[MaryPoppinsIAin't]

I don't ask, but I do say please. "feet on the floor, please" am I making it sound optional?

Not necessarily. The argument has been made that tone of voice can communicate that the addition of "please" does not indicate that an instruction is optional, that it's just being polite. (And btw, I agree.) But could the reverse not also be true? Could tone of voice and other similar cues not be used to communicate that an instruction is meant kindly, while removing any potential misunderstanding?

What I'm seeing here is a range of ways to give an instruction, all of which indicate a wish that it get done, but with differing levels of immediacy/optional... ness. (Yeah, that sounded better in my head... .)

At one end you've got full command, at the other, full request, and all variations in between. Bear with me, I'm sorta thinking out loud here...

So... say I want the kids to ... stop jumping on the couch.

"Please stop jumping on the couch." Sounds like a request to me.
"Stop jumping on the couch, please." Sounds like an instruction, worded politely.
"Feet on the floor, please." - Still better, because gives a mental picture of what I want instead of what I don't want. So I think your phrasing there is fine.

But in between those three there's a whole range of possible phrasings that communicate different things to different people.

"Would you please put your feet on the floor?" is a request. Same with "Could you, can you, will you", etc.

Drop the "please" entirely, and "Feet on the floor" can still be made polite with tone and expression, or it can be as stern as is needed in the moment.

Language is flexible. Adding please to a command does not necessarily create a request, but neither does leaving it off necessarily create rudeness. Yes, in our culture, the common usage means that please can just be the polite thing to say...

And honestly that bugs the daylights out of me. "Please?" is a question. An entreaty. It communicates a need, but in my ear it also sounds like the possibility of "no" is already in there, and tacking it onto a command... sounds like an afterthought. An irritating one. Like the person heard themselves and thought "oh that sounded rude, I'd better add a please". I don't want to hear please if I'm not allowed to say "no". I really try not to say please if I'm not going to accept "no", because it feels like a lie, like I'm guilting the person or something. Maybe that's the hurt kid in me still, but that's how I feel about it.

While learning the skill of understanding when it really means please and when it's just being nice is important, I think it is equally important that children learn the flip side of that coin... when they can say no, when they can't, and why, and when they are very young, it seems like the simplest way to teach that would be to use words that mean exactly what you want, and get into the complexities of adult communication when they're a little older and can handle things that are a little more abstract.

Kind of like forcing apologies from kids that don't really feel sorry... I feel like teaching kids to parrot "please" and "thank you" when they don't mean to request or don't feel thankful ... is another way of teaching them to lie. (Similar to the way people expect you to respond with something good or at least neutral to the question "How are you?" Most of the time, people don't actually want to know. People who know me, though, they've learned not to ask if they don't actually care, because I will answer truthfully whether they want to know or not.) Mind, I'm thinking about YOUNG kids here. Certainly by school age they should be familiar with please, thank you, and so forth, and at least be learning the explanations for why we use those words the way we do.

I don't know if this is making sense to anyone but me...

Grr, I'm all tangled up & frustrated now. And I have to get to bed. Punkin's been getting me up by 6 lately.