then a third grade teacher, felt something shift.
“They all laughed and said, ‘You’re so sick,’ and then they all started eating again,” Rainer said. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, something needs to be done,’ and that is where my idea was born.”
Photo courtesy of Amy Rainer.
Mountain Brook etiquette teacher Amy Rainer with students at the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion.
That mess of spaghetti and manners became the unlikely spark for a vocation that would carry Rainer from a third grade teacher at Crestline to her own multi-age etiquette program, from neighborhood playrooms to the iconic Daniel George restaurant, from Mountain Brook living rooms all the way to “The Bachelor” reality TV set and the governor’s mansion in Arkansas.
But at its core, her work has always come back to that image: children she loves, teetering on the edge between what they don’t know yet and what they could become with a little guidance.
For many parents, part of the appeal is a way to continue the manners they grew up with but find in shorter supply in today’s busy, tech-heavy and sometimes impersonal society.
Margaret Angelillo’s two daughters, Louise, 11, and Annie, 9, are veterans of Rainer’s classes.
She said her girls love their relationship with a local celebrity and their unique relationship with an adult who isn’t a teacher or a parent.
“Finding true etiquette, for what I deem as that, in today’s world seems more difficult than it should be — or maybe it’s a lost art,” Angelillo said. “I know what she has taught them has been fun for them, and they will use [it]life long.”
Rainer’s own etiquette journey also began early.
She grew up in Atlanta, where etiquette was woven into the life of her small private school. Beginning in sixth grade, she took etiquette classes. The lessons weren’t about place cards or perfect posture so much as respect.
“It is seared in my mind that when someone walks into your home or walks into the room, you don’t stay seated and say hello,” Rainer said. “You stand up, shake their hand, give them a hug, greet them.”
As an unmarried teacher at Crestline in the early 2000s, Rainer was looking for a way to pair her love of teaching with something that felt meaningful and, like many educators, to earn a little “vacation money or supplemental income.”
Photo by Kelli S. Hewett.
Rainer’s multi-age etiquette program covers curricula for children from age 4 through eighth grade, with lessons built around eye contact, table manners, conversation and confidence rather than rigid formality. Older students practice dining etiquette at Daniel George restaurant, where students dress up, open doors and practice ordering their own meals.
Rainer started a small etiquette class for third grade girls, meeting four times after school.
It quickly became a Crestline tradition.
In the beginning, she taught wherever she could. Friends opened their playrooms and dining tables.
Eventually, Rainer moved to Crestline herself and began hosting the classes in her own home. Over the next 15 years, she honed a style that was playful but purposeful, full of role play, “do this, not that” demonstrations and watercolor “content cards” that children took home to practice with their parents.
Then, in the middle of what felt like a well-established groove, everything changed.
“I was diagnosed with lupus,” Rainer said. “That really put the brakes on a lot of what I was doing.”
When Rainer married — gaining three tween stepchildren, plus two shaggy dogs and three cats — her doctor told her what she didn’t want to hear: she had to step back.
“I stopped everything,” she said. “I stopped etiquette. I stopped teaching at Crestline. I took a break. I focused on getting better and healthy and lots of rest.”
Retirement in 2016, at 42, felt nothing like a victory lap.
“There are different feelings when you walk away from your profession because you’re ready to than having to walk away because someone’s telling you you have to,” she said. “I was so sad because I missed children, and I just was not ready.”
It was a child’s question that pulled her back.
Photo courtesy of Amy Rainer.
Rainer with Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who invited her to speak to students at the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion.
During one of her classes, Rainer had been talking to girls about how a gentleman might stand when a lady leaves the table or open a door at a restaurant. A small hand shot up.
“One of the little girls said, ‘Who’s telling the boys all these things?’” Rainer said. “And I said, ‘That is a great question.’”
About eight years ago, Rainer wrote a boys’ curriculum to mirror her third grade girls’ class.
It was a hit.
From there, she expanded into multiple age groups, eventually creating etiquette curricula for children from 4 years old through eighth grade. Her offerings include a slate of in-person courses and a series of video lessons.
“I think the biggest misconception is that people hear the word ‘etiquette’ and they think ‘pretentious,’” she said.
Her definition is much more grounded.
“I want to help children and adults be able to enter any situation and feel confident,” Rainer said. “When you feel confident, you’re able to focus more on other people because you’re not worrying, ‘Am I doing this right?’ I think that’s really the heart of all etiquette … how we treat other people. I think that kindness is always at the base of every strong etiquette lesson.”
That philosophy shows up in the small, specific behaviors she drills into even her youngest students: eye contact, patience, learning how not to interrupt, being a helper at home.
For older kids, it might look like orchestrating a full dining-out lesson at Daniel George, where fifth grade boys dress up, open the door for her and practice ordering their own meals with confidence and courtesy.
One of Rainer’s favorite universal tools is deceptively simple: at a dinner table, she tells them, make a point to talk to the person on your left and your right during each course.
“That ensures that nobody’s left out,” Rainer said.
Parents report that their children can now greet out-of-town guests, ask thoughtful questions or thank a coach after practice without prompting.
“I hope that it gives them confidence,” Rainer said. “Confidence, friendliness, gratitude, kindness — those kinds of things.”
Looking back, Rainer doesn’t frame lupus as merely a detour.
“I believe God used lupus to move me out of what I thought was best for my life … to what He knows is best for my life,” she said. “While I had something that didn’t look like a blessing, it caused me to sit back, take a few years off, and then begin again and sort of reinvent myself.”
That reinvention has carried her far from the school lunchroom.
She has taught children of Young Presidents’ Organization members in Grand Cayman, led a public speaking lesson in the Arkansas governor’s mansion with Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders using the state podium and even appeared on Colton Underwood’s season of reality TV’s “The Bachelor.”
She noted with a laugh that “reality is in air quotes.”
But for Rainer, the heart of her work is still local and deeply personal: the child who remembers which side is the bread plate, the teenage boy who takes off his hat and introduces himself at the golf course, the former student who circles back years later to say that something she taught “seared in their brain.”
“I just love to take something that most people think is a boring topic, and I make it super fun for kids,” she said. “That’s what I’m good at, and I love doing it.”
For more on Amy Rainer’s etiquette courses, visit etiquettewithamy.com.
