Treating kids like performing pets

Lately Wood Sprite has been asking me questions she already knows the answers to in a bit of a condescending way. She doesn’t ask them snidely or meanly, but their general tone is a “looking down at you” kind of tone. “Mom, what’s the name of the famous vampire?” she asked last night. I said, “I don’t know, who?” I thought it was a joke. “You know, it starts with a D,” she prompted, and she made this little gesture like she was trying to coax it out of me.

Holy cow, I realized, she’s talking to me like so many adults talk to her.

How many times do we talk to kids like they are performing monkeys rather than people? “What’s two plus two, Daniel? Come on, you know what it is!” or “Show Grammie how you can count to ten in Spanish!” Ugh, can you imagine how annoying this is? I remember when people used to tell me, “Say something in Spanish!” when I took the class in high school and I just felt helpless and put on the spot. I’m uncomfortable conversing with groups as it is; now you want me to do it in another language?

This is not the way to respect children. It’s not a way to respect people, period. Knowing that people are treating my kid this way makes me upset. In fact, I know that I have treated her this way, too! How many times have I asked her, “Tell Aunt J where you went today! Tell her blah blah blah!” Why not just ask her if she wants to talk about what we did, or better yet, tell her myself since I was there, too?

We need to stop treating kids any other way than how we would treat our dear friends and loved ones. When we don’t, we look like this, and that’s just stupid.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia