When it comes to teaching your child good manners, are there any hidden problems to look out for?
“Now Tarquin, what’s the magic word?”
“Pleeeease!”
We’ve all heard this conversation, prompted our children in the same way, and even been on the receiving end back when we were all ill-mannered little louts, but is there a point when your child can become too polite?
Woah, don’t run off! This isn’t a humble-brag post about how my little cherub has the table etiquette befitting of a baron or something – quite the opposite. Instead, I’m concerned that My three-year-old son has discovered a loophole that means that he can still be an absolute lout as long as he does it politely. Let me explain.
On picking him up from nursery on my day off, the nursery assistant was all smiles, “He’s been lovely again today, as always” she beamed. The car ride home though told a different story.
“I had to tell Courtney (the nursery assistant) off today, Daddy”
Uh-oh. It transpired that today had been photo day, and after what we assumed to be some pissing about in front of the camera (an assumption confirmed when we received five pages of proofs of him in various ‘double-thumbs-up, Fonz-style’ poses), he was told by the nursery assistant “come on, that’s enough now”.
“No thank you, teacher“ was the indignant reply. After which I can only assume he upturned his collar and got back to some Fonzie-style posing.
Now of course, saying “thank you” and addressing her formally, he totally got away with it. He even got a giggle from the staff. But when you get to the bare bones of it, he was being a bloody lout!
“You’re welcome” was the ice cold reply. Damn it. I can’t get mad at that. Another victory for the three-year-old gent.
Rudely awoken by his bedroom door opening and slamming against the wall in typical loutish-style the other morning, he shouted “good morning, Daddy! It looks like a nice day outside; are we doing anything today?”
Of course, I was charmed by this courteous greeting. Once I’d managed to stagger out of bed half-asleep, given him a cuddle and promised to take him out, I realised that it was 4:30am: it was chucking it down outside, and his curtains hadn’t even been opened to look.
Well played, son, well played.
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