Lord help me, a child with no manners is around for a sleepover

[Rainallnight]

Good friend of DD is over on a sleepover. Both going on 8. There hasn’t been a single please or thank you from the friend. I am probably being unreasonable (hence not posting in AIBU!) but I find it very grating and it’s going to get on my nerves all the through.

Just needed to get that off my chest!

I think there is something in that. In ome cultures all the please and thankyou stuff in shops ( when we still interacted with humans) is odd. Also some languages don't have the definite article which can make their English sound direct.

However, too bad! I think please , thank you and the long forgotten excuse me are important.

Exactly. 'That's not a word in my language' is not an excuse at all. You're not speaking your language, you're speaking English. That said, personally I have found people for whom English is a second language to be just as polite as anyone else: plenty of rude people who only speak English.

My husband just says "sorry, what did you say ?" "Sorry I didn't catch that" With raised eyebrow on repeat until they twig or my child takes pity on them and says "say please!"
He's nice and jokey about it but they get the point.

I'm quite old school too but really crap at making a joke of it. I think our kids friends are quite intimidated by us but they still want to come over.

I think being realistic about bed times for a sleepover helps. They are going to be up way past bedtime, you have to accept that. There's always one batshit kid who wakes everyone up at 5am too. If there are kids with an early start for hobbies and family event it's going to be a disaster and I don't let my daughter do sleepovers if she has something important the next day particularly physical activities where she'll be a liability to herself.

So I'm careful with the dates and then there's a lights out at 11 say with a warning that guests get sent to separate rooms at midnight if still pissing about. Or DH will stand at the door scrolling until they go to sleep. We have history of both so we get taken seriously 😂

Now we also make sure phones are left downstairs by 9pm. If they need to call home they can come down and do so but I'm not leaving a bunch of tweens with phones to get up to no good. DD doesn't have social media but a lot of kids her age have access to TikTok and Snapchat and I'm not policing their activities all night.

I used to look DD in the eye, point my witchy finger and ask whether she would prefer to be a frog or a toad……..

Nasty and ill-mannered

Yes, I think some children are embarrassed to ask, conscious of being indebted (even in tiny ways), worried about being resented. All sorts of reasons they could be failing to be polite.

OP, I'm in exactly the same boat as you! I could have written your post.

I've started cheerfully being quite open about the fact that she needs to say 'please' and 'thank you'. Someone needs to point it out. I have struggled a bit as it felt like it was overstepping, but if a child hasn't learned/been taught that then someone needs to guide them, as it's not fair to let them go out into the world lacking these basic life skills.

Sometimes families will have much higher expectations of what is general manners. My DD when primary school age would say please and thank you when offered something, but would have been far to shy to actually ask for a drink. One young friend when at our house for dinner asked ' May I start please?" When we were all sat down to eat. She then asked if she could leave the table when we had all finished and DH and already taken his plate to kitchen. We were amused as this is not necessary in our home. She said at her house she could not leave the table unless her plate was clean. We were not this strict, as long as my DC had attempted to eat most of her meal we were happy. My DD returned from the same friends house in tears once. I do think that she had been made to eat everything off her plate, it was the that mixed bag of frozen peas, carrots green beans and peas which she did not like and what I personally would not serve to a pig! Although I would expect basic manner from DC's friends I would never force them to eat something they didn't like, but I digress!

your approach could have been different. I'd a mum called my daughter rude on the doorstep in a judgemental way in front of your kids I'd feel defensive too. It's always good to keep in mind that your child might not be an angel either.

She deserves to feel bad so you're doing nothing wrong!

Of course German has words for please and thank you, Bitte and Danke Schoen, in fact if you say Danke Schoen you'll often get the response Bitte Schoen, the equivalent to You're welcome and they're probably used as often as in the UK.

Your response implies that your children are not expected to use good manners, poor children.

Or just not letting the door swing back in my face. Once upon a time, kids used to hold doors open as a matter of course. Now it's such an event, I fall over myself in thanks.

A lovely memory of an Ofsted inspection, (not often you hear that)! I was about 20m behind a couple of real reprobates as they approached a pair of swing doors on a corridor and there were three Inspectors coming the other way, As the boys got to the doors they opened them and held them open like a couple of Grenadier Guards outside Buck House for the Inspectors!

If your child is living in the UK and hopes to work here etc then you're doing them a great disservice not teaching them to use please and thank you, If you can't be bothered then it's lucky that others do!

Agree it isn't your job to teach other people's kids anything

Or to judge them

Looks like you've got poor reading comprehension.

I agree completely. It just doesn’t feel right at the end of a casual ask. I don’t need anyone to say it to me, I associate it somewhat with unpleasant requests and frosty tones if anything.

But I don’t think I speak rudely in the slightest and my politeness was commented on all the time when I was a child!

I was not impressed at all when my older boyfriend when I was 18 commented meanly on my never saying please. I really don’t think the word has anything to do with politeness, and it seemed so petty and patronising. I absolutely always say thank you though.

There's no trivial situation where a 7 year old girl should be made to feel bad. You're an unhinged bully.

This is a child in a strange house. The hosts should be doing their best to make her feel safe and secure. I don't see any issue with gently and tactfully encouraging good manners but I'd be ashamed of myself if I deliberately made a young child away from their parents feel awkward or in the wrong when they don't have one of "their" adults with them to advocate for them.

I agree. I would never, ever force a child to eat something they didn't like in my house. Nor send my own child to a house where this might happen. They would be offered an alternative, although it might be slightly boring (toast, plain pasta etc.). Some children have real issues around certain foods and it would be hugely overstepping to bully someone else's child into eating.

Yes, bitte and danke do exist of course, but they are not used to the same extent as in BE. Könntest du / Würdest du / Darf ich all imply a please already.

Manners≠ being polite. Spiting out please and shouting thank you i think is quite rude

I'm not sure on this one. While it would grate on me if the child's tone was rude or demanding, I don't know if I'd notice the absence of 'please' if they were being generally pleasant. I might notice the absence of 'thank you', but I would allow for nervousness/shyness at that age if, as I say, the child was otherwise agreeable.

To be honest though, I don't believe it's my job to teach appropriate manners to someone else's child. I think it's unlikely to 'stick' if it's not the norm for them. I certainly don't think they'd be looking back in years to come and thinking 'thank goodness funnywonder taught me good manners that one time I was at a sleepover in her house.'

This

Plus it's not an 'immigrant' thing. It's a thing for that poster's culture. I'm also a child of an immigrant and we said please and thank you.

It’s amazing what some kids are brought up to think okay. We had a child burping at the table when over for lunch. My son told him ‘we aren’t allowed to do that here…’. Response ‘well my mum and dad don’t mind, and think it’s funny when I do it….’ Likewise littering. Taking someone’s child to the park who just openly throws wrapper on the floor. Clearly raised to think that’s okay as does it so brazenly. Some parents really don’t like to set boundaries for their little darlings, in case it upsets them….. hence we have so many feral kids around.

I hope you are proud of your DD. 👏