How do children address adults where you live?

[emm74]

At my son's elementary school, the parents call the teachers by their first names and vice versa, but the kids call them Mr and Ms./Mrs. But I think that's reasonable, given the relationship children have with teachers.

I live in Denver, which is a very casual place, so while I expected to call the teachers Mr/Ms, it's not that surprising to me that it's changed to first names between the adults. It's fairly rare to have titles used in any environment around here and even when they are, it's usually for doctors or professors, but if someone goes by Mr. or Mrs., that's rarely used. And even Dr. isn't always used - I work in a hospital and while I am a lawyer and not a doctor, we call each other by our first names.

[Pink90]

I would always say Mr. and Ms./Mrs. growing up. I'm not around kids a lot but they seem to still do the same where I am.

[Cliksder]

It is always Mr/Mrs last name here.

I am not a big fan of the whole kids calling adults by their first name thing but to each their own. Would discourage it with my children though.

[Pikantari]

I was born in 1973 and grew up in Maryland. I called neighbors and friends parents Mr./Mrs. Jones. The same for teachers and really any adult who was not my parent. Aunts and uncles had the title aunt/uncle before the first name.

Fast forward several years to when I became a parent living in Virginia and started dealing with other parents and teachers. For a more informal relationship such as a childs friends parent or Sunday school teacher or neighbor it seemed to become Miss Kim or Mr. Mike, etc. A school teacher remained the same with the last name.

My children still put aunt/uncle before their names, and I do too. Though my children are 21 and 19 now, when I am talking to them and referring to another adult, I still call that adult Miss Kim to them in conversation.

I have no idea why things changed or exactly when they changed. I know that it was not during any of my childhood. I only noticed it when my kids were very young in the late 90's.