Raising a Polite Child
Editor’s Pick. Written by Pat Törngren.
Every parent wants to have polite, respectful children with good manners. Fortunately nature is on our side. Children learn by copying what we do and love to do everything ‘just like mommy and daddy do’, as it makes them feel they are being ‘big’.
I was having tea with Melissa and two-year-old, André when André got the hiccups. He went, “hic – skies, hic – skies, hic – skies” (‘scuse me’ in Afrikaans). “How on earth did you manage to teach him to do that?” I asked her. “Well, actually I didn’t teach him anything”, she replied, “But if I cough or sneeze, I always say ‘skies’, so he copies me. I’m not trying to ‘train’ him to have good manners, but if I want something from him, I always say ‘please’, and when he gives me something, I always say ‘thank you’. When he is older, he will automatically do those things too.”