Do you use double standards?
When our oldest was about 1-1/2 I really started to work on manners with her. She said please before she said mama. Anyway, now that she's older(4-1/2 now), she's still very polite, but she calls us out on our faux pas all of the time. We'll tell her not to speak with food in her mouth, but we catch ourselves doing it. We'll tell her to ask politely for things, but we find ourselves making more of demands for things rather than polite requests. The list could go on. Do any of you do the same things? How do you explain to your child the whole "do as I say not as I do" thing? I tell our Leah that mommies and daddies make mistakes just as anyone else does but we want her to know what is appropriate and to make the right choices.
always fess up !
We did find ourselves doing those same things. We make mistakes, just proves you need to work harder too. For us , it was always important for us to fess up if we made a mistake and even apologize for it as we would make them do. I think this made the biggest impact on my kids, knowing that mom and dad said I'm sorry and that we make mistakes too. It made it easier for them to say those two words as well. If we make a mistake and mistreat one another, we always make the offender appologize and then the other must accept the appology and we then hug and say we love each other. This is good as everyone knows that we still love one another even when we make mistakes and that we don't mean to hurt one another. I think this has made my kids a bit closer to one another.
Of course
I can't believe how many of the rules we have set for our kids have come back to bite US! I love that Luke corrects us if he sees us do or say something we shouldn't...at least I know he listens and understands! I actually had to sit in time out a couple of weeks ago..I can't even remember what I did, but Luke corrected me, and it was bad enough that I went straight to time out, then apologized for what I did. The look on his face while I was in time out was priceless! :)
Luke is pretty good about asking if he is allowed to say or do certain things. He asks often if he is allowed to say things like "stupid" or "crap." I usually explain that they arent necessarily BAD words, but they aren't nice words for kids to say. We tell him adults use them often and it's ok for them, but he shouldn't repeat them. We are careful to watch what we say around the kids, but on the other hand, we don't try to shelter them from all questionable language...we just do our best to teach them right from wrong, and what's ok for adults may not be appropriate for kids.
We are also catching ourselves not asking each other for things "nicely" or not saying please or thank you each time, and Luke points it out often. I think it's great! We always thank him for catching our mistakes, and tell him we should be more polite to each other.
Jessica
~ Mommy to Luke and Shawn
JessicasCandles@gmail.com
Standards
Yes I have bad manners and expect my daughter to do differently.