SubarbanHippie

This thread is so enlightening. I have always been a people pleasing, manners-minded sort of person. I always say, "please" and "thank you" and have, as a matter of courtesy, began or ended my commands with "please". No wonder DS is always acting as if I've just casually asked him whether or not he wants to do it! After reading this thread, I decided to test this out.

Since things have been hectic around here this past week, between my nephew's first birthday party and my DS and nephew getting colds, I relaxed my "no bedroom eating rule" a little bit and allowed DS to set up a TV tray in his bedroom and eat his veggie crumble tacos tonight. A little later he wanted a cereal snack in my bedroom, so I asked him to bring the tray on in, but make sure her cleaned the tray off first. Actually, I said, "please make sure there aren't any veggie crumbles on your tray". He turned the whole thing upside down and dumped the crumbles onto his floor and happily marched with the clean tray into my room.

I wanted him to clean up the mess for himself while I got the cereal ready. Instead of approaching it as optional, I handed him the cordless sweeper and politely, yet firmly, said, "you need to take the sweeper and suck up the crumbles you dropped". He whined and asked, "can't you do it?" and I replied, "no, I will be busy getting your cereal ready". He cheerfully took the sweeper into his room, tidied up the mess and came back all happy to a bowl of cereal. I was amazed. We did a little "high five" dance and enjoyed our cereal.