Enchanted I don't have any advice but just wanted to share the time when my niece announced that DH's cousin was "Fatter than Santa" to his face! The adults in the room tried to ignore the comment and not laugh (because he is obese, and yeah, we did find it a bit funny at the time - guess when it's family it's not as bad as a stranger!).
It is interesting to see how others deal with this as I am not really sure what I would do...
Last edited by Mrs P; January 25th, 2011 at 02:25 PM.
I did have a little chat with DS right after I posted this thread and he was good. I guess it was more the how do you deal with it when the other person can hear!
I guess it's not a bad thing to explain to them that everyone is different when they say it in front of someone. Will definitely take that one on board.
They're just too gorgeous and honest aren't they. Thanks for sharing your stories
My mum dealt with this a lot, but her most common story was about my little sister. When she was about 3 she saw an indigenous woman pushing a pram through the shopping centre. My little sister loved little babies and was curious. Dragging mum over she stopped at the pram and asked "May I please see your chocolate baby".
Mum said the woman was very good humoured and was more impressed with my little sisters manners than the colour inference.
Children are extremely innocent and do not actually see that what they have said is a negative thing. Most people are aware of this and are good natured when a child blurts out an uncomfortable observation. It is very hard for them to understand, but we can only explain to them that words can make people feel sad and you need to be more careful with what you say.
I don't think it is a negative thing at all - at that age it is just innocent curiousity. I think it is great that they are interested in learning about the world around them. But sometimes it can put you in a no-win situation, especially if the person your child is talking about doesn't understand kids or have a sense of humour about them and especially when your child doesn't understand or just ignores any attempts from you to divert the topic or get them to understand that it is innapropriate to speak like that about others.
DS does not know the word "fat". We don't use it. For that exact reason! However, DS is interested in other differences such as height, age, skin colour and nose shape. All innocent and all things I can talk about. I'm also teaching him which words to use to women - you don't call a girl "big". His best friend recently compared sizes with "I'm small and you're big. Mummy, you are big, but not as big as a house" so we don't use big for girls any more. We use "tall" and "small" to describe height.
As for colours, he will look at very, very black people, but mostly he will say someone has a different colour face (if he bothers to comment) and that's fine. They do. He will refer to "that boy" or "that girl"... if he sees people with different skin colours as being human just like him, that's not really racism. Just an observation.
Might be robbing him of innocent words, but hearing a male colleague tell a female colleague she has skinny legs (and being re-educated about the word "slender")... I'd rather start him off early. The same colleague also offered to mathematically prove that I had the same gravitational attraction as the earth. Massive attractive power I can cope with, same size as a planet I do not.
Reading it reminded me of our "white-centric" approach to race, where we are more likely to describe someone non-white by their skin colour, assuming that white is the "norm".... I remember consciously ruling out such adjectives at one stage and referring to people as "people".
we were in big w the other day and this dwarf walked by us, Jack has never seen a dwarf goes look at that little girl and all her hair, the nasty woman turned round and said nastily look at you you little boy ....he wasn't commenting on her stature, he saw a little person who is rpesumed was a little girl and she had masses of hair.
I did explain it was lady and try to explain dwarfism but he was adament is was a little girl, but she was so nasty her reaction I couldn't be bpthered getting him to say sorry...
Registered User
....he wasn't commenting on her stature, he saw a little person who is rpesumed was a little girl and she had masses of hair.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks