shaming your child a/o offending you as a parent

[ernalala]

I've had people shaming my child for being in diapers at 2-3.
For speaking loudly.
For 'not-behaving' in the beholders eyes (possible that in some situations behaviour was out of sorts, but I am convinced it is not up to others than parents, to deal with the situation.)
Sometimes, shaming for showing emotions such as frustration, anger, crying, ...

They do not seem to see a problem with their statements to, or in the presence of, my children?

I've had people telling my kids that their mother (me!) would beat them if they wouldn't stop a behaviour. Or that mom would get angry (yes, I can be angry at them for sth even if it is not my preferable state of being but I like to do it differently wherever I can). Even if these people were not the slightest bit serious about actual beating or spanking, it is NOT OK to say that. They do not see what is wrong about this. I don't expect my kids to stop a (may it be unwanted) behaviour out of fear so I do not want any wording that would use such fear to be used around/towards my children. Nor do I want anyone telling my kids they would 'cut their ears' or anything like that. I know that most of these things are sad by 'well-meaning' people in an attempt to change/stop 'unwanted' behaviour. How easily people can get stuck in this trap, it is wrong. I find it wrong when others threathen my children (I am sure they do not see their comments as threaths but as some kind of 'parenting/directing') and I find it even more wrong when they threathen them with ME being the 'fear factor', which I am not pursuing to be, to the contrary.

Ok, I admit that I havn't always been the most understanding about my childrens' moods, behaviours, interactions, and have been and am strongly working on that, I have not always done beautifully either. But I definitely can't have others 'stepping in', mostly even in 'issues' where I do not see any issue myself, only just the person doing the shaming sees those! Especially if I'm so determined to get to a much more harmonious place with my children, and which is working so much better than the more 'controlled a/o shaming a/o hierarchical' culture/environment where I come from, and so far from the mistakes I have made and have learned from.

I need to vent sometimes to someone who is not a party involved, but how do you actually deal with it.

Until now I have been talking to my kids directly when something like this comes up, telling them to ignore these silly people and strongly dismissing what others had sad directly to or around them and which does NOT fit into our style, and I wrap them with mine and with as much understanding and love I can give in that moment. In this case I find it truly handy to talk a language with my kids which our environment doesn't understand! The disadvantage of me and the other language is, that when I do get upset or angry no-one knows WHAT I am actually saying to my kids in the moment, so they may imagine the worst things ever said by me to them.
I occasionaly have dared to address someone's wording or 'issue' too, but it really depends on the person, situation, my mindset, the (by 'other', not me) perceived respect related to cultural hierarchy (eg towards prople older than you, not my personal conviction, but a serious cultural thing here) etc. I do not wish to undermine most human relations I have because of me wanting to put things right where I see it as out of line. And again, language is a barrier for me to catch the issues with the fluent and right wording that would feel descisive however not like attacking the person for who they are (only for what they said).

Actually, I've had someone gossiping/shaming/offending/discriminating me to a salesperson for me being foreigner and speaking my mother tongue with my child, not realising that I actually overheard and seeing the shopkeeper really uncomfortable because she knew this. I've then and there struggled to speak up or not. My child had not been hearing the conversation and tbh, I felt too much of the 'bigger person' here (as another poster in this forum could word so nicely) and too good to bother with this really narrow minded, unfriendly, agitated person. I did not want to have a scene of some sorts in front of my LO, but looking backwards I'd probably would have liked to let her know that I HEARD her so she would think before she speaks and maybe think all together and that I could maybe have triggered an appology from her in the best case scenario .

I guess the thing is, I can feel strongly about injustices done to me (or my children) but I have difficulty (also because of other factors than language involved) to react against it in a way of speaking up rather than go on a rant somewhere else. Even when it involves my children, it seems. I guess I'm the kind of person that takes the confrontation with people she knows extremely well (poor dh, lol).

[MittensKittens]

My smilies aren't working, but hugs.

I know what you mean, although I have never had to deal with people telling my DD that "mom will beat you" for a certain behavior, or similar. I do, veeery regularly, have people telling both my kids (yeah, one only three months old) "tell mommy to put socks/a hat/ a coat on you". In the case of condemning behaviors or threatening punishment "on behalf" of the parent, it is much more still. Strangers do not know the context of a behavior, or in fact know the child. They should not see it as their right to make any kind of comment at all. It is not only undermining and disrespectful, it could cause all kinds of additional issues with your kids :. Can't people stop and think?

Oh, about the language issue I totally get you too. I want my kids to learn as many languages as possible, and of course they need to understand the local language. We used to speak it while out and about, and speak one of the other languages at home. I have now started to switch - speak the local language inside the house, and the other one while out. This way, people make a lot less comments. I know it's rude, but the last time someone made the seemingly mandatory socks comment, I told the woman, "well, maybe your kids get sick through their feet, but since mine are foreigners, they don't". I am so fed up with hearing this all the time .

I don't have any advice what you could say to people. If people directly address your kids, the only thing I would do is to talk to my kids, ignoring the commenting person.

[PGTlatte]

I verbally correct the person in front of my child. He is very perceptive and notices and remembers everything, and if I don't speak up, he will believe the person and worry about it. I say "no, that's not true, I would never do that". or "He's fine. He will grow out of it when HE is ready."

If the person said it in way that was rude to me as well as my kid, I will add at the end "please do not say such horrible things to other people's kids."

I do not care about offending the other adult. My loyalty where feelings are concerned is to my child.

Originally Posted by ernalala

I need to vent sometimes to someone who is not a party involved, but how do you actually deal with it.

[AutumnAir]

MittensKittens - LOL about the socks - it must be an Eastern European thing, cos I get that ALL the time too!

ernalala - My DD is still quite young so I haven't encountered as much of this as you have, but FWIW I think your approach is great. Ignore the stranger threatening your kids as much as possible, and if needed just let your kids know that that's not how things work in your family. If said stranger is being really intrusive then definitely address them directly and let them know that you have the situation under control and do not need their input.

I deal with the language issue here too - my spoken Czech's not great at all, but I can understand a fair bit. When I've overheard people making comments about me being a 'foreigner' in a nasty way I usually just glare at them to let them know I've heard and understood, because I don't have the language to express myself as well as I'd like to. But I think your situation is a bit different in that you obviously speak English very well (I'm assuming English is the local language where you are) and your kids speak and understand English too. In that case I think I probably would be a bit more proactive in speaking up if I overheard such comments - but that depends too. You need to think about what you want to teach your kids with regard to being treated differently/badly for being 'foreign'. How do you want them to grow up handling such situations? When you decide about that, then you can try to model that behaviour for them in such situations (though I really hope it doesn't happen often enough for it to be an issue!)

Anyway, sounds like you're doing a great job!

[ernalala]

Originally Posted by AutumnAir

MittensKittens - LOL about the socks - it must be an Eastern European thing, cos I get that ALL the time too!

By the way, the sock-thing is also a western European thing for some, and also where I am now lol. It seems to be universal. Ohoh! my 3y old often rejects socks (always indoors, sometimes outdoors), and shoes occasionally. And there you have all these people obsessed with putting socks and/or shoes on his feet. In these occasions I'm actually HAPPY that he's getting angry for this or just downright ignoring them .

Originally Posted by AutumnAir

ernalala - My DD is still quite young so I haven't encountered as much of this as you have, but FWIW I think your approach is great. Ignore the stranger threatening your kids as much as possible, and if needed just let your kids know that that's not how things work in your family. If said stranger is being really intrusive then definitely address them directly and let them know that you have the situation under control and do not need their input.

Thx. The thing is, some 'threaths' were from my ILs... I am sure they had no idea what they were actually doing (they were obviously frustrated/annoyed with my kids running wild/quarelling all the time, as was I too), and how offensive I found this towards my parenting and our household. However, regarding the cultural and familial hierarchy I am VERY careful about countercommenting because that would most likely not be taken all that well (at least, I fear so). (fyı, I'd do way better with my own parents on this but they mostly know their place as grandparents in my family and I trust them to do rather ok but once I really messed up with my reaction, too) I do know now where some of the occasional phrasing of dh comes from, he's been conditioned with certain comments/behaviours, as am I and so I know it is so hard to escape the habit .

Originally Posted by AutumnAir

...But I think your situation is a bit different in that you obviously speak English very well (I'm assuming English is the local language where you are) and your kids speak and understand English too. In that case I think I probably would be a bit more proactive in speaking up if I overheard such comments - but that depends too. You need to think about what you want to teach your kids with regard to being treated differently/badly for being 'foreign'. How do you want them to grow up handling such situations? When you decide about that, then you can try to model that behaviour for them in such situations (though I really hope it doesn't happen often enough for it to be an issue!) Anyway, sounds like you're doing a great job!

No, not English. But my kids are mixed, so local and foreign and yes they know the local language as well as their mother's tongue. Strangely people often surprise that, even when the local father speaks a local language with his kids, my kids actually speak it, too :-).

I do not know what I really want in such situations. In the moment I sometimes see it as a futility not to care much about it, or I see it as a waste of time to actually comment on the rude/out of line comments, or maybe fear a more violent reaction (who knows), or regret afterwards of not having said or done anything and still feel the offense, or play scenario's in my head of how I could've reacted/dealt better. And I know, that, if I could have just done it in my mother tongue, I would have most likely done it. What relieves me sometimes is actually speaking up in my mothertongue and then ignoring anything else said by others, but then the effect of what I said is lost of course, it feels like a 'safe' way :-). I do remember having spoken up in the local language on some occasions, but it's never as 'clever' as I'd like it to sound. And I have said once or twice (regarding the 'mom will hit you') NO SHE WON'T! But I should get better, more consistent too.

[limabean]

Wow, those are some severe threats! I would forcefully correct the speaker if they dared tell my child I would strike them.

In fact, I forcefully corrected a child's own mother for saying such a thing when I was a teenager -- I was working retail, and a mom and her 4yo DS were browsing in the store, and the kid was being totally cute and age appropriate, hiding in the clothing racks and laughing. The mom got annoyed, marched the boy over to the cash register, and said (about me), "This woman is going to hit you if you don't stop acting like that." I bent down to look the boy right in the fact and said gently, "I would never, ever do that" and then looked at the mom with a horrified expression on my face. She was so embarrassed, and they walked away with her muttering something about "only trying to get him to behave." :

[tracymom1]

Recently, there was an unusually warm but slightly rainy day here so I took my 18 month son out for a walk. Its been a pretty bad winter in the midwest so we were really itching to get some fresh air!! We were at the park running around when an elderly lady approached us and said "how dare you bring your child out in this weather! He will catch his death!". I was so shocked that I did not know how to respond. So all I could come up with was "illness is either viral or bacterial, not weather-induced" lol!!

People everywhere are ignorant. We live in a world (or at least a country) where everyone feels entitled to force their opinions on the masses and do so in such a passive-aggressive way. I have learned to let the nastiness roll off my back, but when my son is old enough to understand what people are saying, I will make it a point to explain to him that some people think and act very poorly and that its better to spend your energy on kindness and respect.

And good lord, if anyone said to anyone that I would beat them, I would set them straight immediately. That totally crosses the line in every way. :

[vegemamato]

I've had someone tell my oldest, then four, that "if you were my kid I would be spanking you silly right now!"... she was simply refusing to hold onto the stroller while in the grocery store

I can't stand it when someone tries to 'correct' my children, let alone threaten their safety.. we have many people tell the girls to be lady-like too, which annoys the hell out of me :

I don't get why these strangers feel like they have the right to say anything other than a polite 'hello' or 'what a cute family' to us.. (k, maybe a few other nice comments are ok). The things that you've heard are completely outrageous though..

Hopefully you -and your kids- can let the hurtful words go and live peacefully.

[Green Eyes]

I ignore comments like that, then shortly afterwards I talk to my child about what was said and why it's wrong or inaccurate. I feel that to acknowledge to the adult what they said gives their words more power, and I certainly don't care about those strangers' opinions.

This has worked well because our daughter now ignores mean/rude/inappropriate words from her peers at school, has many friends, so she just lets the dumb stuff roll off her back.

When our daughter was littler, people used to come up to her and say, "Don't you want a little brother or sister to play with?" or "Aren't you lonely being an only child?" Why plant those seeds in her mind? Those people had no idea that we were SO blessed and fortunate to have had the one child, and that we would have loved to have more children but couldn't... they are jerks.

[aua(TM)?lait]

Originally Posted by ernalala

Until now I have been talking to my kids directly when something like this comes up, telling them to ignore these silly people and strongly dismissing what others had sad directly to or around them and which does NOT fit into our style, and I wrap them with mine and with as much understanding and love I can give in that moment. In this case I find it truly handy to talk a language with my kids which our environment doesn't understand!

This is exactly what I do! But I do it in the same language.

[ernalala]

Originally Posted by Green Eyes

IWhen our daughter was littler, people used to come up to her and say, "Don't you want a little brother or sister to play with?" or "Aren't you lonely being an only child?" Why plant those seeds in her mind? Those people had no idea that we were SO blessed and fortunate to have had the one child, and that we would have loved to have more children but couldn't... they are jerks.

Yes so true.

And yes, just imagine people keep on pushing you to have more children/siblings in front of your child and you have (had) trouble getting pregnant or you decided to have a single child, and then your child starts to question you about having siblings because of these strangers' comments. That must be very tough.

I was having a walk with ds1 (20mo or so) and obviously pregnant, and an elderly lady was so frank to say that 'two is more than ENOUGH don't you think?' (like having a toddler and another one on the way means you'll keep on 'breeding' and you sure need to be stopped NOW. Uh, and why would that be? I had this huge urge to say 'actually, I want to have SIX (not really true in our case :-) but that's none of your business anyway!' :
Anyway being asked if you'd actually keep child nr. 2 when pregnant 'so soon AGAIN' is MUCHMUHMUCH worse than this other comment I received:.