If you have a very expressive, inquisitive and chatty 4-year old, you tend to bite your nails at situations you just know will cause embarrassment to you, to the target person and everyone else. Yesterday at the lift of our condo, a woman pushed her teenage disabled son (mentally and physically) on a wheelchair into the lift that we were in. When I saw the woman with her wheelchair-bound son, I just knew I was in trouble. Before I could say something to distract my 4YO inquisitive girl, she blurted out in a very curious yet empathetic tone in the quiet lift “mummy, what happened (to the boy)??!!” I remained silent and peeped at the woman at the corner of my eyes. I saw the lady stare dagger at Cassandra. Her stare was full of frustration. Â Thank God that the lift was then on the 3rd floor and within a few torturous seconds, the lift door opened and I quickly brought my inquisitive girl out and gave her a long lecture.
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Hope your ‘long lecture’ was a constructive one. Tell her what she said could hurt the feelings of the unfortunate person as well as that of the caregiver. That she should smile to him or her as if he is a normal person, remain quiet, ask no question until he’s out of sight when mummy can answer any query then.
Granny, yep I advised her that. Hope she remembers.
I would have said that he is a special boy and can she say hi. I think that would put everyone at ease. Then later on, u could say that the boy is sick thro no fault of his own and that it makes us appreciate our own health even more (and she would definitely understand that as she has had enough hospital stays!). And that we should say hi whenever we see that boy and be understanding.
Chris, great reply!
good advice from granny and Chris 🙂
Ya, cassandra is still young, she needs to be told why it’s wrong to say things like that 🙂 Kids are naive and speak their minds! It’s not wrong either, but of cos in a scenario like this, she has to learn to be tactful which we have to teach them 😉
good advise here. I’ve been caught in that situation many times too.
i still think that baby C didn’t say anything wrong. She was just curious, nothing more. But of course, this would be a great opportunity for her to learn from you, so she will know how to react in future 🙂