How do you handle inappropriate remarks made in public?

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If your child makes an inappropriate remark or comment in public how do you correct him/her. I'm just getting ideas on what works for you.

Inappropriate can be anything from saying "gee, she/he is fat" to "what the hell is he/she looking at me for".


Lynn

what would you do if your child said "that man is so black? or that woman's eyes are slanty?" Explain to your child that pointing out people that have more or less body fat than others is just as prejudicial as race discrimination.


Merle

these are EXAMPLES of inappropriate comments, not comments that were actually made.

for the record - not one person in my family has a prejudice bone in them.
thanks

When I was little, my mum used to take me to the flea market. I'd point out all the seniours and say, "Look at all the Grandmas and Grandpas!" My mum would say, "Don't say that." It worked, after a while.

Try teaching your child about "tact".

It was a lesson hard learned for me. I would say inappropriate things all the time when I was a kid..

Likesay...you can't stop your kid from having/thinking these questions or comments necc..but you might be able to teach them to not say stuff within the earshot of others.

Once they have an understanding about what "tact" is, perhaps they will learn how to better use it...

I didn't really learn until I was a teenager. I so wish I had learned when i was younger.

Examples of my tactlessness:

I actually sorta had made a friend at the library, and i was really getting along with them, until I asked them if they were a boy or a girl....(end of that friendship)...to this day I do not know...but it was tactless of me to ask, because I hurt their feelings.

Another time, we had company over, and I started playing with my mom's hair in front of the company..and when she asked me what I was doing, I said (within earshot of the company) that I was checking her for lice...

My mom would say "you love your Uncle Trek, don't you?, well your Uncle Trek looks like that, would you want someone to hurt your Uncle Trek by saying that?"
and I learned to do to others as I would have them do to me.

It may be hard for a child to understand why a person may be upset by saying such things (it's true after all).

Stress that a person's feelings may be hurt if they heard you say that.

Point out that it is best not to comment on other people's appearance and to be very, very careful if they ask you to

Just tell your child "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." My parents never gave me maxims like that...

Excellent post poopy

Tact - wish me luck on explaining that one!

The remarks and comments are usually about herself - it comes from low self-esteem. Sometimes the comments are about our home - we live in an old house surrounded by McMansion's. She let out a few comments about being jealous of someone else's home, someone else's wealth. Blurting these things out in front of strangers was really uncalled for. Of course I listed all the wonderful things about our home and it made her think twice after the fact - but trying to get her to stop, think, then speak is proving difficult.
I really wish things like this were easier to explain.

yeah, i really ended up pissed at my mom every time she said that - I don't use it
i hated "hearing it"

ooh..i still have troubles with that one...my boyfriend always gets upset when I say negative things about myself or our venue or our band to other people.....at the time i don't think I am saying anything wrong...just being frank..or humble...or honest..and then i always hear about it afterwards...and yes part of it does come from self esteem...and after being repremanded about it enough times, it has sunk in a little bit more...

As far as the phrase.."if you can't say anything nice....blah blah blah...."
As a kid I probably didn't understand what the phrase meant....would have been somehow confused by it...

The problem with that is that aspies often offend someone because of things they never said. How do you explain to a child that someone is upset because they interpret a comment as having negative insinuations when to the aspie it had no insinuation. It was just a matter of fact statement of what is.

About a year ago someone was talking about an event and I described what I knew based on the fact I had studied the event indepthly. The other person, claimed she was there and asked how I would know anything about it or more about it than the average eyewitness would. So I answered her and told about how I studied about the event, including studying how eyewitness accounts differed from the videotaped version.. That was it - I was answering questiong, nothing more.

She decided to intrepret that as my I knew more about the event than she did just because of my education and responded with very matter-of-fact insults and namecalling. As you can see from my statement, I said no such thing. If I had thought I knew more about it than she did, I would have said that. Indeed the only reason I brought up my education was that she asked me why I felt qualified to comment on the issue in the first place. I had made no comment whatsoever about her.

Then I was expected to apologise for insulting her, and told her reaction was reasonable, even though she was the only one who had thrown out an insult.


Another example I can think of of misunderstand conversation involving implying was when I was driving my bf home to his new house.

Bf: "Pull over soon because you just passed my house." I turned the car around
Me: Where is your house
Bf: On the other side of the street.
Me: Frustrated because I already knew his house was on the other side street and wanted to know where exactly his house was so I could pull close to it "Where is your house?"
Bf: Frustrated because his house was right across from us "on the other side of the street"
that went on a few times until I finally asked "Is it on this side of the intersection of that one."
Bf: Its right there.

i was expecting BF to know that I was asking exactly where his house was and he was expecting me to know that he was giving me an exact answer, though neither my question nor his answer indicated that. Since I had already been told before I turned around that his house was on that side of the street I found it a bit ludicrous the only direction he was giving me was "the other side of the street." Since his house was literally on the other side of the street he found it ludicrous that I kept asking where his house

The problem with that, as others have pointed out, is that a child like mine often thinks something is "nice" that others do not.

As to the original question:

My response is to apologize or laugh, depending on the comment, and then dissect the situation with my son later. I will ask why he made the comment, and then point out why I considered it inappropriate. From there, we try to develop a rule that he can understand and follow - not always so easy, but we try.

first, i apologize to the other person for my child.....then i turn to my child and quietly say to them that although what they were saying was true to them, not everyone wants to hear those sorts of comments. I am fat. I know this. but i certainly don't want to be told about it constantly. Here's a more concrete example: my son once began howling with laughter at the "clown" he saw . he laughed and pointed and yelled Mom, "look at the clown!" ...had it been a clown, it would have been appropriate. it was, however, a teenage girl with pink hair.

about the can't say anything nice statement.....

i have a couple of issues
one... when i say "innappropriate" things the value of nice or not nice does not come into play... it is true or not true... i have no clue what is nice to other people
two... when told not to say anything at all if no "nice" things can be found.... I have found a few people that with my manner of speaking they can take a random "nice" thing that I say and turn it into saying that I insulted them.... if i had to interpret everything i said into whether anyone could take what i mean the wrong way i would never speak again

the thing about tact was the best answer that i read so far.... the way that i actually remember not to say things is on a rudeness factor... i think... would my mother be able to say "that was rude" if i said this... if so, i usually don't say it... (sometimes rudeness is called for)

Ditto to the "tact" lesson, for the same reason. What's nice for an NT is too black and white for me to comprehend whether it's nice or not. As for tact, I have the tact of a speeding freight train, so I have to consciously work at keeping it in rein. That works better than trying to stop prior to saying anything and ask myself whether or not, it's ok to say.

Fwiw, I don't see what's wrong with asking the guy in the wheelchair if he's been like that all his life or did he lose his legs in an accident or something.

I'm the person that people send to ask those questions that someone has to ask, but everyone is afraid of the answer, so nobody wants to ask.

Sometimes, being able to ask innapropriate questions is an asset.

Fwiw, I'm 42 now, I don't work for anyone else because I have my own business, I only have to answer to my clients, so when I do say inappropriate things, and I've learned how to recognize that I have based on people's reactions, I simply grin, cutely, put my hands over my mouth, wide-eyed and say... Oh my G-d, did I say that out loud?

With my kids, (both NTs, btw) If they say something inappropriate, I simply smile sweetly and say "I'm responsible for what goes in, not what comes out).

The best tool I ever learned for my inappropriate comments was learning to smile sweetly.