what to do when your kiddo

says inappropriate or odd things in public? My daughter who is 3 is starting to notice that people are different from each other ie there are other differences besides being a kid or an adult.

The example is today we are walking to daycare and a chinese dad and child walk by us and she screams Mom there is a "chinese"... I do the kind of half smile to the man and ignore her comment.

What is appropriate? I didn't think this example is so bad but it is worse when we are in the store and she says stuff like there is a fat man or and old woman why is she walking so bad... I think it is kinda fun that she is picking up on differences in people but not so fun when she says Mom, you got a fat belly...

Anyone been through this?

[Flynn]

We're not there yet but this is interesting!!!

The only thing I can contribute is that my daughter said "how rude!" to a little girl who tried to take a toy away from her at the public sandbox and her mother did not find that amusing!!!

[houseelf]

I would love to hear some good advice on this. My son just had an incident at the playground where he very loudly proclaimed that he was afraid to play with the "Chinese girls" because "he didn't speak Chinese". Mind you, these two girls were actually African American and spoke perfect English. I, of course, was mortified and apologized to the mom. I thought that we were exposing him to various cultures: he has been the only anglo in a Spanish class for over a year now, but apparently we are failing.

Kelly

[BonBon]

Re: what to do when your kiddo

says inappropriate or odd things in public?

I just want to say, for the record, that "my kid will never do that!"



Don't have any advice for you as I'm still quite a ways from that age yet. I have to say, I love Parents magazine. There are two columns that crack me up every time - "How Embarassing" and "Out of the Mouths of Babes".

[BonBon]

We're not there yet but this is interesting!!!

The only thing I can contribute is that my daughter said "how rude!" to a little girl who tried to take a toy away from her at the public sandbox and her mother did not find that amusing!!!

Flynn, why didn't the mom think that was funny? It IS rude! Some parents need to lighten up, I think. Sounds like that mom missed a perfect "teaching moment".

[Flynn]

Yeah, parenting is full of land mines. Apparently the mom took it personally (as if she was a bad mom because her daughter did this) and kept saying her daughter was younger than mine and so she didn't understand what she was doing. Whatever. It was SO NOT a big deal to me.

My daughter needs to learn how to say it's "her turn now" but then share later. She's pretty good at it for her age but she has her moments like all other kids do.

We all have parenting insecurities I realize but being part of the "parenting club" is just a trip!!!! I have seen totally wacko people be the best parents and people I thought had their feet on the ground go nuts. Of course that's my (humble?) opinion! My husband and I are FAR from perfect parents but we give it our best shot and laugh a lot when we goof (after the initial frustration wears off).

I wish some of the women I knew who are newer parents could relax a bit and realize not everything has to do with the decisions they have made. Some kids are on their own agenda at times and you just have to go with it!

Anyway I digress!!!

[PrincessFiona]

I think that children are simply making observations about their environment and that is normal...it's so easy though tointerpret their comments based on our knowledge of predjudice, etc. I think that I tend to try and diffuse situations like this and then talk to the child later.

We had something similar to this happen when Andrew (now 9) was only about 3 or so....he asked me why the man (standing in front of us) had brown chocolate skin.

I told him that 'God' made us all different and that having so many different kinds of people is what makes this world such a wonderful place. The man (who at first seemed a bit...apalled...by the question) was an adult student from Africa then kneeled down and very sweetly told Andrew that he was from a country called Africa... Later we talked about the fact that some people might have their feelings hurt if we talked about the color of their skin or their weight, etc .

Kristen, if she does it again, maybe you could just say something like "yes, that person is from china and we are from america"...and remember that she isn't being predjudiced....just noticing the world around her.

kris