Reply to Overweight kids - how to help my child understand that fine line between bullying and the truth

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There is no fine line.  You teach your son how to take care of his body by eating healthy foods and enjoying physical activity.  You also teach him not to judge others based on their appearance and not to make negative comments about how other people look.  Problem solved.  
[/quote]

I agree with this, but I do think [b]judging people is a natural human reaction and there's no controlling it.[/b] As you say, you shouldn't share your opinion if it's negative. On the other hand, if my friend were to ask me, "Am I fat?" I'd tell her the truth.[/quote]

Judging people and comparing their behavior to yours IS normal. It's also healthy. It's how we register the norms of the society we live in.

Children will often ask blunt questions, which adults will take personally because we understand the norms and they do not. The example of "why does that [Asian] person look different from us?" is a good one, and one I've experienced recently. Young kids are often just trying to understand things, so providing them with a fact-based, simple explanation along the lines of "That person's family originally came from [insert Asian country here], where people look a little different than people whose families came from [insert your country of origin here - in my case, that would be Sweden]." [u]We recently had a conversation about how it's not polite to talk about other people's appearance, and that if you want to pay a compliment, it's better to compliment people's clothing or accessories ("That's a really pretty shirt" and "I really like your headband" were examples I used) instead of their actual physicality. [/u]OP, I would strongly urge you to consider the judgmental quality that your posts have had. Suggesting that everyone disagreeing with you is fat and that the disagreement (which has been pretty much universal) is just a PC conspiracy to prop up the social acceptability of being overweight? Really? You've gotten some good advice about communicating with your child about healthy foods, healthy portions, healthy exercise, and good manners. You do not seem interested in those suggestions at all. It seems like you just wanted a bunch of people to show up and say, "Absolutely your son is in the right for suggesting that another child is unhealthy and fat, he should not have been punished for being a bully". Your kid is ripe for being one of those kids who shows up at school saying "In MY family, we don't eat CHIPS because my mom says chips make you fat and fat makes you sick and you might DIE" which is not much better than "makes you ugly" if you're talking to a lunch table of 7 year olds.

- mom who happily gives chips as treats and could not be more thrilled that her preschooler also likes eating vegetables and hummus[/quote]

Do you really think that's better than saying "you have a really pretty smile"?[/quote]

No, but she's 3. I figured that it was safer than explaining that sometimes it's okay to talk about a person's body and sometimes it's not. [/quote]

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