To expect children to say thank you?

Absolutely YANBU.
Brats.
47, child free too and happy about it every day.

I think if a young child forgets then the parents would prompt. If an older child - 11 or 16 doesn't say it then the parents have failed!

Children need reminding……and reminding……. and reminding to say please, thank you, and to use good manners. Even the best behaved kids can forget sometimes. This is the parents fault - they haven’t taught their children to use good manners and they weren’t prompted when they forgot.

My kids are really polite kids (sorry I know biased, but they are, it’s drummed into them). But still every time we are going somewhere I remind them “make sure you say please and thank you, tell the host how delicious the food was, help clear up the table after a meal, say thank you for any gifts etc etc etc.

It doesn’t come naturally to children and they often forget, so it has to be taught (again and again!)

Absolutely not how kids are nowadays. I have a 2 and 7 year old and would automatically say ‘what do you say’ if they haven’t said it themselves.

one of Santa’s elves actually made comment on how polite my 2 were saying thank you unprompted. So you are not being unreasonable at all.

If that were my children I’d have been horrified at how they behaved . My 2 year old doesn’t take a thing without thank you , please and thank you are key manners that we simply will not compromise on. They are so important in life. I’d have thought it was very rude x

It strikes me that nowadays there are so many more ways to say thank you - text, email, message via social media - than there were 30+ years ago when writing a letter or phoning on a landline were the only options. A child could do a template email: 'Dear X, I hope you are well. Thank you so much for sending me X; I have done X with it which I really enjoyed. I'm having a lovely Christmas, I've done X, Y and Z. Wishing you a happy New Year, Love from Johnny." and just fill in the gaps which would take about 2 mins per 'thank you'.

Two years in a row and no "thank you" from Neice and Nephew..next year they will be only receiving card! They are both old enough to text so no excuse!

This thread has prompted me to go and get the pack of thank you cards I got for DD and put some stamps on them! 🤣 Along with that year’s Christmas cards, I always get a pack of thank you cards/notelets for DD to send after Christmas. She moans about doing it, but to be fair to her she does eventually do it each year, thank goodness! Even with DD sending them, my sister’s kids don’t seem to get the hint to send or say any thank you back. However, my sister has always had a thing about how her kids should never have to be made to do anything they don’t want to do - which has made them fairly rude children, to be honest. Writing the odd thank you note, or coming down out of your room at a family occasion to show your face and say hello to relatives (or similar), is hardly like child labour.

My 2 year old says thank you for everything (when I’m with him) prompted or unprompted. It’s basic & it means so much. I’d have been unable to have kept my mouth shut in that situation that’s shocking.

I don’t think it’s a case of it being the norm ‘nowadays’, I think there’s always been polite kids and there’s been rude little buggers. I can’t believe their mum didn’t say anything either, shockingly rude.
It certainly wouldn’t fly in my house 😅

Rude. But it’s not just limited to kids. We gave gift cards to SIL and her adult child and got no acknowledgment. They have done this a few times. DH and I agreed to draw the line.

My mum sent vouchers to her great-nephews for several years and never heard a dicky bird back. I told her very firmly not to bother after hearing her lament this for the nth time, and thankfully, she stopped. Their parents (my cousin and spouse) were a similar age to me - i.e. from the thank you letter as standard era, however my sister and I have found that whole side of the family to be pretty toxic and we have had no contact with them for many years.

It's not necessarily about the parenting. My sister and I were brought up to write thank you letters to grandma, aunties etc. Our mother was quite strict about it. I continued to do so as an adult. When my sister had children of her own, my mother would send things and never hear a word. As she said, she just wanted to know that the things had arrived.

I very soon stopped sending gifts to sister's children because I never heard whether they had received them.

No, it's definitely not how children are these days. My young dcs say please and thank you. If they have ever forgotten due to excitement or whatever, I have sharp reminded them, and one is AuADHD.

My 4 and 5 year old wouldn’t dare not use manners always ! They were rude

She does sometimes say thank you if I’m present in person (sometimes), but never sends a text, or writes a thank you note if I send Xmas gifts by post….

Yes, I wouldn't give them anything next year. Rude kids.

That is rude, and shame on the mum for not prompting them too.

I'm your age and childfree too. In my day, I would have been expected not only to thank on receipt but to write you a 'thank you' letter saying what I'd spent the money on.

As a child, writing thank you letters was just something done as standard - I liked writing letters and wrote every week of my own volition to my grandma, who I loved beyond anyone else, so I wrote my Christmas and birthday thank you letters on blue Basildon Bond and thought no more of it.

Now when I look back, I like to think of all those long-dead elderly aunties receiving my little letters back in the 70s and 80s, saying I'd bought a skirt for my Sindy with their £5 and seen Snow White at the theatre with an ice cream in the interval, and I hope it brightened their day.

kids often don't say thanks because they are tied up in their own thoughts, thinking about what they're going to do next etc. but if prompted normally do say thanks.

Would you ?. Amazing. I’ve never felt the need to knock back anything when faced with genuine ableism. If anything the ignorance of someone’s ableism normally makes me laugh because I feel sorry for their apparent lack of emotional intelligence. Actually, I’m not “a random auntie”, but the person who largely bought my nieces husband up. He says thank you appropriately, doesn’t get wrecked at every family lunch. He behaves like a “normal” person. Many of us have married people we eventually find have questionable qualities we may not like. My own husband does. Doesn’t make him Autistic, hasn’t driven me to “knock back a bottle” all the time because I find he can sometimes be difficult to deal with. Haven’t you got something better to do ?.it’s Boxing Day. Knock back a couple of bottles, but I do hope if they were a gift, you said “thank you” 😂😂😂

Absolutely this xx

I must admit, I did wonder what posters would say if they were challenged as to why the gifts had stopped. Would they tell the truth, or mumble something about budgets or similar to avoid an awkward situation? Just stopping giving wouldn't really be teaching anything, would it.

No it’s not normal. My 3 were given £10 in a giftcard by a family friend they are 11 & 15 & they each said thank you as they opened it. My kids always say thank you.
watched my son at his christmas fair on a stall
and he apologised saying he didn’t have enough change yet (£1 a go and she handed him £5 note) she said it was ok they could just put the extra in the box as it was for charity. My son “are you sure” followed by “thanks so much thats so kind of you” he didn’t know we were standing near by and no teachers either but he still remembered. She responded by saying what a lovely boy he was. Manners cost nothing although there are plenty of kids with no manners it’s certainly not normal

My only just 4 year old is expected to say thank you. If she doesn't I will prompt her but sometimes she still gets shy and hides her face instead. She does regularly thank me for dinner without prompting and says please without being reminded probably 70% of the time. Manners is definitely a hill I will die on! I also say thank you to her if she does something for me - it works both ways.

Yep, children of that age should have basic manners.