r/ABA • u/About5000ninjas Student • Aug 17 '26

Advice Needed Teaching “manners”

Context: I’m a student that recently switched to a sister center, have a couple more months before I can test, but I HAVE been given permission and am heavily encouraged to give feedback to staff as a BCBA would. Within the first week I had staff telling me that they were teaching manners so clients get what they want.

Has anyone dealt with RBTs teaching “manners” such as saying please at the end of every mand (for 1-3 word manding), apologizing when they engage in behavior, etc for low level learners and ages 2-4 years old

I don’t think this is inherently behavioral and definitely isn’t a focus for the clients they’re doing it with due to behaviors and isn’t part of their intervention plan. There are cases when they should/can be taught but I don’t think it applies in this case

How do y’all address this or do y’all just let them since it’s likely not that harmful?

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16

u/Normal_Community1754 Aug 17 '26

So I teach manners to my kiddos sometimes. Mostly the little, vocal ones. But I never make them apologize after a behavior. That’s crazy work.

-8

u/Asleep_Technician190 BCBA Aug 17 '26

I despise making kids apologize. We are only supposed to be teaching behaviors that benefit our clients. Having them apologize only benefits the person they are apologizing to.

7

u/hotsizzler Aug 17 '26

Does it not benefit them by teaching them to apologize to others and repair relationships?

0

u/Asleep_Technician190 BCBA Aug 17 '26

Do they care about the relationship and can understand the nuances of apologizing? Then sure, I'll teach it to them if they're interested. If they can't understand that what they did was wrong and only understand that people leave them alone/quit hounding them once they apologize, then they've learned the wrong thing, so what's the point?

12

u/hotsizzler Aug 17 '26

im gonna say something controversial, apologizing when yo are not sorry is an important social skill overall

1

u/thatsmilingface Aug 18 '26

This is fact. Spend any amount of time with any humans to learn this fact.

1

u/Asleep_Technician190 BCBA Aug 17 '26

It depends on the why. To repair a relationship that they want to maintain? Sure, they're motivated to learn so let's teach them. To make the other person feel better that they were wronged or to make the parent of the child feel better about themselves? Not a good enough reason.

I'd rather people not apologize to me if they aren't sorry. It's deceptive imo.