Brought them up right

[Mumof3pluscat]

To those parents who people would say brought their kids up “right”, what hints and tips would you give?
You know the kids/teenagers that would help a granny cross a road, pick up litter, polite, study instead of drinking in a field etc lol
I have a 6, 4 and 1 year old and feel like I’m failing so any advice going forward would be great!
Thanks!

Firm tone of voice and not giving in. Insist on them saying thank you for their meal and please may I leave the table. My teen still does this.
Other techniques have already been listed by PPs eg not handing something to them until they say thank you.
Don’t expect ridiculous things eg no 5 year old should be expected to sit silently through a long dinner with grandparents with nothing to do. We used top trumps and noughts and crosses between courses and after the meal or sticker books when they were younger.

Don’t let your kids treat you like shit. Used to be hard to watch friends primary age kids be so rude and awful to their parents who behaved like cringing servants to them. Just awful dynamic. No one treats Dh and I like that let alone our own children 🙄

They need to respect you, want to please you and not want to piss you off.

We’ve often received compliments on our children’s behaviour and manners and they are pretty pleasant and empathetic as teens (so far!)

Like PPs, we were quite strict about manners when they were little, and part of that was thinking about other people around us and how they might feel, eg if we’re being really loud or screeching, that probably won’t be fun for other people nearby.

We also encouraged and modelled calm dialogue and the ability to acknowledge and apologise when we’re wrong. So I would apologise to them if I had lost my temper and raised my voice or snapped at them so that they could see it was normal to make mistakes and get things wrong and that saying sorry can go a long way to making things right again.

Part of this might be explaining why it had happened, eg ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have shouted then. I wasn’t very patient because I’m tired/not feeling very well/worried about Grandma.’ I think this has encouraged them to be open about their feelings.

Both as teens are very polite and considerate. Both will apologise when they’ve pissed me off. The older teen has done a bit of drinking in fields (or beach in our case) and has made one or two other unwise decisions but that is part of adolescence for many young people and a young person can still be lovely, pleasant, empathetic and studious while also making mistakes like those.

Good luck with your DCs, I’m sure they’ll turn out lovely.

I was pretty strict with mine, I didn't tolerate rudeness, laziness or bad behaviour. There was no discussion as to who was in charge, it was always my rules. I didn't go in for harsh punishments but we would discuss where they had gone wrong and what they would do to make amends at length. I remember ds2 once asking why I couldn't be like normal parents and get mad and shout😂 It seemed to pay off as they got older as they were pretty easy tweens and teens and lovely adults now. Dd has dgs now and she is firm too, she says she wants him to grow up knowing where the boundaries lie as she did.

I have a 4yo and a 2yo so we're right in the thick of laying down boundaries and teaching good manners. I'm always chuffed if I hear one of mine say a spontaneous please or thank you, and praise them for it, "that was a lovely thank you ds, well done!" etc etc. We're basically drumming it into them all the time. Please and thank you at the dinner table, thank you for making dinner, may I leave the table etc. And talking about kindness, gentleness, other people's feelings, and how we would feel in that situation. I also have several childrens books on behaviour, manners etc, which are helpful when we need to look at a specific issue, eg ds hitting other children at nursery. This set is really good, and our children's nursery also use them
www.amazon.co.uk/Graves-Emotions-Behaviour-Matters-Collection/dp/9526540875/ref=sr_1_16?qid=1650441886&refinements=p_lbr_books_authors_browse-bin%3ASue+Graves&s=books&sr=1-16

We also do a lot of modeling good behaviour, I always make sure to say please and thank you to them, and to their dad, and generally show the behaviours I want them to do. And apologise when I get things wrong.

I’ve just thought of another thing which might be relevant in helping to develop a nice attitude. When they were younger, we tried to help our children understand that nice things and treats are special and take money and/or effort. I don’t mean banging on about how much things cost or making them feel indebted to us, but just saying things like: ‘Daddy made a lot of effort to organise this lovely day out, isn’t that nice? Let’s say thank you to Daddy’ or he might say to them: ‘Mummy saved up some of her money to take us out for dinner, we should say thanks to Mum for our treat’ etc

The way I’ve phrased it makes it sound a bit scripted or wooden but hopefully you get what I mean. Those sorts of things can come up naturally in conversation. Equally, we have always thanked the children when they have made efforts to do things for the family or the home, eg when they’ve helped us with housework.

We’ve just come back from a week’s holiday and both of our teens spontaneously and independently of each other, thanked us for a lovely holiday, which was so nice.

Same water. Our teens thank us for a posh treat. Friends teens so entitled they take going out for meals etc for granted their older Dd took a friend with them on a weekend away who was so appreciative and grateful brought my friends two teens up short - sometimes teens friends are a good influence!