A child arrived on my friend’s doorstep on Halloween night, later, close to the end of the evening. What she was dressed as, I don’t know, and her age I couldn’t tell you. But my friend said that all night long she and her husband had noticed that there wasn’t so much trick-or-treating going on as there was basically roaming from door to door with bags open and expectant faces, like transient mythical creatures and –shudder — clowns. She even remarked that this end-of-the-night tot actually glanced at her husband’s offering of mini Hershey bars, looked up at him, and said “don’t you have anything with peanut butter?”

While we were trick-or-treating this year I wasn’t hearing a lot of “thank you,” either, from my own kids.

They’re four, so, developmentally, I can’t get too greedy. They don’t quite understand the complex concept of gratitude yet. And I saw them being much more choosy than beggars ought to be at a lot of houses, which I didn’t like but persisted in quashing.

So before every trick-or-treat interaction I reminded them that they must say “trick-or-treat,” which is the Halloween equivalent of “please,” and after each candy deposit I reminded (told) them to say “thank you.”

My kids don’t understand gratitude.

And yet, they do.

When I give them a direction, I say “please” first. When they do the things I ask them to do, especially when they’re helpful things that they don’t actually have to do but that I like them to do because I’m lazy, I tell them “thank you.” I tell them “thank you” even if I had to ask them to “please” pick up the orange wig fifteen times before it actually happens.

Which happens a lot, actually.

We’re working on it.

I also make them do most of the things they’re physically capable of doing for themselves by themselves.

But when I do something for them, when I hand them something they can’t reach, or when I follow a direction they’ve given me, they almost always say “please” and “thank you” themselves.

Part of it is modeling.

It’s monkey see monkey do, folks. It’s physics. It’s just a basic fact of life that our kids learn to navigate the world by watching us navigate it first. I say “please” and “thank you” at most interactions involving others. At the store. At the gas station. At a restaurant, especially.

I don’t like to judge but if you’re rude to your server I will judge you. Harshly.

I also say “sorry” a lot, because I’m awkward.

Sorry. I’m awkward.

Sorry.

I just yelled at you because I can’t yell at the guy ahead of me at the stop light, kids. Sorry.

And when I do things for them, like hand them a plate full of food at dinnertime, I get a spontaneous, automatic “thank you.”

That’s how it should be.

Less because I feel particularly entitled to a “please” and a “thank you” when it’s appropriate than because I feel we all are. Whether you’re related to me or not, you’re probably a human being.

If you’re not a human being and you’re reading this column, call me dude.

You’re my next feature story.

But for the rest of us, being signed on with the social contract involves a “please” and “thank you” clause.

Because your server isn’t supposed to spit in your food, but it’s not like she can’t.

Your mechanic is being paid to fix your brakes, sure, but you should have to pay a jerk tax if you don’t say “thank you” at the end of the transaction anyway.

But we don’t know these things automatically. We don’t know to be grateful without demonstration and practice. And if we don’t learn – if we aren’t told and reminded – to be thankful for those little things, we wind up becoming entitled, expectant of big things that aren’t even likely let alone guaranteed.

My kids needed reminded too. I’m not saying this little girl that asked for peanut butter was doing anything developmentally inappropriate. I’m not saying her parents didn’t remind her to say “trick-or-treat” and “thank you” or that she was deliberately rude. And I’m definitely not saying there’s anything wrong with wanting everything to be made of peanut butter.

Unless you’re allergic to peanut butter.

Because, you know. Anaphylaxis.

Look, it’s not rudeness when you’re four.

It’s four-year-oldness.

But four-year-oldness should not be accepted as a terminal condition, is all I’m saying.