We never really discussed why but from a very early age we encouraged the Abomb to say please and thank you. By early, I think about 1 year. And then at 2 ½ we encouraged him to start saying ‘pardon’ instead of ‘what’. I classify these words as manners. Perhaps it was my parents-in-law influence as they are sticklers for manners and looked after the Abomb until is was one.

At age 5, I now get many comments about the Abomb’s manners. These comments don’t make me feel any differently other than being grateful that manners have obviously become automatic for him.

Things (as usual) are so different for Mr Sdash. Despite our best efforts, he simply will not use his ‘manners’.  We don’t get angry with Sdash for not saying please or thank you but I have been known to ignore his requests until he says please. Most of the time, I remind him to but when I do, I sometimes wonder why I am?

My book club once had a discussion about manners and what they are. We were a bit confused. What are they, I mean really? According to wikipedia they’re “the unenforced standards of conduct which demonstrate that a person is proper, polite, and refined.” Sounds pretty trivial to me. What does it mean to be proper anyway? While being proper and/or refined really doesn’t matter to us, being polite does. But why? Why do we want our children to be polite, to us and to others?

When he has asked why we say please and thank you, C and I have explained that to do so shows thoughtfulness, that it shows you care about the person you are speaking to, that you respect them. Using manners acknowledges that you are going to or have received something special from that person (be it a glass of water or turn on the swing). And in our family, C and I try hard to model polite behaviour. We feel this is the most way of teaching the kids appropriate use of manners.

In his book, Unconditional Parenting Alfie Kohn asserts that the use of please and thank you is meaningless and that what a child receives should not be dependent on their use of these words. He claims that this expects too much of a child and there is little logic for him or her in the use of these words. I appreciate his viewpoint. I totally get it, but it’s not for me, or my family.

Then I read this book and discovered that an essential aspect of the Montessori approach to education is to teach grace and courtesy as an extension of civility and kindness.* This resonated with me and now gives me a reference point when explaining why manners are important in our family.

What’s your feelings or approach towards manners?

* I also read this article which I found interesting.

photo by jcolman via flickr

At my sons’ daycare, they have a ‘relaxation’ chair. It’s a chair on the side of the room, by a big window, where the kids go when they need to ‘relax’. This tends to occur when the child has transgressed in some way. They are encouraged to spend some time on the relaxation chair in order to ‘feel better.’

When I was first introduced to this idea, I only had one little boy and that little boy had thus far been pretty, damn easy. Lucky me. But it got me thinking that it would be nice to use something similar to the relaxation chair at home when we needed it.

Except I didn’t manage it quite so effectively, encouraging the Abomb, when I felt he needed it, to spend time in his bedroom ‘relaxing’ (read: on his own). And so, began our failed relationship with ‘time-out.’ It never worked. Ever. Either the Abomb would get even more upset (crazily so), or he’d just play with his trains, having no idea that he was experiencing a negative consequence of his behaviour.

There’s been similar zero-effect with Sdash. In fact, it’s worse with him. He rarely just plays, he tends to get so worked up that we spend more time trying to deal with his behaviour as a product of enforced time-out than we would have had we ignored his behaviour in the first place.

A few weeks ago, I finally vowed to throw our use of time-out, out. Forever. It just doesn’t work. But, what next? I had no alternatives. I had no other effective (but gentle) ideas about how to implement behavioural consequences. So, I hit the books.

I read about the Comfort Corner here (I’m going to discuss this book in greater detail soon, it’s great) and when I read about this idea, I immediately thought of daycare’s ‘relaxation chair.’ The connection between the two is that they are ultimately child-determined which is where the use of time-out markedly differs. When I implemented our ‘relaxation room’ I hadn’t thought about that at the time.

So, this is how I went about implementing the Comfort Corner at home.

First of all, I discussed the idea with Abomb and we talked about how nice it would be for him to have a spot to go to when he’s upset or angry or feeling overwhelmed.

I asked him where he’d like his Comfort Corner to be (in Mummy and Daddy’s room, he said, so that he would definitely be left alone – he shares his bedroom).

Then I asked what he’d like to have in his Comfort Corner (his Thomas doona cover and pillow, 2 soft toys and some books).

So we decided, when he was angry or upset or feeling ‘out of control’ I would ask him whether he’d like to go to the Comfort Corner and together we’d quickly get the necessary items ready. If he needed me there, and it was OK with the other bubs, I would sit with him.

And so far, it’s worked! He loves it and spends at least 5 minutes each time reading dinosaur books. He always responds well when I ask him whether he’d like to go and truth be told, my asking is so much more gentle than when I used to find myself yelling at him to have time out.

Have you found any gentle disciplining techniques that work for your family? If so, please share!!