What's the magic word?????

Please say Please! Pretty please? With a cherry on top?

How do you get a child to use those magic words? Do you beg and plead.... "I SAID: SAY PLEASE!!!"... while hovering the wanted item just overhead enough to be interpreted as a cruel tease?

Do you stand firm? Keeping in mind being consistent? And everyday it's the same thing! "C'mon! How many times do I have to ask you? And now you're gonna cry??" Who's more stubborn? You or the 2 year old? Are you?....Insisting on your way until the battle of the wills leaves only carnage on the field?

I noticed my good friend locking horns with her toddler and she said "Yvette, what should I do???" The stand-off was unbearable! Her intention was only the best; we do want our children to at least know how to be polite!

When my child says "More!" I say please for them the instant before I put it in their hands. When the neighbor mom hands them another cookie I whispered "please" with a catching of the eye right at the end of my child's "Can I have another cookie?" (that usually brought the echo of their own "Please!").

I'm a pushover. I'm way too easy. One might think my children would grow up knowing only that things get handed to them...but I say look carefully at what your children are learning because NOTHING sneaks by them. Are they learning how to tease? Be stubborn and inflexible? How to be demanding? That big people are more powerful? That when they are the adults they will wield power over smaller people? Are they learning to be resentful? And what about the message on the conditionality of your love?

Where did I come up with this line of thinking, this mellow, trusting philosophy? I'm not sure. Probably from a wise mom in a mom's circle or neighborhood playgroup. But understanding the deep messages has been a quest of mine since the beginnings of the wondering expressions surfacing on my children's faces.

When babies are born we adults witness the cutting of the ubilical chord. For some reason we neglect to explain to the baby that that means we are now separate from them!! They just do not get that concept till well into their 3rd and 4th year. So, take advantage of it! If you encourage behaviors by acting FOR the child when they are still toddlers, when they still believe that you and they are one in being, then they believe they have made the action themselves. If YOU say please without a pause they are sure it came out of their mouth! As they mature and realize how that sentence works the magic word comes naturally... And if you tack on "Thank you!" they will get that too.

Ahhhhh, bypass all the other lessons of stubbornness, power and teasing. Now you are teaching trust and unconditional love.