From the archives (deep in the Word files of my computer). Take a look at this. Seems like a century ago:
August 7, 2009
It happened today.
Picture this:
F in his airplane jammies at the breakfast table, it’s just after 8:00am, the morning race is well under way. And then, a spontaneous, not requested, perfectly placed “Please” occurs. F proclaims, “More milk in my cup, please, Mommeee.”
I nearly fell over. How wondrous a non-requested please can be…and from my little boy. Heaven.
Naturally, I said, “Thank you,” right back.
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HereWeGoAJen says
My Elizabeth has just started saying “pardon us” when she walks past me. Of course, it sounds more like “partin sss” but I know what she means.
Katie says
People are always so amazed when Will says please and thank you. It always makes me so proud of him. The BEST was when a girlfriend of mine was looking after him and when I went to pick him up, she went on and ON about how he said please and thank you for everything the whole time she had him. I love that he was doing it even when I wasn’t there to remind him.
Val says
I sometimes wonder if politeness is as much a part of inborn personality as other traits that lean more toward “nature” than “nurture.” As the mom of two boys ages 8 and 2, I’ve been hammering “politeness lessons” for as long as the eldest has been around. He’s certainly heard my “say please and thank you” mantra four times as many years as his younger sibling. But he still needs almost contstant reminders while the little one seems to be almost inherently polite.
As an example (one of many similar stories), last weekend, I expressed my appreciation to the boys for accompanying me on a rather long grocery store trip. The toddler replied “you’re welcome mama!” Then, after a looong pause, the 8-year old muttered an echoing “yer welcome” which certainly was uttered only because his baby brother led the way.
It’s tempting to take credit for my little one’s sweet, polite manners or bury my face in my hands over my “failures” with the older one. But I trust that my efforts will eventually pay off — it’ll just take more effort with one than with the other.
Viki says
my older child (almost 4) didn’t really turn the corner or manners until we became more polite as a family when she was 3. my husband and i are easy going companions with each other. we do lots of nice things for each other and the politeness comes across in tone, expression, other body language cues besides speech. it seemed like we were expecting our child to use the speech exclusively when we weren’t. i think she definitely picked up on the double standard. so we started using “please” and “thank you” more explicitly around the child. since she was old enough to understand tone, we upped the anti with respect to polite / respectful tone of voice. we hadn’t even started giving my younger child (1.5) cues yet but he’s already saying please/ thank you / you’re welcome because he does everything his sister does.
DrV says
My son’s 11 and its all finally kicking in. Although he unfortunately is far more polite with other adults than us. Drives me crazy. 11 goin’ on 16.