It has happened to all of us. You are in the park, at the grandparents' house or in the supermarket and your son screams, or cries or engages in a fight with another child, and an adult, who is not you, scolds him. At first there is no one to whom this is pleasant, right? Should we consent? What can we do when another adult scolds our child?
When another person reprimands our son, an almost immediate visceral reaction occurs in us that normally happens to want to fulminate him ipso facto. Who is he / she to do it?
But in addition to this it is possible that we feel that it is questioning our fatherhood, our parenting style. If in a meal with friends someone scolds the child because he has put the fingers in the sauce bowl what we translate is Hey, haven't you been able to teach your child manners? It may also be that we feel bad for not having been more attentive (always depending on the situation, eye).
There are many occasions in which although we do not want it to happen, it will happen, occasions in which another adult will scold them and also in the worst way without us having the option to avoid it. What can we do then?
In Babies and more "Time out" and "thinking chair": an expert in positive discipline explains why we should not use these methodsThere are several factors that can modulate our reaction:
Who: As I said, for many parents it is not the same if the one who scolds is a total stranger or his grandfather. Having an emotional relationship with the other person can make us more or less justify the performance, but this will also make us feel more (or less) free to respond in situ.
How: Have you done it with peace of mind and good words or in a bad way?
Where: Were we present or not? Was it at the other person's house, for example, or a public place?
Why: Did our son's behavior pose a danger to him or others, an uncivil behavior, or was it just something that bothered the person who scolded him?
So, Who can scold your son? The answer to this is actually quite simple: you and who you decide.
How to react if someone else scolds our child
Let's see the three possible most common reactions:
1) If we do not agree on the way or the fact that another adult scolds our child we could openly show our anger towards each other and unbelieve him. It would be the model Don't mess with my son. As I will explain later in this case, we must try to avoid showing aggressiveness because with this we would be transmitting to the child that this is the way to resolve conflicts, and we do not want that, do we?
2) We can speak alone with the adult to show our disagreement and then do it with our son to clarify the situation and make sure he has understood what has happened. This option is quite common, for example, with grandparents or close relatives who we do not want to disavow in front of the child but with whom we do not necessarily agree.
3) Validate the adult it would be the third option, in case we consider that it has worked in a correct way. If it occurs in public spaces such as in a museum when the room guard warns the child that he is not running, we could take it for granted. However, whether or not we agree with this option is not the most recommended since the ideal is always to talk to our son after such a scene: we are his reference, he deserves to be paid attention and modulate what happened.
The truth? There is no right way to react: everything depends on the situation, the person ... as explained in previous paragraphs.
Of course, there is one thing that we have to consider before acting:
- Parents are a model for our children, so that Be careful how we react while they are present. Responding to the other adult by incredibly raising or showing us particularly aggressive anger is a poor model for our kids because… we don't want them to learn that aggressiveness is the answer, isn't it?
In Babies and more The four "R": the negative consequences of punishment in childrenIf an adult has scolded our child without our consent in addition to talking with that adult we must attend to the child. What a priori is considered as a negative situation we can use it to work certain aspects with our son.
Adults, because they are adults, are not always right and / or act in a positive way. This interests us to be clear about, for example, preventing abuse.
The response to misconduct should not be another misconduct.
The personal worth of each one does not depend on what others think (with this we work self-concept, self-esteem ...).
Conflict resolution: how we solve the situation with the other adult (giving an example, as I said before), how the situation could have been resolved if the other adult had not interfered (for example if they have scolded him for having taken the toy from another child , because we work how you can manage it on other occasions), etc.
Photos: Matilda; Now the parents are they
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