![]() ![]() We help our children find the right words or ways to interact in social situations, including when it might be nice to tell someone you appreciate them, or how it makes you feel when someone asks for something in a nice way, or how you might help make things better if you’ve hurt someone or made a mistake. We can all parrot the right words when required but a thank you means much more when accompanied with real gratitude and sorry means much more when partnered with a hug.Īt the Pickle Farm we talk about what it means to have ‘good manners’ and to be gracious, thankful, polite and compassionate. What we want is for our children to really mean the things they say and to understand why they are saying them. #WHATS THE MAGIC WORD HOW TO#It’s not that we don’t value manners nor want our children to know how to behave in social situations. There needs to be understanding and intent behind those words to make them meaningful, and I don’t believe you encourage that be making a simple rule that they must always be said. Simply saying thank you does not mean you appreciated something or someone, and just saying sorry doesn’t magically make whatever happened ok. You can’t have something simply because you said please. Please and Thank You are not ‘magic words’ that you can utter and magically have everything turn out the way you want it. In fact the look of horror on her face makes me suspect she was writing my name on the ‘worst parents in the world list’, but I don’t care. My girls had never heard that phrase before, so at two year of age the only ‘magic word’ they knew was ‘abracadabra!’ I still giggle when I think about it, but I am not sure the treat giver found it so amusing. ![]() “What’s the magic word?” asked the treat giver, and both girls stopped and looked rather confused for a moment, then Izzy pipped up… “I know… it’s ABRACADABRA!”. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” what their excited reply. I remember when my girl’s were little and someone asked them if they wanted a treat. At home I often don’t even encourage, or prompt them to say please, thank you or sorry, and we definitely don’t withhold things waiting for ‘the magic words’ to be said. I don’t make my children say please, thank you or sorry. ![]() I must confess I was quite delighted to hear that my children had ‘remembered their manners’ despite the fact that we don’t make a very big deal about ‘manners’ at home. As I picked my girls up from last weekend’s birthday party, the birthday girl’s Mum stopped to say how well behaved and polite my girls had been, always remembering their ‘pleases and thank yous’. ![]()
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