DC and talking about/describing people in public

[east carolina]

We were on the bus today and a mom with a Down Syndrome DS got on as well and sat behind us. My DS always tries to engage kids if they sit near him and he really wanted to know how old the boy was. He asked the mom and she told him he was five. Then my DS said to me "he's ugly."

DS actually knows another boy with DS and he's always been sweet to him and this is not the first time he's been exposed to someone who looks "different."

What do you do in these situations when your DC say something not out of actual hatred but just describing a person as they see them, but basically in front of the person?

The first thing that went through my mind is "I hope the mom doesn't speak English" (we don't live in the U.S.). The next thing I did was to tell my DS that the boy was no more ugly than he was and that I thought he looked like a sweet kid who was really interested in the toy DS was holding and he could show it to him if he wanted to.

This was the first time that DS has said something unwittingly hurtful about someone else, and I'm sure it won't be the last and I was wondering how other people handle this sort of thing.

[ecoteat]

How old is your son? My 3.5 yo dd does this sometimes too and I am never quite sure how to handle it either. Usually whoever she is describing is nice about it--it's not like that man in the grocery store never noticed he has a weird chin before--but tact is something that preschoolers haven't learned yet. So how DO we teach them?

[zeldamomma]

I have taught my children that we don't talk about the people around us unless what we are saying is very clearly a compliment. The reason I gave is that they may hear us, even if we don't think they can, and we don't want to make them feel uncomfortable.

ZM

[momofsage]

I agree with the pp. My daughter does the SAME THING, and it is SO embarrassing. Once we were in a bookstore and there was a dwarf there with his daughter in the children's area. She saw them and her face lit up and she said, "Why is he so little?" I could see it coming, too, but there was nothing I could do to prevent it. I about died right there. I said to him, "sorry, she's three. . . ." and then I said to her, "yes, sweetie. Some people are big and some people are little. There are all kinds of people." And he was very gracious about it and reiterated my point to her kindly. So we got very lucky. But after that I did speak to her about not talking about people in their presence; it's been hard to get her to go along completely but I think she's learning.

[alexsam]

Much of it is out of innocence and some amount of truth (though it may be impolite, so it needs to be addressed). The vast majority of the time, the difference is that young children don't carry the predjudice with it and we need to remember that.

I generally stick to the "We're all different and special" lines. It allows that the statement may hold truth, but that that charecteristic does not have to be negative and is all part of the variation of people.