Please and Thank You

Haley's Oatmeal Scotchies

You hear it all the time. You give a small child something and his mother or father says:

"Say Thank You."

From the time they first talk, we are teaching our kids to be polite.

We are so impressed by that child who gets out of our car and says: "Thanks for the ride" or leaves our house and says: "Thanks for having me."

But we wonder if our kids are really being polite when we're not around.

The other day The Brainiac came home with a big bag of groceries and went to work on some cookie bars to thank several of her teachers who had written her letters of recommendation for a scholarship she is in the running for.

I was a little amazed because it was not my idea.

Now I am not dissing The Brainiac. She has many good qualities. But even though I'm a big fan of random acts of kindness, they have never really been her thing.

And I had kind of gotten used to that, because when your child is almost an adult you have a little talk with yourself and you tell yourself that you did the best job you could and they are who they are. You tell yourself that it might be O.K. if they don't value some of the things that you value. You even admit that maybe your expectations were kind of high.

But I am here to tell you that sometimes you see a late change. Sometimes something happens when your child is almost out the door that will make you feel like they heard you all along.

Listen carefully. They might be saying Thank you.