Author’s practical guidance
Someone tells your child off in front of you
Source named in the book: Nonviolent Communication (Rosenberg) · Positive Discipline (Nelsen)
This produces a reaction out of proportion to the event, and for a good reason: a stranger correcting your child in your presence is a small takeover.
Say this now
“I've got it, thank you.”
Takes the job back in four words, without a fight. Said warmly, it is unanswerable.
(to your child, after) "That man spoke to you. I'm the one who tells you what to do."
Restores the order out loud. Children need this said, not implied.
Do this
- Step physically between them, without hurrying.
- Take the job back before you decide whether they had a point.
- Deal with the behavior yourself, in your own words, afterwards.
- If they were right, say so to your child later — not to the stranger now.
- Don't make the child apologize to an adult who frightened them.
Avoid this
- Joining in — telling your child off harder to show the stranger you are on it.
- "Don't speak to my child" — satisfying, and it teaches your child that adults fight.
- Freezing and doing nothing, which the child reads as agreement.
If it repeats
If it happens with the same person — a neighbor, a relative, another parent at the group — it needs a private sentence rather than a public one. "Tell me, not him" works on almost everybody.
Why the book suggests this
This produces a reaction out of proportion to the event, and for a good reason: a stranger correcting your child in your presence is a small takeover. It says, in front of the child, that you were not doing your job.
There is also a real question underneath the offense. Sometimes the person is right, and your child was about to knock over somebody elderly. The skill is answering the takeover without pretending the behavior was fine.
From this collection
Same Words: Every Grown-Up
45 prepared situations in this family area.