Do the kids tell you the rules?

I was wondering from an incident tonight & another thread as well - do you allow your kids to tell you the rules?? By this I mean, rules that they already know, if you disobey them, are the kids allowed to tell you that you have?

For example, this evening Aaron said "shut up" to me. Now in our house we never ever say shut up in a serious sense, just a joking way & this is how he said it tonight. Alexzander repeated it & I told him it's not a nice thing to say & daddy shouldn't say it either. I then told him that he should go & tell daddy it's not a nice thing to say, which he did & daddy apologised for saying it. Stupidly I said the same thing not long after (we were having a few jokes at the time). I then said to Zander, "uh oh mummy said something naughty so what should you say?" and he told me it's not a nice thing to say & I apologised.

He also on a regular basis tells people not to talk with food in their mouths, his aunty, pop & even friends of ours. Ok so it's a bit embarrassing for the person, but it shows to me he knows his manners & is learning that they apply to everyone not just him. Also I think it's good for him to see us make mistakes & apologise for them rather than the rules not applying to us IYKWIM.

Sarah, i think this is fantastic! I already do this with my brother's kids - when they're at our house, and DH or myself do something wrong, i mention that it's wrong and get them to go crook at whoever it is (usually DH saying norti words or forgetting his manners) and make sure there is an apology. i'm a stickler for manners, and as much as it sounds like i'm bring grouchy, i won't do anything for DH without him using his manners even when we're home alone!

I think consistency is key to helping kids growing up knowing what is expected of them - and giving them the confidence to stand up for what they've been taught

WTG Zander - what a fantastic attitude and level of confidence to pick up on adults doing the wrong thing and telling them how it is!

My DD is too young to do that yet but to answer your question, I think it's great!

All the time! So much so, that he often picks up other people on behavoural things we pick him up on reguarly. At the moment, he's just started 3yo kinder and is a bit hyped up at the end of a session and can be quite obnoxious for an hour or so afterwards, to which I'm constantly asking him not to be rude, or not to be bold.

Sunday we see my brother and his girlfriend, she has a boy the same age from previous marriage, and he's just horrid at the moment, swears and yells and back chats...so Trent promplty turns around and tells him 'stop being so bold' :doh:

This depends.... maybe when they are little it can be cute and I don't mind it... but coming from a teenager.... hmmmmm!!!

My 13yo DD will try to tell me what to do and when... it drives me nuts. "Mum, the boys need their bath... why are you on BB... work before play!?" So she acts like she needs to remind me but it's only to annoy me I think. She says that she'll be a lot more organised when she's the mum... oh I hope I live to see the day! ;)

bath dont take that to personally i think we all want to do thing better then our mums but then once we have kids we realise its damn hard work!

yes i expect makon to pick up on our naughtys to(although im trying to get ben to stop saying naughty)

but i also wont tell makon off for swearing because we are where he got it from( we are potty mouths) although i will be starting to tell him soon that thos ewords are not good words and that mummy and daddy say them some times when we are angry but makon doesnt have to use them. or something along those lines.

we dont have a lot of rules but those we do makon can pick us up on to!

It's gotten to the point at our house where I have to tell DD#2 not to 'parent' the younger kids so much as she gets herself in a state and she's still learning too!

What a great idea ;)

Yep we do exactly the same (of course!) and have done so since Paris was a toddler. It hasn't got annoying. I guess because we've told Paris there is a way to say something and a way not to. If she's being sarcastic or rude about it then no thats not ok. But sometimes even adults need a reminder about their behaviour and I am happy for her to give me that reality check should I need it :)

I like questioning rules too... at my last work for example they had heaps of stupid rules which I was learning (after school care). The children would tell me them and then I would ask why they had that rule. They wouldn't know! Drives me crazy- you can't live life with rules that you don't understand what they're there for.
So I'm all for including children in understanding and enforcing 'rules'- shows that they are just as important as everyone else. I also annoy my coworkers at work by not allowing them to break the rules that they enforce on children- I think it's really rude otherwise.

Yep! When DH or I say a naughty word (not too naughty, like shut up, damn, bugger etc) and the kids happen to hear they say "Hippoptomus" and we apologise! Also at the table if one of the kids see us using bad table manners then we give them 20c. DS is constantly on the lookout "Mum, elbows on the table - 20c please"!

We don't let them do the table manners thing when we have guests over though, I have told them that other peoples table manners are not their concern.