Dad and I held his squirmy swaddled up body down while the doctor and the nurse in urgent care placed 3 stitches on his forehead..
As soon as we released him, still sobbing, he gave out a loud "Thank YOU!!!".
So there it was: the most appropriate thank you I have ever heard him say.
As I have posted before I am not for asking my son to say Please and Thank you. I model and explain and listen but don't usually demand of him to say the magic word. When I do it it's mostly because I regrettably fall into the established habit of asking children to be polite, and almost 90% of those times I am in public.. (that's for another post).
In Italian one of the attributes assigned to "good kids" is that of being educato. Which doesn't stem as in English from their literacy level or the years spent in college but it's about one's manners, compliance and obedience, and might be better translated as politeness (although one might argue that maybe schooling is designed around building obedient people and so the English and Italian terms are not that far off from one another). Of course this doesn't just have to do with how well they sit at the table but also how nice they might be strangers. However, behaving well in its intrinsic sense is far more than, and sometimes not at all like, politeness.
My goal is to raise a kind, empathetic, intelligent human being. One who uses reason and logic and critical thinking. One who develops, and eventually shows gratitude and sorrow and appreciation.
Before being educato/ polite, I'd like him to be aware of his and others' feelings and understand why politeness might have a role in kindness (knowing that it is not always the case).
So on gratitude I am giving myself the following pointers:
1. Model- When someone, including him, is kind or helpful to me I make sure to say "thank you" and I make sure to mean it, then explain why I am thankful.
2. Don't demand- I refrain from asking him to repeat it after me. I want him to gather, little by little, the intrinsic value of powerful words like this.
3. Don't take it personal- I remain patient because I am OK with him taking a long time to add a "please" after a request or not saying he is sorry for something, however wrong it might have been.
4. Be attentive- I watch for other ways his body is expressing the feeling. I am OK with him smiling back or frowning as a way to communicate such feelings. As people ask him to say Thank You, I might say "I saw you smiled and that is a good way for us to know how you felt, thank you."
5. Listen- what is said between the lines might be disclosing far more then we think. Ask clarifying questions and don't assume that because he is not saying much he is indeed not thinking much.
6. Connect the dots- I explain that saying the magic words is just another way to reach societal expectations, to please others in a conventional way... and there is value in that. As Alfie Kohn puts it "Don't say thank you because you are afraid I'll get mad at you if you don't; that's a terrible reason. Don't say thank you because it's polite; that's not much of a reason at all. Say thank you because of its effect on the people you are thanking". And to this I would add, say it when and because you mean it.
As and adult I can only imagine how complex and developmentally challenging the outward expression of feelings like gratitude and sorrow might be to a little person and I am there to walk him through those feelings, to guide and be guided into the world of inner value of language.
Though he is too young now to verbally reason with me I believe it's never too early to practice these dialogues with him. I see every instance as an opportunity to set the pathways of conflict resolution, critical thinking and perspective taking. One day it would become an old habit that we both resort to whenever needed.
Because the lesson I am learning and sharing is that these words in and of themselves are meaningless unless they are truly felt like when he was finally freed of the medical torture he was subjected to.
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