20 Hospitality Tips to Teach the Kids Before Company Comes

Company is coming! Is your family stressed or blessed?

This post explores how we can nurture a spirit of welcome in our homes—one that sees guests not as burdens, but as blessings. Hospitality is more than entertaining. Inviting people into our homes offers rich opportunities to model compassion, connection, and the joy of community.

I’m sharing 20 hospitality tips to teach the kids before company arrives. But first, they need to know why hospitality matters.

Why Hospitality Matters

For Christians, hospitality incorporates the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness (Gal. 5:22). It is a way for us to reflect the love of Christ.

Gather your family and search the Bible for examples of when someone showed hospitality. One example is in Genesis 18. Find more scriptures together that help define Christian hospitality such as in Luke 6:31, ESV: “And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.”

Ask your children if they were new in the neighborhood or visiting a new church what would help them feel connected? What if they were not new to an area, but still felt lonely? Initiating these discussions will help children build an awareness of other people’s needs.

Welcoming someone into our homes is one way we shift our focus from serving ourselves to serving others. Inviting family and friends to our homes creates opportunites for building relationships and cherished memories.

Providing hospitality to people we barely know may take a little more courage, but the blessings run just as deep, if not more so.

Practical Ways to Teach Hospitality at Home

1. Invite your kids to help plan and prepare your home for guests. This is where we moms can sometimes derail from setting the best example. Our kids may witness our loving intentions to extend hospitality totally wrecked with the havoc of housework. Sweet mamas, we must pray for God to help us keep our focus more like Mary’s rather than Martha’s (See Luke 10:38 – 42). Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but godliness comes first!

2. There are many ways to involve the kids. Ask older children to contact guests to see if they have any food allergies or aversions. Tell the kids to express how your family is looking forward to the guests coming and to mention the date and time again.

3. Do you have children who love to cook? Have them join in the meal preparations or ask them if they’d like to make a dessert.

4. Involve children through arts and crafts. Suggest decor for the table: a colorful picture, a welcome card, a napkin ring, or bookmark. You’ll find several unique and creative ideas on my Pinterest Board: https://www.pinterest.com/sallymatheny/crafts-for-kids-ages-2-12/. I plan to enlist little helpers to make the yarn coasters featured on this board.

5. Teach kids how to set a table. Check out the free printable packet, Please Set the Table. You’ll find it in the Library of Printables. This resource is a fun way for children to learn how to set the table with a basic table setting.

If you’re wondering about the placement of individual bowls, you may want to visit diningtokitchen.com. Additionally, if you want to learn how to set a table for fancier gatherings, you can check out this article:

Proper Table Setting 101: Everything You Need to Know — Emily Post.

However, Post’s informal dining setup looks like what we would use for “formal dining” in my neck of the woods. And, we don’t have near enough silverware to come close to what she recommends for formal dining!

6. Model a warm welcome and introduce others.

7. Role play how to engage with guests they don’t know very well. What questions are appropriate to ask children and what questions are appropriate to ask adults? What makes a good listener? Talk about body language.

8. Also, discuss what to do if something potentially embarrassing occurs to a guest or to someone in the host family. Role play ways to be discreet and reduce embarrassment. Example: Someone drops their plate of food or misses a question when playing a game. Ask the kids what kinds of things they think might embarrass someone and how can we show kindness in those situations.

9. Role play what to do if a guest is difficult. Talk about when and how to show grace, what kind of things to let go, and when to discreetly notify you.

Encourage Small Gestures

10. Open doors.

11. Always offer to take coats and belongings. Place them neatly in a safe place.

12. Direct guests to the seating area.

13. Offer guests a drink or offer to refill their drinks.

14. Always serve guests first.

15. Always be attentive to guest needs. Tell guests where the restroom is located. Ask your older children to help keep a check on the restroom, tidying it if needed, and making sure paper supplies stay stocked.

16. Always clear dirty dishes from the table for guests after a meal.

17. Encourage children to share their toys. If there is something dear to a child that he/she fears will be damaged, consider placing that item out of sight. Tell the child not to mention or retrieve that item unless they are willing to share it with guests.

18. Show children how to engage in conversation.

Equip them with simple phrases to break the ice: Would you like something to drink? Where do you go to school? What’s your favorite subject? Do you have pets?

19. After dinner, offer to play a game. Give the guests 2 or 3 choices and let the guest choose.

20. Keep the environment pleasant and comfortable for everyone. Remember to use inside voices. Be mindful of loud noises and disruptive behavior when others are trying to talk. Keep doors to bedrooms and play areas open at all times.

Hospitality as a Spiritual Discipline

Show your family the connection between hospitality and our mission of serving others while serving Christ. Pray together as a family before guests arrive. Offer to pray with or for guests while they are in your home.

Reflect about the gathering after the guests leave. Ask: How do you think we made them feel? How did you feel while they were here? Is there anything you’d like to do differently next time we have guests?

Guests are Blessings, Not Burdens

Showing hospitality may require some preparation, but we can show our children it’s an opportunity to make our guests feel like blessings, not burdens.

Let’s celebrate the opportunities we are given to show and teach hospitality. Praise God for the kind words and deeds our children share with those who walk into our homes.

Let’s pray with our families asking God to help us continue to earnestly speak His truth with love, to serve with the strength He gives us, and to “show hospitality to one another without grumbling . . . in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:9-11).

If you’d like more ideas on how your family can show hospitality, check out this blog post: 30 Days of Serving and Sharing: Goodness & Kindness – Sally Matheny

Share with us! What are some ways you teach your children or grandchildren hospitality?

Motivated by the power of story, history, and His Story, Sally Matheny’s passion is telling the next generation wondrous things.

Her nonfiction writing appears in worldwide, national, and regional publications including Appleseeds, Clubhouse Jr., Homeschooling Today, and The Old Schoolhouse.

She and her husband live in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and are blessed with three children, two sons-in-law, and armfuls of grandbabies. Connect with Sally on several social media sites, but her favorite hangouts are at SallyMatheny.com and Pinterest.