Kids Say... Well, you Know What They Say!

I might have wanted to crawl under the washing machines at the Laundromat today… or perhaps at least hide behind them. Our washer is broken so we have made a couple of trips there recently. A gentleman with a sombre expression was there with us today, and Elijah quickly noticed him. In fact, the second the man walked in, Elijah saw and immediately said;

“Mom, why is that man sad?”

“Elijah, I’m sure he’s fine, he’s doing his laundry, you can say hi if you want to but what you are doing is not polite.”

Distract, distract, distract... (but it's not working....)

“I don’t want to say hi, and no mom, he IS sad, look at his face, see, look at his face, he IS sad!”

Now I’m starting to panic, Elijah isn’t easily distracted if he really wants answers and he was convinced this man was sad and he needed to know why. The man really did look sad, but I think it was just the way his face was. How do you explain this to a 3 ½ year old when you are only a few feet away from the person Elijah is talking about without offending them, and embarrassing yourself, and without increasing the questions times a hundred!

“Elijah!!! Look at my eyeballs, what you are doing is rude, stop. Got it?”

“Ok mom.”

Silence.

“Mom, why is that man short?”

“ELIJAH!!!”

Trying to find ways to blend into the wall….

I think it’s safe to say that most kids have this issue at one point or another. They say something totally zany and off the wall and you want to poke your own eyeballs out. I’m trying to find a healthy balance between stopping the behavior in the moment to avoid having to deal with the crazy tension of the situation, allowing Elijah to be inquisitive and curious (what an amazing quality, and already picking up on emotions so clearly!), and teaching him how to handle himself “according to societal rules” in the future.

My many requests to stop because it’s rude or impolite fell on ears that were just not willing to hear that. Elijah had an honest and innocent question or two and he didn’t understand why they were inappropriate! What a fine line we dance when we have to teach kids how this works… I know my curious contender will be at it again the very next time he sees something that intrigues him. He just can’t seem to hold it in. I just am hopeful that I can find the best way to help him understand why we don’t do this sort of thing!

We have had lots of talks about it since, and I will keep on him about it.  Someone I spoke with this evening mentioned that she had her daughter apologize when she had a similar offense.  I like that idea, I could say something like "Elijah you probably have hurt this man's feelings."  Elijah usually is willing and ready to apologize if he thinks he has hurt someone.  The man was able to hear me trying to talk to Elijah and sort the situation out but I was clearly flabberghasted.  I had never had to deal with this before...

I can just hope that he has or has had kids of his own or at the very least understand that kids tend to say.... well, we all know what they say!