A few days ago, I posted that I try not to say "be careful" very often. Nope, not going to say it.
Today, Ben got close to the edge of the bed and looked like he was going to fall. As I bit back a "be careful!" Ben supplied his own cry of "hey!" He said it with my inflection - sort of like hearing myself if I was a two-year-old boy. And I realized, I say "hey!" instead of "be careful." In Momspeak, "hey" means "an adult thinks you're going to hurt yourself so be cautious."
I also noticed I've taught Ben the wrong words to be polite. When I give him something, I say "here you go." Ben now says "ah go" when I hand him something. He doesn't say "thank you."
Hmmmm. Where are his manners?
Ben has manners. It's just that in Momspeak, "ah go" is the word for "thank you." Now that I'm trying to teach him "thank you" he occasionally corrects me back to "ah go."
First we taught him baby sign language. Now he's learning Momspeak. Maybe his third language will be English.
2 comments:
My kids - especially Jace - would come up with the oddest things and I would wonder where he got them, until I thought about them. He used to say "dad you be in charge" - when he wanted dad to drive. Somehow when we said "he's/she's in charge" - he took it to mean the driver. I used to tell him to get stuff out of the fridge and point to the garage meaning the fridge in the garage, and eventually he started asking us to close the fridge when he wanted the garage close or to open it. IT was rather humorous. We understood but no one else did.
So rather than mom speak its kid speak?? I think it shows our intelligent the kids are today. Their little brains are working full time. I think it is interesting that Dear Abby today is talking about people responding "No problem" to a thank you.
Someone wrote in and said "If Mannerly mom is really worried about teaching her children proper manners, shouldn't she be more concerned that they DO respond in acknowledgement rather than insist they use the proper words." So Ben is responding properly. Way to go Ben!
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