I remember explicitly being taught to say "please" and "thank you" whenever anyone did anything for me at a very young age. My parents didn't have to constantly remind my brother and me; they just told us it was important to be polite and so we were.

Working with children can be very difficult in this sense because a lot of kids just straight up don't have manners. Many of the kids I work with grew up in a privileged area and don't seem to know what please and thank you mean, or that those words even exist. I don't want to be their parents and teach them how to behave, but at the same time, I think is is very important to be polite and not rude. Instead of flat-out teaching the kids to say please and thank you, I will do things like refuse to give them a library pass until they say please when asking for it. This way I am not directly telling them to say please; I am letting them figure it out on their own, but I'm still trying to teach them to use it more often. And this little lesson seems to work.

Dealing with kids my age, or adults with no manners is a lot harder than tricking 7-year-olds into saying please. It can be seen as rude when trying to deal with someone else who is acting rude. When it comes to customer service, I never try to conquer the rudeness of customers, but when it comes to day-to-day life, it is hard to resist saying something to "teach someone a lesson."

Adults seem to be way less likely to forget their pleases and thank yous than our college peers, which is hopefully a good sign for our future peers because only the very entitled adults forget their manners. However, it seems that all of our college peers have lost their manners.

Holding the door open for someone around campus is usually greeted with a wall of silence. Instead of the conventional and expected "thank you" it seems that everyone I hold the residence hall door open for thinks that I am the doorman, this is my job, and that I don't deserve a thank you. It is incredible that after making eye contact with someone and then holding the door open for them, that they have no reaction at all. They don't even nod and I can't imagine what is going through their head that causes them to forget that the words "thank" and "you" exist. I'm not trying to criticize anyone's parents or how they were raised, I just don't understand how being polite isn't second nature.

All I hope is that this article was just a little reminder for everyone out there that manners are important, and you should constantly be using them.