To not make 22 month old say please and thank you

[Sleepygrumpyandnothappy]

Obviously I encourage it sometimes, but generally I’m not fussed about ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.

DS (not yet 2) is a late talker and not really stringing two words together. If he’s persistently asking for more I’ll encourage him to say please, and I always model “thank you” but otherwise it’s not something we prioritise. I was very aware seeing SIL at the weekend that their two year old is told to say please and thank you all the time. Eg “would you like an apple or banana”, “banana”, “say ‘banana please’”. I find it quite jarring as it’s used far more than normal adult speech would require/expect.

Are we bringing DS up to be a rude little horror?

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.

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. 😂)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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"

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.

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’?

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.

“Much appreciated”? 😂

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.

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

Please ignore these posters op. They clearly don’t get it. All very well them saying ‘he said ta’ or ‘i did lots of modelling and always said it’ etc.

Those of us who had to go through speech therapy with our kids know that this was not the priority. When thinking about linking words, they certainly never told me to focus on please. It was more describing what they see and using linking words.

All very well saying ‘ta’ but my DS couldn’t make a ‘t’ sound for a quite a long time and literally had therapy to help with this.

What posters aren’t getting is that you’re not saying manners aren’t important. You, like me, have manners on your radar, but the very basics need to come first, with a child who is not even 2 and has a speech delay. My DS wasn’t saying thanks at 2. It doesn’t matter. He needed some time and help with other aspects of his speech, and the please and thank yous came slightly nearer 3. Your SIL and the posters here are out of order and being too harsh.

She doesn’t need to model it yet. He’s not even 2. It’s fine to wait a few months.

Why would you NOT be teaching manners?

Don't make them, just model it, say it for them, they'll pick it up.

Mum to a child with speech delays and anxiety. He says please and thank you and I've mostly modelled it for him, never told him to say it (though occasionally I've asked him if he is able to).

Going by some kids I see you can never start too young

Honestly, a polite kid gets far in this country and teaching simple manners at this age is easy!
My two are now in double figs and their life is much easier for being courteous kids!

I detest ta more than anything! I always encouraged them to say thank you though.