Tuesday, October 02, 2007

• There Is No Magic Word

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  "Can I have a cookie?"
  "Say the magic word...!"
  "Please?"
  "Here you go!"

  So begins the downfall of civlized behavior.  Intended to teach ettiquette and manners, this whole "magic word" business not only begins a sense of entitlement (If I ask nicely, I shouldn't be denied anything!), but plants a seed that grows in the exact opposite direction parents intend.

  Consider:

  "Can I have a cookie?"
  "No."
  "Pleeeeeeaaaaaaase?!"

  We've all heard it.  Is the kid humbling himself?  Remembering that he should be respectful and polite when asking for special favors?

  No. To that child, please has become a power word.  Its use is intended to force obligation upon the person to whom it is addressed.  And some parents even think that it does obligate them!

  I witnessed the following scene just the other day.

  Child: "Fries."
  Dad: "No."
  Child: "Fries, please!"
  Dad: "No."
  Mom (angrily): "He said please!"

  So she took fries from the dad's container and stuffed them in the child's mouth.  After all, Dad's not allowed to say no when the child says please.  What kind of lesson would that teach?

  And please isn't the only magic word.  What about sorry?  Verbal contrition is thought to somehow obligate clemency.  "Well, he did say he was sorry."  Or even worse, any minor misdeed can be erased by simply saying, "Sorry," after.  Or its even more flip and yet inversely more powerful, "My bad."

  Then there's the all-powerful excuse me.  As in when we were at the zoo the other day, and the little girl muscled Meghan rudely out of the way with a curt, "Excuse me," as if that made it alright.  She wasn't being apologetic, and she wasn't asking Meghan to allow her through.  She was being rude, and thought it was okay to be rude, just so long as she said, "Excuse me," afterward.

  So can we drop this magic word nonsense out of our child instruction manual?

  Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase????!!!!

  • 7:30 PM
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