Please and Thank You!

Sometimes, it's hard to get kids to be polite. I think most parents want their kids to be nice, but they don't really want to be the kind of parent who has to hassle their kids to say 'thank you' all the times. "Whaddaya say? Whaddaya say?"

I tried to teach Carmen how to say "trick or treat" for Halloween. That phrase is too long, so I started trying to get her to learn how to say "thank you". Halloween came around, and all Carmen could do when she saw people handing out candy was go, "Ooh! Ooh!" and start panting and dancing around excitedly.

"Can you say trick or treat?" I'd ask.
"Ooooooohhhhhh!" she'd say, bouncing up and down.

Then the door would close and Carmen would either say, "Deedoo!" (thank you) or "Bye!"

Oh, sweetheart, why can't you be adorable when other people are watching?!


It doesn't stop me from continuing to try to teach Carmen how to be polite. There are some words she'll repeat back to me and other words she won't (she still refuses to say "Logan" or "Torrey" but has picked up the word "leaves" and "papa").

Lately I've been working on "please" and "thank you" but I don't make a big deal of it if she won't repeat the words back to me. I figure she'll pick it up eventually, and I want to teach on her level. Today, she really wanted the dried strawberries out of the Special K cereal (doesn't everyone?). Her word for "food" is "more". So she'd pull the box of cereal out of the pantry and walk up to me and ask, "More?" I'd ask, "Do you want the strawberries out of the cereal?" and she'd nod her head and go, "Uh-huh."

I'd hand her the strawberries one at a time and say, "Can you say please?" and she'd either say "peas" or not, and I'd hand her a strawberry. "Can you say thank you?" and she'd parrot back, "Deedoo!" and I'd smile and say, "Ooh, you're welcome!" The proudest moment of my morning was when I handed her a strawberry and she said, "Deedoo!" without my asking. :)