Teaching Your Toddler Manners

Manners are one thing that we have always tried to work on with Cruz. In my eyes, a "please" or "thank you" goes a long way.

Fortunately Cruz picked up on this early and very rarely does he not use good manners. Whether it be "yes please" when I ask if he wants milk with his dinner or "bless you" when someone sneezes, this kid actually does a pretty good job.

For the most part.

For us, some of the most important tips to teaching Cruz to use good manners have been:

• Model the behavior yourself. If you want your child to use good manners, then you should do the same.
• Be consistent. Use the words consistently in every day communication so your child gets used to hearing it.
• Praise good behavior.  When they say please or thank you, tell them thank you for using their manners. A little praise goes a long way with kiddos. Oftentimes, after I say thank you, it's no fail that Cruz will say, "does that make you happy, mama?"

Most recently, we have been working on "may I please be excused" when he wants to leave the table. I mean, I'll be honest when I say that I'm pretty sure I've never said this in my entire life, but remember this is all about making your kiddo waaaay better than you ever were, right?

And don't get me wrong, Cruz is not all please and thank you and smiles and roses.

Case in point...

Sooo, that is supposed to be him saying "may I please be excused, mama."

Uh huh, you heard that right. He instead said, "may I scuse me please, dummy."

My immediate reaction? "Cruz, you don't say dummy!"

"But mama, gran says it."

"Gran?" Who the hell is gran?

"Gran. From the Croods. She says 'we need some more fire, dummy.' Remember?"

Great. The TV I'm letting him watch is not only rotting his brain (or so I've heard) but now it's teaching him to use the word dummy.  Can a mom ever win?

On the other hand, I was more than happy to oblige when he sweetly asked me if he could please wear his "bomb" jacket to school.

Jacket // Camo Pants ($8 at ON right now!) // Nikes

Does it get any sweeter? I'm kind of digging the new 'sweep over' hair style he's been rocking these days.

The hair? It's all his daddy, I can't get it to do anything but stick up all over.