When kids get discouraged

[Allegra]

I still say you are stretching. Some parents may treat their children like incompetent halfwits, but to reach adulthood believing that all children are such requires ignoring reality around you as well as all sources of media that pelt you with stories, images, and videos of children being far more than competent. A person has to choose that mindset against overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And even assuming that a person does believe all children are incompetent to hand them two books, then the response would be to ask them if they are all right. To ask them where their parents are. Or to tell them that children aren’t allowed in the library without an adult. Not to treat them with juvenile contempt. Sorry. Still not willing to call meanness a mistake, or blame it on their parents.

 

[PetraG]

I still say you are stretching. Some parents may treat their children like incompetent halfwits, but to reach adulthood believing that all children are such requires ignoring reality around you…

We live in a world where childless people with dogs call themselves “pet parents.” The ignorance about children among people from 1-2 child families whose parents didn’t give their children any credit for being able to take care of themselves is pretty astonishing. (If you cannot imagine interacting with a child for a minute or so and yet having no idea whatsoever how old the child is or what sort of capacities a child of that age would typically have, you can hardly appreciate it.)

Remember, these are people who were really not around other children who were not in their peer group, because they had no siblings who were far younger. These are also the children who ran wild around restaurants at the age of six or seven because they know so little about the expectations of adult world. Yes, some people were taught that they weren’t quite capable of being civilized. It is very sad.

Sorry. Still not willing to call meanness a mistake, or blame it on their parents.

Giving someone the benefit of the doubt is not blaming their parents. I was only saying that it is possible he was not trying to be mean to her. The world is full of people who wish they didn’t used to be such #@#$%@$$es, and they usually say, “I made a lot of mistakes and hurt a lot of people without realizing the damage I was doing.”

Haven’t we all.

 

[TheLittleLady]

I would make a distinction to my kids, good people can be rude sometimes. Rudeness does not = “bad people”.

Save the “bad” label for truly bad things.

 

[QwertyGirl]

It is fair to ask if this guy remembers what it was like to be six years old,

I am always amazed at people who have very little recollection of childhood. I can remember things from being pre-verbal (and I started speaking pretty early), so I almost don’t believe someone, initially, when they say they don’t remember what it was like to be a kid. But after further discussion, it really is true. I think it lends itself to adults who don’t really treat children properly, with respect and empathy.

Sad, but true! (NOTE: It isn’t an excuse for not LEARNING how to respect and empathize with kids. Adults don’t get a pass from me on that. But it does help me understand why they are the way the are a little better).

 

[heidi_storage]

If your daughter were mine, going forward I’d go in with her and encourage her to complete the transaction with me standing near her. If she didn’t want to do even that, well, I think I’d back off for a few weeks and then try again–preferably with someone she’s reasonably comfortable with, like a clerk she’s interacted with before.

 

[PetraG]

I am always amazed at people who have very little recollection of childhood. I can remember things from being pre-verbal (and I started speaking pretty early), so I almost don’t believe someone, initially, when they say they don’t remember what it was like to be a kid. But after further discussion, it really is true. I think it lends itself to adults who don’t really treat children properly, with respect and empathy.

Sad, but true! (NOTE: It isn’t an excuse for not LEARNING how to respect and empathize with kids. Adults don’t get a pass from me on that. But it does help me understand why they are the way the are a little better).

I’m going to a lot of trouble to explain that there are people who are denied the knowledge of the capabilities and sensibilities that we have as children. Sometimes, they weren’t given that acknowledgement when they were children. Sometimes, they just forget what it was like and the way they were treated. (There are other possibilities, but there is no reason to get exhaustive about it…)

Let me clarify, though: to hold negative or contemptuous stereotypes about children, let alone to use those as an excuse to treat them like lesser human beings, is a form of bigotry. A lot of times, bigotry is held out of ignorance. Even then, it is still an evil. Those guilty of it may not be culpable on the charge of having bad intentions, but that doesn’t mean the effects aren’t objectively bad and the behavior isn’t objectively harmful. It means that the correct response may be more along the lines of education than someone who has never been that clueless could ever imagine.

 

[Allegra]

The word “bad” isn’t a very useful one anyway. Everyone is “bad” in some way, major or minor. It’s incredibly non-specific, subjective, and difficult to measure. Words like “crude”, “selfish”, “inconsiderate”, “inappropriate”, “ignorant” are more useful.

 

[Allegra]

My sister has very little memory of her childhood as she had a stroke at 18 and she has really unrealistic expectations of what typical children are and are not capable of at various ages. Even so, she doesn’t treat children contemptuously or ignore them when they try to speak to her. Not being in tune with one’s inner child might explain some faux pas and unrealistic expectations within interactions with children, but not outright treating children as non-persons.

 

[PetraG]

The word “bad” isn’t a very useful one anyway. Everyone is “bad” in some way, major or minor. It’s incredibly non-specific, subjective, and difficult to measure. Words like “crude”, “selfish”, “inconsiderate”, “inappropriate”, “ignorant” are more useful.

Contemptuous adjectives aimed at persons rather than their behaviors are best avoided. We are bad at mind-reading, so it is also better to stick with giving feedback on behavior and how it strikes us than to give feedback that presumes to know someone’s motives and to judge those motives harshly.

 

[Cruciferi]

I am always amazed at people who have very little recollection of childhood.

It’s called Childhood Amnesia:

Exploring Childhood Amnesia | Psychology Today

 

[Dan_Defender]

I would make a distinction to my kids, good people can be rude sometimes. Rudeness does not = “bad people”.

Save the “bad” label for truly bad things.

I was speaking in general, not the specific case of the OP. Of course not everyone who is rude is bad, I agree.

 

[Peeps]

Regarding the way the clerk responded, saying he doesn’t talk to “people’s children”, I can only think this: In this day and age, many people and places of business are wary of unsupervised contact with minor children. They fear that friendliness, harmless conversations, joking or even smiling, can be interpreted as a threat. I can’t count how many times I run across Facebook posts warning about potential human trafficking ploys. It’s possible that this person was merely on his guard, lest something he said be misconstrued and he finds himself facing accusations of attempting to molest or abduct the child. In my 20+ years of working retail, I have seen parents rush over to yank their child away from an innocent person who merely politely responded to a little one’s chatty questions and admonished the child not to talk to strangers (“You don’t know if they might try to kidnap you!”), leaving the adult humiliated and the uncomfortable recipient of unnecessary scrutiny by other people.

This is exactly what I thought.

An organization called “SafeSport” is currently upending children’s sports by making all kinds of rules forbidding adult/child interactions.

It’s quite possible that the adult who dissed Allegra’s child was hyper-vigilant.

One of my daughters has coached figure skating since she was 16 (she’s now in her mid-30s). She is honestly considering leaving the sport, as a very simple gesture, even a touch on the shoulder, can and has been cited as a sexually-aggressive act, and coaches’ lives have been ruined by accusations.

In fact, during the rehearsal for their holiday ice show, a TV reporter came to the rink and went out on the ice with the children and teens. At one point, the children formed a “chain” by holding onto each other’s waists and skating around, and the reported joined them (last in the line, of course!).

My daughter said that she and all the coaches had exactly the same reaction at rinkside–they gasped and thought or said, “Nooooo! Don’t touch the children!! You’re violating SafeSport rules, and you could be accused and arrested!”

Isn’t that sad? But that’s what’s happening today, and the library employee might be someone who has learned the hard way NOT to interact with children unless a parent is present and watching and gives permission for him to interact/talk to the child.

Very sad.

 

[Allegra]

Any of those words could be used to describe both person or behaviors.

 

[PetraG]

Any of those words could be used to describe both person or behaviors.

I don’t know about you, but the teachers at my kids’ school didn’t allow them to say their classmates were ignorant or selfish or inconsiderate or crude people. They weren’t allowed to talk to people in ways that you wouldn’t talk to a friend. It isn’t because it is impossible for a person to be habitually crude or measurably ignorant. It isn’t because you can be everybody’s friend. It is because contemptuous remarks and attitudes destroy relationships and the opportunity to form relationships.

Remember what Our Lord said the consequences would be for calling our brother a fool. That’s a “thou shalt not kill” matter.

Let’s be blunt, too: You had one bad interchange with this fellow. You have no idea what kind of a person he is. No matter how much you think you can read into a person’s choice to be rude to an innocent six year old, you and I both know that we can’t define someone by the one worst thing we know them to have done.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

It’s called Childhood Amnesia:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/media-spotlight/201404/exploring-childhood-amnesia%3Famp

Actually that article says people forget the things that happen before about age 3, not during their whole childhood or at older ages.

Most of my vivid memories are from age 3 and up. I remember my third birthday party very well including the dress I wore and who was there and what happened before the party. I remember very little from before age 3 - two rather traumatic/ exciting events involving my chin getting pinched by a new years hat which made me scream and cry standing in my crib, and a bat getting into my room while Mom was changing my didie, are pretty much it. Maybe a third memory of my dad being sick and me waving to him through the hospital window, but that might have been when I was just 3, can’t remember now.

 

[Allegra]

You’re still missing the point. All those words can be used to describe behavior and not a person. No teacher has a problem saying, or with children saying that something someone did or said was ignorant, selfish, inconsiderate, or crude.

 

[Allegra]

Also, I don’t really care what kind of person he is. I care about reversing the effect his issues had on my kid. What kind of person he is is HIS mother’s problem.

 

[QwertyGirl]

Also, I don’t really care what kind of person he is. I care about reversing the effect his issues had on my kid. What kind of person he is is HIS mother’s problem.

I have read through the thread and have been thinking about this for a couple of days now. I think as parents, sometimes, we tend not to focus on the important issue.

It is important that this guy acted so unkindly towards your kid, and it is important that it upset her. But I think the big takeaway here for your child should be that there are people in the world who sometimes behave rudely and who don’t treat us well. How we respond to that is what matters. I would try to teach my kid that you don’t lose a beat when this happens. You don’t let it “get under your skin”. It is about them, and not you.

It is fine to lodge a complaint and to let your child witness that as long as it is done in a reasonable manner. In fact, it is important that kids learn how to do that by watching it be done. I don’t think it benefits anyone though, to let the incident hang over one’s head like a cloud for days later.

As a parent, I think the big takeaway for your child is that it is a fact of life that some people behave that way. And it is also a fact of life that those on the receiving end don’t have to “own” someone else’s bad behavior and let it get them down.

Tell your daughter “We don’t let people who are having a bad day get us down. We can’t fix their problem for them, and we don’t have to let it become our problem. Lets stop by the market today and visit the nice clerk there when we pick up some milk”.

As Mr. Rogers’ mother used to say “Look for the helpers” when we are worried or scared. There are always helpers.

 

[Allegra]

Yes! This is the attitude I want her to have. You can’t control other people issues, and I still think it’s a waste of time to sit around imagining what their issues could be in order to excuse their behavior. The point is, they suck, but you don’t have to let it break your confidence. Unfortunately, it has sort of broken her confidence a bit, so I’m trying to figure out how to help her get it back. She did give our membership card to the man at the Botanical Gardens counter yesterday, so that’s a step, I hope.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Sounds like she is bouncing back. Yay!