"We Don't Say Those Words in Class!"

Having 3 children of my own, with the youngest being 3 years old, I have several personal experiences were they would just say things as they saw them without considering how the other person might feel or respond. My last experience was quite funny, during the summer one of my neighbors found 5 new born kittens in her yard, since she already had two cats of her own she decided to give them away. So she placed a sign in the front of her house saying Kittens for free. When I got home my children were very excited, since we have been planning to get a pet for such a long time. When we got to our neighbors house, she had her older soon which is around his late 40’s showing the cats. When my 3 year old son so him the first thing he said was “Wow, you are so big, while he looked at his belly”. The reason why my soon said so big, was because he was referring to the fact that he was big in regards to weight, it seemed that he could easily weigh more than 350 pounds. I was so glad that my child said big versus saying fat, since it was something that we have been reinforcing with him at home. But still I felt very embarrassed, but the man didn’t seem bothered by his comment and actually answered “I know I need to eat less and do more exercise, do you eat well and do exercise?” That comment made things much easier at least for me, since my child didn’t have any problems with what he said. I believe that the message that my child got from this is that it is okay to ask about differences as long as it is not done in a hurtful way, because there is nothing wrong with being different.

I really appreciated the way that man responded to my child, in other instances they would ignore or seem upset with my child instead of actually taking the time to talk about it, as he did. Once we got home I made my job to explain more to my child about what are other reasons why we tend to gain wait, and the importance of respecting others despite their differences. I believe that an educator might have responded, that all bodies are different, and many times it is because of health problems that some are over or under weight and it does not mean that they eat more or less than others.