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"Please" sounds so lovely when spoken by a toddler
Filed under: Toddlers Preschoolers, Development/Milestones: Babies
My 26 month-old son, Devon, has an amazing grasp on speech, at least compared to his older siblings at this age. Everyday he acquires more words and is learning to piece together sentences. Watching and listening to his progress has been an absolute joy. As with many children, there are gaps in his learning and speech skills. For example, he rarely fails to say "honk-yoo", translated as thank you, when he receives anything. But getting him to say the word "please" is another matter all together. At first I was worried that we were modeling rudeness for him, so I have upped the demands for polite behavior modeling from his siblings. When that doesn'tseem to make an impression, I begin to gently remind him to say please when he requests an item. I will repeat his sentence after him and include a please at the end. His response is often to look at me as if I am fairly dense and say, "Yah, Mai-Mai. Milk." Or juice, or whatever it is he wants. There are the rare times he will say please, those times are so precious that I want to scoop him up and twirl him about.
Although I would love to hear the word "please" more often from Devon, I am not going to stay up at night worrying about it. Toddlers can be taught manners and we are working with him everyday when the other members of our family communicate or make requests from one another. What about you? Does your toddler easily say please and thank you?
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
10-30-2006 @ 6:46PM
Karen said...My 2-1/2 year old says please and thank you -- unfortunately, she's learned how to use the words as *manipulation*:
"Alex! Come here and pick up your toys!"
"No, thank you," she'll say with a sweet smile.
"Alex! You need to finish your dinner!"
"No, thank you," she'll say and bat her eyes.
"Alex! I said come here!"
"No thank you. I'd like to juggle knives first. Plllleeease??" she'll say, with an adoring look.
Trust me, the trick is to not get PULLED IN.
K.
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10-30-2006 @ 8:03PM
Justme said...My 14 month old says "please" in sign. :)
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10-30-2006 @ 8:55PM
alison said...It's the same with my 25 month old. She is very good at "thank you" - in fact, it is now often"thank you very much." (!) But "please" is harder. She looks at me rather blankly, like I don't understand her and repeats herself, louder. much louder.
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10-31-2006 @ 4:42AM
Sabrina said...My 23 month old has been saying "More Pees" (more please) for about 6 weeks now, and she has started saying "peas" (please) after a few other requests as well. It is so precious, and I am so glad. She said thank you before please as well....
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10-31-2006 @ 7:53AM
Chris said...Our 21 month old daughter has been saying "hink-YOO" after you give her anything for the past month or so, which is just about the cutest thing ever. She's just starting to catch on to 'please' (it comes out "Peas!!") Like the other posters though, it usually requires some prompting from my wife and I.
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10-31-2006 @ 8:04AM
Jill said..."Adam, your friend just got here. Can you say some nice words to her?" "Please." Hmm, not what I was looking for. However, Please and Neku (thank you) are certainly in his repertoire. I use sign to remind him (and still do with my 5 yo too) so the reminder is too subtle for others to notice. That way Grandma thinks my kids always remember manners on their own! It is never too late to teach sign language- look up some words online.
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10-31-2006 @ 9:17AM
Tina said...I think the best thing you can do is for mom & dad to always say thank you to them and eachother (harder than you might think) and not "hound" them, making it a torture and something negative. My daughter is 3 and we still have to remind her. But I hate making her sound like a trained parrot, so usually I'll use a prompt like "How do you ask politely?" or "Did you forget an important word there?" if she omits the please or thanks. Then I'll gush and say, "I just love your good manners!"
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11-02-2006 @ 1:40PM
cmbw said...My oldest son (20 months old) has just started verbally saying "peas" (please) for the past month or so. He has been signing 'please' and 'thank you' for quite awhile. (One of the reasons we taught him to sign was so he'd learn and reciprocate manners at an early age.) We were quite surprised when he signed 'thank you' to a neighbor who gave him candy on Halloween and they signed back asking if he'd like 'more.' My son signed back 'more candy please.' It was amazing to see him communicating so well with a stranger (and using manners).
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