Parenting Basics: “What’s the Magic Word?”

Grandma was right! There is an easy way and a hard way to raise kids. By and large, today’s parents are choosing the hard way. This series of blogs will tackle familiar phrases that used to be commonplace but fell out of favor during the last few decades of the 20th century—and why parents should not be afraid to follow the sentiment expressed in the phrases.

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I’m often asked how you teach manners. The simple answer is just like you teach everything else: by example and instruction. If you’re not minding your own manners, then your children aren’t going to mind theirs.

For example, my husband and I realized a while ago that we were not setting a good example at the dinner table. We were mumbling around food in our mouths and interrupting each other and our children. So we instituted a “game” that would call out the offender for those infractions in a fun way—and as a result, we’re all eating more pleasantly and not interrupting nearly as often as before.

Start teaching manners when your children are young and add to the expectations as they grow. Parents have been using, “What’s the Magic Word?” to prompt usage of “please” for years, a phrase that is still in use today. That phrase works only on young children, though. Once a child is older, you should expect that he’ll remember to say “please” on his own. The prompting is for a toddler who doesn’t recall the proper way to ask and is more likely to demand than request.

Remember that manners are for others more than for oneself—and teaching our children respect, compassion, character, civilization and a better family through manners is no easy job. The small ways in which we honor others by thinking of them first--that's what manners are really about!--can often enrich the lives of others in ways we may never know.

So when it seems like no one else is instructing their children in manners, take heart and keep plugging away. Teaching manners is a gift we parents give to the community at large. Our job to civilize the little heathens that are our children can be thankless at times, but we are sowing seeds that will reap a harvest in the years to come. 

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Training A Child to Speak Politely

Q: What would be a good way to teach children to address adults as either ma’am or sir? We live in the South, and this type of respect is very common. I want my two children, ages two and five, to do this as a sign of respect and a nod to our culture. But I’m always nagging my older child to add the ma’am and sir. I’m tired of sounding like a broken record. I don’t want to make this a big deal, but I want results and no more nagging!

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A: We, too, believe in adding ma’am and sir after yeses and nos, and it took a little time before our children caught on. We simply decided that it was a big deal and then worked on it with all of the kids at once (the youngest was around three at the time).

The easiest way to do this is to tell your children that you expect them to answer any adult—including you—with yes/no ma’am/sir. Inform the older child once, then stop giving second chances. No prompting, “Yes, what?” The younger one, you’ll need to make it more of a game, but he should follow the example of his older sibling in time.

When he doesn’t answer correctly by just saying, “Yes,” then send him directly to his room for an hour, keep him inside for an hour or pull the plug on a favorite TV show for the day—whatever you think will make an impression on him. At five, he’s plenty old enough to remember to say ma’am and sir.

With the holidays just around the corner, now is the perfect time for practicing his manners. Before we head out to go trick-or-treating, I remind my children that if they don’t remember to say, “Trick or Treat” and “Please,” and “Thank you,” when they knock on door—in a voice loud enough for us to hear them—then the candy they receive goes into Mom and Dad’s stash. That’s enough to make them overcome their “shyness” and remember their manners.

Coming in early 2014, Sarah and Mary Elizabeth Peritti will speak on Parenting With Love & Leadership in a four-part webinar series. Contact Sarah through her website for more information.

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