Dear Friend,
My toddler legit embarrassed me in public. But I didn’t tell him that — or purposefully shame him — for three very important reasons. Here’s why.
Context: The little fella has been sniffly for a few days. He was tired. And, as I’d find out later, he was also apparently hangry.
Short story: He shouted at someone, and even after I took him aside and worked with him to calm down, he would not apologize.
Then came the icing on the cake…
He repeated the impolite behavior, and I felt so shocked and embarrassed that my good natured little human decided to act that way.
He didn’t take the second opportunity to apologize, either, so I apologized on his behalf and enforced the negative consequences that I warned him about.
We left empty handed, and I whisked him out of the public space and into the car, completely dumbfounded.
Thankfully, he didn’t fight me or argue. It was good for us to enter a peaceful space, completely on our own.
Here, he told me he was angry. And he thought that the lady did not want to be his friend.
So, I debriefed what had happened, reiterating that his behavior was unacceptable, as he chomped down a hardboiled egg. I explained that it’s okay to feel angry, but we must still try to act calmly and kindly.
We then talked about making bad choices and good choices and their corresponding consequences — all without mention of my humiliation.
Here are the reasons I intentionally didn’t bring it up:
- I didn’t use it during the event to try and coerce better behavior because I don’t want his actions to be based upon pleasing me. I want him to act correctly, knowing and consciously choosing right over wrong.
- I didn’t want to make the whole situation about me. This was about his interaction with the lady.
We have had maaaany talks about this. And have done loooots of role playing about this. We probably touch on resisting naughty impulses a handful of times each day in one form or another.
Sure, as a toddler, he will need guidance, but he generally already knows what is okay and what is not— as he makes his decisions.
Bringing me into the situation would have made understanding the situation unnecessarily complex for him.
I wanted to focus on him and doing the right thing, not on me as a parent or spectator.
- An extension of the ‘you embarrassed me’ point is the ‘Stop doing that because everyone is looking at you’ request.
While I do want him to have social awareness, I do not want to use this point to guilt him into only following the actions of others as his moral compass. While it is often an easy shortcut, only doing what others are doing would limit his life later on — as would using that mentality as an excuse: ‘I don’t have to do that because no one else is.’
As someone who is very self-conscious (which was always nicely summarized in my report cards as ‘conscientious’), I don’t want to my kid to live his life hyper-aware and fixated upon strangers’ opinions.
While rearing a super obedient child would be much easier at this stage (and save me lots of time and breath explaining things), I want to raise an independent thinker, who can do the right thing even when it goes against the grain.
…
Sooo, that’s my take. It feels right for me and my bubba. And after about 10 minutes had elapsed, we walked back and gave the lady a nice apology. Which made all of us feel better!
Did this give you any food for thought?
May your outings with your tykes be more pleasant. And if they vent their crabbiness on the unsuspecting public, may you continue to show your kiddos grace, as you navigate out of the sticky situation and impart crucial life lessons upon them.
Sharing infinite love,
Ali
