By Sarah Lindenfelld Hall, Go Ask Mom editor

Tired of teaching your kids manners? You can soon outsource it to Alexa.

Amazon.com announced last week that a new Magic Word feature will offer positive reinforcement when kids use the word "please" while asking questions of Alexa, Amazon's virtual assistant. Starting May 9, as part of Amazon's launch of a new software upgrade for the Echo, Echo Plus and Echo Dot smart speakers, when kids ask a question and use that "magic" word, Alexa will thank the child for asking nicely.

Amazon, according to a USA Today article, has been fielding complaints from customers, worried that their kids were missing out on important etiquette lessons when they bark out orders and questions to Alexa and get a quick response without a please or thank you.

A recent report from Childwise, a United Kingdom-based group that specializes in research about children and young people, backed up those concerns. It found that 42 percent of kids ages 9 to 16 use voice recognition devices, such as Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa, and noted that the technology might have "implications around how children will learn to communicate," according to an article in The Telegraph about the so-called Alexa generation.

'Postive development' for some

"This is a very positive development," Childwise research director Simon Leggett told the BBC about the Magic Words feature. "We had noticed that practically none of the children that we had talked to said they ever used the words 'please' or 'thank you' when talking to their devices. Younger children will enjoy having the added interactivity, but older children may be less likely to use it as they will be more aware it's a robot at the other end."

The software upgrade also will include other features for families, including song filtering, bedtime limits, education questions and answers and more.

Not everybody is cheering the upgrade. There's been a growth of devices that help with all sorts of parenting tasks. Mattel's Aristotle was designed to comfort and entertain kids, but was pulled from the market after many raised child privacy concerns. Other toys include devices that give parents the night off and actually read bedtime stories to children.

Interferes with interactions kids need, say others

Critics raise concerns that kids are forming bonds with their devices, not their humans. They also worry about privacy and just how much data Amazon and other businesses will be collecting about our kids.

“Amazon may love the idea of children forming a dependence on a branded data-gathering device, but the Echo Dot for Kids raises a host of privacy and child development concerns,” said Josh Golin, executive director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, in an interview with Ad Week. “AI devices interfere with the face-to-face interactions and kid-driven play that children need to grow and thrive … The fact that the world’s most powerful retailers and its commercial partners will be constantly collecting valuable data on kids in their own bedrooms and homes is also very troubling.”