Why Asking Nicely Doesn’t Always Work With Kids (And What To Try Instead)
The crumbs from last night’s cookies are still crusted on the kitchen counter, the school bus is 12 minutes away, and my 7-year-old is standing by the fridge with that sweet, expectant look I know too well. “Can you get me a blueberry yogurt please?” he asks, all soft and polite, exactly how we’ve practiced.
I nod, not looking up from tucking granola bars into his lunchbox. “Get the step stool from the bathroom, and you can reach it yourself, buddy.” I’ve told him this a dozen times: the yogurt lives on the lower shelf inside the fridge, he’s tall enough if he just moves the stool.
“Can you get it for me please?” he asks again, same nice tone, just a little louder, like I didn’t hear him the first time.
I pause, stir my coffee that’s gone lukewarm. “I heard you. Go get the step stool.”
“Please?” He’s still being nice. Still smiling a little. That’s when it hits me: this is what people mean when they say asking nicely has limits. If I say yes now, he learns that asking enough times, even nicely, wears you down. If I keep repeating myself nicely for another five minutes, we miss the bus, and I end up snapping at him anyway, which makes everyone feel terrible. Ten seconds later, he’s crying that I’m mean, slumped against the fridge, and I just close the lunchbox and set it by the door. I don’t yell. I just say “I’m happy to help you once you bring the step stool over,” and go back to what I’m doing.
I was thinking about this moment later that week, when I was volunteering in his first grade class. The teacher, Ms. Lopez, asked everyone to put their building blocks away and line up for library five minutes early. She asked nicely, first: “Okay friends, it’s time to clean up so we don’t miss our story, can you all put your blocks back in the bin please?” Half the kids kept building. She asked again, still smiling, still polite: “Come on, guys, we need to go now, let’s get those blocks put away.” Still half the room kept going. Only on the third ask, when she dropped the smile a little and said “If you’re not lined up in 30 seconds, you won’t get to pick your spot on the library rug,” did everyone move.
After class, we talked about it while we picked up stray Lego off the carpet. She said she used to feel guilty for dropping the nice act after a couple of asks. All the parenting and teaching content she read when she started said modeling polite communication means you always ask nicely, right? But she kept ending up with kids ignoring her, then she’d get frustrated and feel like a bad teacher. Turns out, most little kids are literal. They don’t pick up on the subtext that three nice asks actually means “I mean it this time.” If your tone is still nice, they still think it’s optional.
That hit me, because I’d been doing the same thing for months. I’d ask nicely to put toys away, ask nicely to get in the car, ask nicely to stop teasing the dog, and keep asking nicely, over and over, until I was so mad I’d blow up. Then I’d feel guilty, like I’d failed at being the calm parent I wanted to be. I thought the problem was me, that I wasn’t being patient enough, or wasn’t asking nicely enough. Turns out the problem was I didn’t recognize that asking nicely only goes so far.
What we’ve both started doing, actually, is really simple. No big system, no fancy behavior charts. First, one nice ask or one nice answer is enough. If it’s me asking him to do something, I say it once, polite and clear. If it’s him asking me for something and I’ve already said no or told him how he can do it himself, that’s one answer. If nothing changes after 30 seconds, the next step isn’t another nice ask. It’s a clear, neutral statement of what happens next. For example, if I ask him to put his shoes on and he keeps playing, I say “I asked you to put your shoes on. If you’re not done in one minute, we don’t have time for the extra dinosaur sticker you wanted for your notebook today.” No yelling, no extra sweetness, just fact.
If he keeps asking nicely for something I already said no to, I just use one short line and don’t engage further: “My answer is still the same.” That’s it. I don’t re-explain, I don’t argue, I just go back to what I was doing. Before, I’d end up in a 10 minute debate about why I won’t buy him a new lollipop when he already has three at home, all while I’m trying to check out at the grocery store, and he’s still being polite the whole time, so other people look at me like I’m being mean. Now I just say that one line, and that’s that.
Ms. Lopez does the same thing with her class. One nice ask to clean up. After that, she just starts calling the names of kids who are already cleaned up to line up first, and those kids get to pick the line order. No extra talking, no extra nice asks. Most kids hurry up to get that small reward, and the stragglers notice what’s happening and follow pretty fast.
It’s not perfect. Some mornings I’m tired and I forget my own rule, and I end up asking nicely four times before I catch myself, and we still have a meltdown and still almost miss the bus. Last week, I gave in when he asked nicely three times for an extra cookie before dinner, and then he didn’t eat his pasta, and I was annoyed at myself for caving. But it’s way better than it used to be. I don’t feel like a villain for setting a limit after one or two tries, and he’s slowly learning that a nice tone doesn’t mean you get to keep pushing until you get what you want.
I used to think being a good parent meant being polite and patient all the time, no exceptions. Now I know that it’s okay that asking nicely has limits. Those limits are just another thing kids have to learn, after all.
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