Mummy Role Model

Week 3 of the Kindness Club

Yea! I’m a model!

Imagine me with my 6ft graceful and painfully thin frame gliding down the catwalk in Jimmy Choos swishing my perfectly straight long hair and gazing seductively through my almond doe eyes *POP* whoops the bubble just burst!

Not that kind of model, I’m a role model, almost everything my toddlers have learned I have taught them to some degree, I taught them to wave, to clap, to coast the furniture, to walk, to talk and it’s also up to me and of course Daddy to make sure they learn how to behave in society.

A small part of that behaviour is politeness in requesting things with a please and then showing gratitude with “thank you”, a small part perhaps but it’s like a cog that keeps everything around them turning. I seem to be constantly reminding my daughter “magic words” or “ask me again, you missed something” or standing there with her desired object looking expectant until she remembers what I need from her.   At 3.5 she is actually pretty good at getting it right and I put this down to the fact that whenever we are out together interacting with other people I’m pretty good at it too!

Our little man just recently turned two, he is slower to talk than our daughter at the same age and sometimes slower to grasp what is expected of him which some how makes it all the more of an achievement when he screws his eyes up tips his head to one side and says “eeeeeeeese!” when he wants something and it warms my heart every time I get “an-koo Mummy”

At the ages they are now saying please and thank you are a constant lesson so trying to do it more often was difficult!

It did remind me of our trip to America a few years ago where I found that the differences in culture were never more pronounced then in asking for things in shops and cafes, queuing up for coffee one day I was surprised  to listen to the people in front of me asking “Can I get a coffee” “Can I get a do-nut” etc it was the same thing over & over, then they would pay and leave. I have noticed it on the TV in shows since too, it seems to be a normal way to ask for things over there (please correct me if I’m wrong).   I got to the front of the queue and said my usual “Please may I have 2 coffees” you should have seen the grin on the servers face (his name badge said he was from Australia – all staff at the resort had badges with there name home town and country) maybe he fancied me 😉 I’d like to think it was because I said Please.

So this week as  well as remembering to use my P’s & Q’s, reminding the smalls to use theirs, I have tried to listen to see if others do here in my small corner of Blighty – it’s disappointing isn’t it. *shakes head ruefully* it doesn’t take a lot to be polite….

IMAGES

From Flikr by Spider blue, End of coffee break