Kids Say the Most Tactless Things

by Linda Lee Small

My husband, David, likes to joke that our son Scott was born not with a silver spoon but a foot in his mouth. From the time he could form words, Scott has spoken his mind. He's particularly fond of turning sentences into questions. At three, he inquired of a total stranger, "Why are you so short?" to which the good-natured man responded, "Because I'm a dwarf." That exchange ended with our son and his new friend shaking hands. But at five, Scott asked this of a young salesman who had a high-pitched voice: "If you're a boy, why do you use a girl's voice?" Both the salesman and I were struck speechless and could use no voice at all, so Scott asked, "Mommy why did it get so quiet in here?" My friend Barbara has great sympathy for me. She recalls the evening her next-door neighbor dropped by with a homemade flan for dessert. The next night the dessert-maker returned and asked, "How did you like it?" Barbara answered, "It was wonderful." At that moment her four-year-old daughter, Andi interrupted, "Mommy you threw it all in the garbage." Mommy doesn't remember what she stammered, but the insulted neighbor not only never again offered Barbara sweets, she didn't even drop by to borrow a cup of sugar. There are many Scots and Andis out there who suffer from what I call "foot in mouth disease." Short of walking around with our hands planted over our kids' little mouths, we parents must learn how to cope with this very common childhood affliction. It helps to remember who the little offender is a - a child. Understanding why your child is tactless will help you handle those moments. Children say what they think. Children have no sense of the implications of what they say. They don't speak with "malice forethought" because there is no forethought. They just say whatever is on their minds. "Parents encourage and reward their children for 'naming' things and for speaking up," explains Ronnie Stern, EdS, director of the Millburn Co-op Nursery School in New Jersey. We train them to be little observers, and then we get flustered when they make observations. As Stern reminds us, "It was a child who reported that the emperor had no clothes." "I work with young teachers, and I warn them, 'Children say what they think,' " says Sara Wilford, director of the Early Childhood Center at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. And what kids think makes adults squirm. Wilford, who has twenty years' experience, admits, "I still get a little thrown by what children say. A little boy recently told me, 'Mrs. Wilford, you've got white hair! You must really be old.' Well I thought my hair was rather attractive gray-brown color, but he was absolutely right." Children often report what they see, and what they see are differences in appearances. Tall. Short. Handicapped. Thin. Fat. In fact overweight people are commonly the targets of children's inquisitions. "Why don't you go on a diet?" or "Are you expecting a baby?" are typical tactless questions. A cookbook editor remembers when her brother, who was four walked right up to a women in an evangelical road show and demanded, "How did you get so fat?" As this editor recalls, "It was very hot, and the poor woman just kind of wilted. She certainly stopped talking about God." Even harder to deal with are remarks that make children sound like miniature racists. A social worker was mortified when her five-year-old son, Lenny said to a visiting Asian couple, "Aren't you the people who own the Chinese laundry?" Well no they weren't; they were schoolteachers. Strategy: Sara Wilford suggests a positive way to deal with these outbursts: "Look at such moments as opportunities for teaching. If you put your mind in a teaching mode it may help you feel better about your own embarrassment. Really listen to what the child is saying. When your son, for example asks, 'Why does that man have a girl's voice?' you answer, 'Some men have high voices. In fact some women have low voices.' You answer by talking about the differences in people." It is not necessary to launch into a lengthy civics lesson. Keep it simple. "No that's not the couple who run the laundry. There are many Asian families in our neighborhood, and they have many different jobs." You don't do this in front of the Asian couple, of course. The aim here is not to stop the child's inevitable stream of questions; you just want it to flow your way in private. "Tell your child, 'You can always ask me anything, but it's not nice to ask in front of the person,'" suggests Julia Ayoub, an early childhood teacher in Brooklyn, New York. "Some parents get upset and say, 'We don't ask questions like that.' But your child did. Give them a reason we don't ask questions like that: 'I know you didn't mean to hurt that woman's feelings, but you probably did.' " Children tell the truth and nothing but the truth. When accused of tactlessness, children often respond in their own defense: "But what I said is true." And they frequently are right. Barbara did throw away the flan. The woman is "fat". We place a big burden on our kids: We expect them to decode our mixed messages. We encourage them to always tell the truth, but when we don't like a particular truth, we switch gears. Lilly, a manicurist, shudders as she recalls the afternoon she brought along her three-year-old daughter, Amy, to a client's house. After Lilly used the bathroom, Amy said she too "wanted to go potty." She emerged seconds later and announced, "I couldn't go in there. It was too dirty." Mom who also thought the bathroom could use a good scrubbing, filed and polished her very embarrassed client's nails just as fast as she could. And the truth not only hurt, it cost: Lilly was never asked back. Strategy: "We must teach our children that honesty can hurt," advises Albert Angrilli, PhD, author of Child Psychology (Harper & Row) and a therapist in Hartsdale, New York. He advises, "Don't say 'Never lie.' instead say, 'We try not to say things that hurt other people.' So don't tell Aunt Edith she is wearing a horrible hat-even though she is. You tell her it's an unusual hat. Or you don't say anything at all." It's not easy, but children can gradually be taught to be little diplomats. "Eventually they learn that the intent of honesty is to be good and kind to others," says Dr. Angrilli. "Let's consider the child who saw her mother throw away the neighbor's dessert. She didn't want to hurt her mom or the nice neighbor, but she did. The little girl has to learn there are times when it's not necessary to tell the whole truth." Children don't understand. "We ask a lot of our children," says Ronnie Stern. "It's easy for them to get mixed up and say what we considered to be the wrong thing." She explains, "You must be aware of the linguistic and cognitive level most preschoolers operate at." Translation: Children can get confused, as they try on and play with words like costumes. Stern laughingly repeats this conversation between two five-year-old boys: "If you and I got married, everyone would say we were 'glad.' " As this exchange demonstrates, kids understand a lot more and a lot less than we might expect. We often assume our children understand more then they do, and then we're surprised when their innocence leaves us red-faced. A father carefully explained to his six-year-old son, Jason, that Uncle Donald and Aunt Diana were no longer married. When Jason bumped into his now ex-aunt, he announced cheerfully, "I hear we're divorced." Ronnie Stern shares this story: "We had rented a summer house and were driving to pick up the keys from the real estate broker. The dog was in the backseat of the station wagon. That was OK. But we hadn't asked for permission to bring along our cat, who was hidden in her carrier. My husband told the kids, 'Please don't tell the realtor about the cat.' "We pulled up to our realtor's office and he came out to the car to hand over the keys. When he made an admiring comment about the dog, our youngest child, Benjamin, piped up with 'Would you like to see our cat, too?' Before the startled realtor could answer, Dad rolled up the window, drove away and said, 'Ben didn't I tell you not to tell the realtor about the cat?' After a long pause, Ben asked, 'What's a realtor?' " Strategy: Make your child understand the language you use. Julia Ayoub observes, "A lot of parents today are stretched thin. They don't take the time to explain something and then they are surprised when their kids don't 'get it.'" Children are egocentric. At no time do tactless remarks seem as epidemic as they do around gift-getting time. When my son Scott turned five, a family friend brought him a little book. He took one look and said, "That's my present - a tiny little book." Pause. " That's the best you could do." Little kids not only look gift "horses" in the mouth, they are likely to kick them in the shins! Stern observes that similar situations are so common they are routinely brought up in parenting groups. She describes one recent example: "A mother reported that her child said, 'Yech, I hate it,' when she opened a present to find a dress Grandma made. The stunned mother yelled, ' Go to your room! That's not nice; you hurt Grandma's feelings!' Of course Grandma was sitting right there stricken." What you must understand, says Stern, "is that at five, the little girl didn't care about Grandma's feelings. The child was disappointed by Grandma's gift." If you want your child to put herself in Grandma's boots you first have to put yourself in your youngster's Weeboks. "Most children don't think about how the giver feels," explains Sara Wilford. "It's hard for five-year-olds to internalize that what they said was hurtful. Take your son -he just new he wanted a bigger present. That's a perfect example of egocentricity. And it doesn't matter how much he may like the woman who gave him the little book. His feeling for her is separate from his feeling about the gift." Strategy: Children can be taught to sound appreciative. "You don't have to wait until the inevitable time when your child gets an unwanted present," advises Julia Ayoub. "When your youngster is two or three, begin saying things like 'This present is great. Wasn't it nice of your aunt to give it to you?' " Accentuate appreciation. Ayoub worries that "children today have an attitude that the world owes them not only a gift, but the gift they want. Kids should know that no one has to give them a gift, and that it really is the thought that counts." When the day comes that your child receives a gift from her most unwanted list, Ayoub advises you to tell the child, "I understand that you may be disappointed, but it would still be nice to say thank you." The message is: People need to be thanked when they give you a gift. But when your child fails to say the right words, there is no reason why you can't fill in for them with "Thank you for bringing my child a present." Beverly Neuer Feldman, PhD, a Los Angeles educator and author of Kids Who Succeed (Fawcett Crest), says, "Little children should be encouraged to send thank-you notes. If they complain that they don't know what to say, sit down and get them started. When they are too young to write, they can dictate a note." "Tact comes from being sensitive to others," says Sara Wilford reassuringly, "but it is learned slowly over time." You can either impede or speed up your child's progress. Parents are role models their children -just what is in the script is up to you. Dr. Feldman points out,"To be a good model for your children, you must examine your own attitudes. For example, do you accept differences in people? Are you very critical?" Put bluntly, if you are a regular Archie Bunker, don't be surprised if your children are forever tactless. What comes out of the mouths of babes is often just repetition of what originally came from the mouth of an adult. Take heart. The good news from the child-development front is that by age six or seven most children become less egocentric and more empathetic. "They start looking at things from other people's point of view," observes Wilford. Even the most tactless five-year-old can be transformed into a thoughtful, even sensitive, child. My son Scott, now almost seven, will always amaze me. I recently chided him for having very, very dirty hands. "Mom," he shrugged, "you know dirty hands aren't important." I responded, "What's important?" and waited for a frivolous reply. He said, "Love is important. Dirty hands don't count." What to Do When the Worst Happens When your child says something tactless, don't compound the problem by putting your own foot in your mouth. Instead, try these tips: -Don't blame your child when he makes an embarrassing remark. Remember that up until the age of six or seven he has no censor in his brain to restrain him. -Act as a role model. Treat your child the way you wish he would treat others. Don't embarrass or shame him. (Don't say, "How could you..." or "How dare you...") Two wrongs just add up to two wrongs. -Don't rush in to defend the offended. Some parents over identify with the adult and insist the child apologize. Remember that most of the time the child has no idea he's said anything wrong. -Keep your on-the-spot remarks simple "Let's talk about this later." -Afterward, say, "Let's discuss what happened so we can figure out what to do next time." That will diffuse some of the child's defensiveness. -Clear up any misconceptions. ("A lot of men have high-pitched voices.") Children learn from your example and simple discussion. -Use the event to reinforce general rules. It's not enough to tell the child, "That wasn't a very nice thing to say." You must explain in very simple language why someone would be hurt by that remark, and then say, "We try not to hurt people's feelings." The bottom line is to let your child know that you are always available to answer his questions and that you are interested in his feelings. ("You can tell me that you hated Grandma's present, but don't tell Grandma.") Tell your child that when in doubt (about what to do), leave it out.