On Teaching Children Manners

This is a rather random topic for a blog about an atypical programmer, I'll admit, but it was on my mind recently and I thought I'd share it. It's my opinion that these days, when children are taught manners at a young age, they are generally being taught phrases rather than behaviors.

When the greater majority of parents teach their children to be mannerly and appreciative, this usually follows a set pattern: The child must say "please" to be given something, and "thank you" when the item/privilege/etc. is received. But what does this teach? It doesn't really "teach" anything - it's simply instructing the child to behave a certain way, and the child has more or less no choice in the matter. This could be considered a good thing - but the child isn't actually appreciative: The "please" is just a way of getting what they want, and the "thank you" ensures that they get to keep it. The parent's goal is to teach the child manners, and I suppose to an extent this method is successful in doing this. However, the child doesn't actually learn to be appreciative. A bully could easily say "Please hand me your sandwich or I'll brain you" just as politely as a gentleman, and even add an ironic "thank you" at the end (when the victim most likely gets "brained" anyway).

Take the phrase, "you're welcome", for example. I was taught to use this at a very young age - when someone thanked me, I was supposed to tell them they were welcome. A three year old can understand this pretty well - "if this is said, this is what I do". It wasn't until I was older - five, six, seven (one of those) - that I actually started thinking about what the words meant. (Note I have a somewhat higher IQ than average - for some children this would be a year or two later. Not to brag, just explaining developmental ages.) I remember taking the phrase "You're welcome" apart - "you are welcome", it was - but what is "welcome"? And does telling someone they are "welcome" actually mean that they are "welcome"? "Welcome", I knew, was the same word that you saw on welcome mats. It was used to tell people to make themselves at home and that they could expect generous hospitality from those within. After picking at it a bit, I realized that the more appropriate wording would be, "You're welcome to it". At some point along the line in English's history, the phrase "You're welcome to it" was shortened to what it is today - which technically isn't completely correct. This, if nothing else, proves that children are being taught a phrase more than a behavior.

So what would be appropriate? Perhaps asking the child, "do you want this?" and explaining that people are more likely to be nice to them if they are nice to begin with. Once he or she grasped this, the child would realize that it was politeness that was getting the cookie, not the phrase "please". This would lead to much less nagging of this variety: "Please, can I have this toy, mom? Please? Please? I'll be good after you buy it for me, please?" That's not polite at all, though it demonstrates quite well that the phrase was taught. In a similar way, teaching a child with this method instead of the traditional training would promote the idea that it doesn't matter what you say when you tell someone they are welcome to something - so long as that feeling is expressed. This might lead to the child using something more original and heartfelt than "You're welcome" - perhaps "I'm glad I could help," or "If you need anything else, just ask". As these phrases aren't entirely unknown, it's encouraging - not everyone just does what they were taught, instead of being truly polite.