Sunday, August 15, 2010

Little Mr. Manners

Sooooooo.....

We are trying to teach (among other things) LittleM to say "Please" and "Thank you". For awhile now I've been having to prompt him, "What do you say?" and he'd say, "Tease!" and rub his chest to do the sign.

But I think he has figured out that if I say no to something, he might have a chance if he says "Please". And for some things I do let him have it (if it's not something dangerous). I'm not sure if that sends the right message, but at least he's thinking of a tactic on his own, so it's some logical reasoning in there.

His first demonstration of logical reasoning was when he was holding two plastic forks at Subway, and Daddy offered him a chip. He leaned forward to get the chip, but Daddy made him give up one of the forks in order to take it with his hand. He then looked at the other fork and offered it up to Daddy in exchange for another chip. Smart kid!

As for "Thank you", he's been saying that almost constantly for the past few days. It sounds a lot like when he says, "There you go", so it's hard to know which response to give. He started saying "There you go" when I'd hand him something because that's what I'd say as I gave it to him. So if he's saying something that sounds like "Thank you", and he doesn't stop when we say, "You're welcome", then it's the other, and the correct response is "There you go."

Today, though, he started saying "Thank you" whenever I'd hand him something, which was really nice. It can be a grind for parents too to have to be reminding them all the time to say it, so it's a nice change when they pick it up and you don't have to be forever going, "What do you say?" or "Did you say thank you?" So I'm hoping if we keep it up at home, it will translate to out in the world as well.

Next on the list will probably be "Yes, Ma'am" (or Sir). But we'll have to get him saying "Yes" first. Right now it's, "N'kay." And that's "N'kay" with me.

No comments:

Post a Comment