To not make 22 month old say please and thank you

Can’t yet, if you don’t model and try he won’t learn.

All these posters saying “manners are important”—OP isn’t disputing that. Constantly correcting a child who may have a speech delay is a bad idea.

“Much appreciated”? 😂

Yes, I agree. I notice it immediately when DCs’ friends don’t have manners.

I didn’t make a huge thing out of it when mine were two, but I insisted on it once they were speaking well.

if you don’t teach ‘ta’ what is you child going to say when the 4th door is held open for them and they’ve already used up ‘thank you’, ‘thanks’, and ‘cheers’?

Why wouldn’t you?

It’s probably a very personal pet peeve but I cannot bear it when kids AND adults don’t say please and thank you. When manners cost nothing why would you not say it? So many on my in laws don’t do it and I think it’s so so rude.

I tend to go for "if you say please, you're more likely to get what you want" rather than all this magic words rubbish and performatively refusing to do things until you get the right incantation.

Also "if you say thank you they will be more likely to do it next time"
And something like "sorry means you didn't consider they would be upset by that and now you do understand"

@Sleepygrumpyandnothappy , manners cost nothing. My one year old grandson says ‘thank you’. Manners are incredibly important.

If a child can't talk, they can't say please and thank you. If they can say two words together, there's no excuse for not teaching and modelling it, whilst not insisting on manners.
Happily it's now second nature for my 2.5 year old and is really very pleasant. I'm fully aware she go through the forgetting it again stages though.

I’m hot on manners with my 4 year old but if my late talking 23m old manages to use words to ask for something I’m not going to wait to give it to him until he says please (which he can’t say properly). I think that would be discouraging for a child who is struggling to talk anyway. It was completely different for my oldest at 2 who was talking in full sentences.

I'm originally from Yorkshire and so many adults say ''ta'' up there. I don't consider it baby talk.

I'm with SIL.
I've always encouraged my children to say please and thank you and now that they're 5 and 6, I never have to remind them and always get comments on how polite they are.

My son (2 and a half) says please, thank you and sorry of his own accord because he hears us saying it. We have never told him to say these things.

His little pal, on the other hand, who is forced to say please before being handed anything and forced to say sorry, holds his hand out and gets closer and closer to children if he wants what they have all the while saying "please". If they don't hand it over he grabs it while saying "please". He is forced to say sorry and then wanders off whereas my son will say "I'm sorry that wasn't nice" if he's been unkind to another child and then will go to give them a cuddle.

Children learn throigh imitation not through being forced to do something.

I have never forced my DD to say please and thank you. But i have always used please when asking her for something and say thank you to her.

Shes 3 but 9/10 will say please and thank you, shes even got it doqn to a "thanks mum" when i do something now, like shes a teenager.

Just model the behaviour yourself and they'll pick it up. So many parents are plain rude to their kids, so no wonder childrens don't say it naturally.

If he can’t say please you just model it, and give him the apple ‘Apple’ you - Apple please. Say please darling. Here you go.

once he’s more capable then you can hold off until they’ve said it. My 2.5yo wouldn’t say it voluntarily but says it very quickly when she gets told to and has to wait for her fruit! Don’t let your annoyance at your sils parenting make you a worse parent.

It truly is pathetic to force an actual baby to have manners, or to even think they are capable of knowing what manners are.
Sorry 22 months is not 22 years old, it is pretty sad a baby cannot have their already very short baby phase in peace without being judged by adult standards.
Sorry I think it is a form of bullying and I always feel sorry for tiny children without any real language skills being coerced into being eternally grateful for any crumb being offered. It truly says more about the adults than anything else.
The "teach them while their young" brigade want to conveniently bypass the poor child's cognitive development stage to satisfy their own silly need for manners.

I still remember vividly when I was working in a public-facing role, a truly tiny little girl, I’m sure barely 2, saying to me as clear as a bell, ‘Thank you so much!’ when she was leaving with her mother.
She was parroting what she’d heard before, but that’s how they learn.

(Same as I once heard a very tiny niece, strapped into her baby seat in the back of the car, piping up with ‘OK left!’ as DSis was about to reverse into the road. 😂)

I’m with you OP, DS didn’t get encouraged to say it much until he wanted to (around 3 yo). Now he says please and thank you to most things, his choice, his own free will.

If you keep modelling 'apple please' he'll say it eventually.

I'm with your SIL on this.

That's because they've been raised to be ungrateful little buggers.

You don't need to train a child to parrot "please" and "thank you". You only need to show love and gratitude to each other at home and model polite behaviour. Children will pick it up naturally.

My 2 and a half year old says "can I have more raspberries please" and "oh thank you mummy that's so kind". It's very sweet. I've not taught him to say this, this is how we speak to each other and he has picked up on it. He'll say "oh I'm sorry I didn't mean it" and "are you ok?" if he accidentally bumps into you.

I have never asked my toddler to say please or thank you. She is now doing it herself. Modelling is all you need for a NT child.

I'm with your sister-in-law here. I had too many children visiting my house when my children were small who had no inclination to say please and thank you and I found them a complete pain in the arse.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

It’s definitely subject to development. But doesn’t mean you shouldn’t begin showing him what manners are. My son was a very late talker and at 22 months barely said 5 words and it was always so hard to get him to say a word unless it was on his terms. I always emphasised “please” and “thank you” such as when he pointed to something he wanted I’d say “apple please” and give it to him followed by “thank you.” I wanted him to know what were the correct manners but was well aware he couldn’t say it so wouldn’t hold him to ransom over it. I had a family member literally sit and refuse to give him his cup of water that he was pointing at until he “used his words”. He was getting so upset I eventually snapped back and said “for gods sake he hasn’t got any words to use give him his drink!”

By the time he turned 2 it was like a switch flipped. Not long after he hit 23 months he came out with a full sentence one morning out the blue (made me cry as I’d been so worried about his speech delay!) and then there was no stopping him! He copies everything now. Literally yesterday I freed his toy train which had got its wheels caught in the rug and gave it back to him. Unprompted, he said “dank yooo mama”. It goes to show instilling it from an early age works - even if he’s not saying it he’ll take it in and say it when he’s ready.

I'm an early years SLT- don't do this. I'm actually really disheartened by replies on this thread.

If your child is communicating using single words like apple then encourage the learning of a wider vocabulary. Then work on putting two words together.... Useful functional words like red apple, more apple etc.

If a child has difficulty learning language consider how confusing please and thank you are as phrases. What do they mean? Gratitude and manners are very abstract concepts that a two year old is not understanding.

We advocate a total communication approach, recognising and encouraging all attempts at communication to help it develop. So if your child responds to the question banana or apple by pointing out reaching towards one that's great, give them the banana saying "banana" or as their language develops "you want the banana" then when you ask the question and they respond saying "banana" you should add a useful adjective "big banana" "yellow banana" etc