“Thanks for dinner, Mom!”

If these are words you thought you’d never hear, then we have something in common. Despite my best efforts to teach my kids simple social graces like “please” and “thank you”, I don’t often see the rewards of my efforts.

So imagine my surprise when my daughter quietly thanked me for a plate of frozen ravioli and a salad thrown at her for a Sunday dinner at the end of a recent particularly hectic weekend. I graciously accepted her thanks and told her how much I appreciated her saying something. Which prompted a dialogue that went something like this:

“I always thank you for dinner,” she said. (I realized that lately this was, indeed, true.)

“Yes, I guess you have been doing that lately… Well, this isn’t much of a meal. (I couldn’t quite squelch my maternal guilt for failing to cook a “proper” dinner.) It’s not really necessary to thank me for dinner. It’s part of the job. But it isn’t inappropriate either. I do appreciate it.”

“Well, you breeded [sic.] me right!”

Wow! That was like hitting the parenting jackpot!

Every once in a while you get a glimpse of your child’s behavior or understanding of the world that directly correlates to some lesson you’ve tried to teach. Just when you’re blue in the face or about to scream because you’ve had to repeat the same thing over and over and over, you see some little result: your son shares a toy with his little sister; the markers stay on the paper and off the walls; your daughter clears her dishes after dinner; the dirty socks make it in to the hamper…

It’s like time-release parenting: the messages of the past unpredictably resurface appropriately at some time in the future.

Before our kids head to school, we’re their most significant teachers. Whether it’s the ABCs or values, we instinctively realize that they don’t learn most lessons the first time. Repetition is essential. After a while, the repetition becomes rote if it’s something we know they need to learn. Take, for example, “What’s the magic word?”

It evolves something like this:

Baby: You say, “Would you like some more?… Thank you, Mommy,” as a way of setting the example. (Talking to yourself becomes quite normal at this stage of parenting, of course.)
Toddler: She says, “MORE!” You gently remind, “What’s the magic word?” Of course, then you have to reinforce the difference between “please” and “thank you” because both are magic words.
Kindergarten: It seems like you say, “And what do you say?” after every one of her utterances.
School Age: You sit back and watch as she erratically remembers those “thank yous” all on her own.
Eventually: She thanks you for preparing frozen ravioli and salad on the Sunday of a hectic weekend.

Spring is a new beginning… enjoy!