My son Tyler and my mother-in-law were sitting in a doctor’s waiting room with my wife a few weeks ago. Tyler saw a lady across the room with unusually shaped eyebrows and immediately asked me loud enough for her to hear: “hey dad, why does that lady have crazy mean eyebrows?”. I immediately looked at the lady who looked back at me and not knowing what to do or say in the awkward situation said “hey buddy they’re not mean, so what do you want to do later today?”. Trying to get him off that topic quickly seemed to backfire because he replied back with “but dad, why are they so crazy looking though?”. Truth be told her eyebrows were unusual but I’ve seen so many things out of the ordinary in my life I think I’ve become immune to the unusual and never would have noticed.
I smiled back at the lady who scowled back a bit and then looked away. After we were out of the environment I coached him a bit but kids don’t know our social norms (which we probably have hundreds, if not thousands of). We learn social norms over time but sometimes not fast enough to hurt/offend others. If you’ve had kids I’m sure situations such as this have happened to you. How did you handle it and how did it work for you?