Four Misunderstandings About Teaching a Child to Say Thank You

"What do you say?"

Those three words I have said more times than I can count. Last Sunday I heard my own voice as clearly as a recording, and it sounded less like a reminder and more like an exam question.

I am the mother of Sóc, who is five. I am no expert on bringing up children, and what follows is only four things I used to believe, tried, and gradually dropped, after some months of watching one particular child in one particular house.

This is not a chart of how to raise a child properly. I do not know yours, and mine is not a template for anyone else's. Nor is it a dig at anyone who prompts their child to say thank you: I still do, in a different place, at a different moment.

Saying it the moment you receive something is what makes you polite

Sunday, half past nine in the morning, a gentle sun. Auntie Tư from next door passed two ripe plums through a gap in the iron fence, the sweet smell of them rising right up to my nose. Sóc took them in both hands and looked at the plums, not at her.

"What do you say?" I asked.

Sóc dropped her head, her thumb rubbing the plum's skin.

"Sóc? Auntie gave you plums. What do you say?"

"Oh, never mind, she's little," Auntie Tư laughed. I felt my face go hot. At that moment I was not thinking about Sóc, or about the plums. I was thinking about the look on Auntie Tư's face.

Only much later did I see it: when I prompted her right then, I was not teaching her to say thank you. I was teaching her that the words are what makes the grown-ups stop looking at you. They became a password to get out of an awkward moment, tied to my eyes and my tone of voice, not to the plum. What I wanted her to see was something else: that someone had just thought of her.

What I tried: one week without the phrase "what do you say." Instead I modelled it aloud whenever I received something, even from a shop assistant: "Thank you, auntie." Then that night, as I turned off the light, I would ask: "This morning when Auntie Tư gave you the plums, how did that feel?" I knew I was getting it right when she told it back in her own words, even if the words were only "sweet plum."

For the first few days Sóc was quieter. I was more embarrassed than she was, and some days I wanted to prompt her again just to ease my own discomfort. After more than a week, some days she whispered "thank you" tiny and late, once her back was turned, and some days she said nothing. Many parents say their children started earlier, and some say it took months, and I do not know which kind mine is. On a day too busy for anything else, do one thing: when you receive something, say thank you out loud.

Where I most often went wrong was keeping that rule even when someone else was standing there watching, because my face went hot. Then I would blurt, "Sorry, auntie, she's little and does not know her manners yet." Sóc heard it. She stood there listening to her mother say she did not know her manners. It is tempting because it settles the other adult and spares me from having failed in front of them. Instead I practised one short line to say in her place, with no judgment in it: "Auntie gave it to you, shall we eat it?" Just enough to let the moment pass without using her as the excuse.

If a child does not say it, she is ungrateful

That afternoon, her grandmother sent over a box of sponge cake. Sóc took it, hugged it against her chest, walked straight into the house and did not say a single word. I watched her go and a sentence rose in my head: this child does not value anything. I was ashamed the moment I thought it, because it sounded so much like something I had once been told.

That evening, brushing her teeth, Sóc lifted her face from the basin, mouth still full of foam, and said: "Mum, Grandma remembered I like sponge cake, didn't she."

I stood there stunned. That was her way. All afternoon she had carried the box round the house like a small animal, and by evening she said out loud what she was thinking. It just was not in the three words I was waiting for.

On the surface, I thought she lacked manners. Underneath, I saw it later: I had been waiting for a form, and because the form did not appear at the right time, I decided there was nothing behind it. When there might have been plenty, only not yet in words.

For a week I noted down in my phone the moments when she "said thank you without words": running back to hug my leg, giving me half a plum, telling it all over again at the basin. On the first day I found none, because I was waiting for those three words. On the fourth day I noted two. Some people try this and find nothing at all, and that is worth knowing too, though it is not a conclusion about the child. On a day too busy, one note at the end of the day is enough.

There are two places to slip. One is demanding she change the form at once: "You have to say it in words or it does not count." The other is the opposite, reading every action of hers as gratitude, even when she is only hungry. It is tempting because I want proof. Instead I name what I see, adding no meaning: "You shared half the plum with me. I think you were thinking of me." And I avoid comparing her with Na downstairs, who says a round, polite "yes please" to everyone, because that only teaches a child that what is being measured is her.

Thanking a child makes her spoilt

"Thank you, sweetheart" sounds strange coming from a mother to a five-year-old. I used to think teaching manners went one way, from the top down.

Then one afternoon I was mopping, my hat blew off the table, and Sóc ran over, picked it up and handed it to me. I said: "Mm." One syllable, pure reflex, my hand still mopping. Sóc stood for a second, looked at me, and ran off. I stopped the mop. I had been teaching her to say thank you all week, and I had not said it myself.

What I took to be a question of grown-up dignity turned out to be something else: I wanted her to say thank you as a social habit, while not letting her see that thanks is something both sides say. My child learns to speak by listening, and she seems to learn very little from lectures.

A small exercise: one thank-you a day to her, specific enough to have a noun in it. "Thank you for lining up your sandals." "Thank you for handing me the hat." No praise attached, no "good girl." I feel I am doing it right when the thank-you has one noun and I add nothing after it. She usually does not react, and just carries on with what she was doing. For the first two or three days Sóc looked at me as if I were a stranger. After about a week, one afternoon she handed me a cloth and said "now you say thank you, Mum," grinning mischievously. I said it, and we both burst out laughing. In some homes the child does not react much, just quietly gets on with things, and that is fine. On a day too busy: one thank-you, near the end of the day, will do.

Where I stumbled was the conditional thank-you. "Thank you, now sit still." "Thank you, that's a good girl." It is tempting because it still sounds polite, but it is really a way of coaxing, and a small child hears it at once. Replace it with a thank-you that asks for nothing afterwards. It has to stand on its own.

To make a child grateful, you have to remind her of what you gave up

Dinner. Her paternal grandmother put more meat into Sóc's bowl and said, lovingly: "Your mum and dad take care of everything for you, you must remember that when you grow up."

Sóc stopped chewing. The spoon hung in the air, her eyes went round. I sat between her grandmother and my daughter, listening to the ceiling fan turn, chopsticks in my hand and nothing to pick up with them. I know she says it because she really has had a hard life, raising a family through difficult years. I also know those words can land on a five-year-old's head like a small stone.

It sounds like teaching gratitude. But reminding someone of what you gave up turns gratitude into a debt. And a debt is something people pay off to be done with, or avoid, and few people feel warmth from it. Gratitude grows from the sense that someone thought of you, not from the sense of being in the wrong. I would not dare tell her she is mistaken; she says it with her whole heart. But I do not want that to be the only way my daughter ever hears about gratitude.

I tried one small thing, and it has to wait for a calm moment: tell one story of a time I was helped, short, with no moral drawn and no word like "should." For example: "When I was little, I once dropped the money for rice, and the vegetable seller next door lent me some without asking anything." That is all. The first time Sóc asked "and then?" and I had not prepared the next part, and I hesitated. Some people find the child goes quiet after listening, then asks about something else, and that is fine; the story stays there. On a busy day: one sentence, at bedtime.

What I know best, because I have done it, is telling it when I am angry. The day she knocked over her milk I said "who do you think I work so hard for," and that sentence, once it left my mouth, weighed more than every thank-you I had been trying to teach. It is tempting because when I am tired I truly want her to understand. Instead I let the tiredness pass first, and then said one true thing about myself: "I was tired earlier, so I spoke harshly."

If you tried it and it did not work

Two reasons come up often.

First: the child goes even quieter, and you feel you have broken something. Often it is just that she is shy, or an adult is standing near, so it is no longer a place to try. Stay with the places where it is only the two of you, and model more than you say. Many parents tell of children who needed months, and some children never speak in front of strangers and still remember at home, and both are fine.

Second: the adults at home do not share your approach. The grandparents still prompt "what do you say," still remind her of what they gave up, because they love her and because that is how they grew up. I cannot change them, and I should not win against them over a meal. Pick one place that is yours, one hour of the day, one sentence you say before turning off the light, and leave it there. You could also read a piece on three things my parents say that I kept mishearing, because often what a parent says is a way of loving that we hear differently.

If you find yourself snapping at your child many days in a row, and the tiredness has gone on for several weeks, talk to a friend you trust or someone with professional training. This exercise cannot replace that, and it is not a matter of gratitude. You could also read a piece on permitting yourself to rest without guilt, for the days you are worn out, and one about thank-you habits if you want to model more.

The Sunday after, Auntie Tư again passed plums through the fence. Sóc took them in both hands, looked at the plums for a while, and then looked up at her, very slowly. I said nothing. She did not either. Auntie Tư nodded once, as if that were enough.