How to Teach Son to Keep Certain Thought or Comments to Himself???

KISS. make it a rule (a simple rule! no long explanations yet!) that he can ask you ANY questions but he must wait until he's alone with mommy. 'in the car' is a good way to put it (most of the time these situations arise when you're out and about.) and then stick to it. answer whatever he asks in a simple age-appropriate manner, but be firm and insistent that no questions or comments happen out loud in public places.
he'll slip sometimes, but remind him of the rule and he'll get it quickly.
khairete
S.

"Yes, isn't is beautiful how God made people so different!" For when he says them out loud, lol.

For the times behind doors and you can speak to him... "Honey, I know that you like to notice how people are so different but if you would like to say something, please whisper it in my ear, ok.?:"

I haven't read the other answers yet.
It is likely that the woman in the ladies room
probably knows that children that age say inappropriate things.
She probably was not bothered by whatever it was he said.
Good luck with teaching him not to say such things . . .
but he does not yet have the kind of interior processes
that let him know when something is inappropriate.
One thing which might help you, in general,
not just in this situation is,
when you tell him something you want him to do,
don't complete your statement with "all right?"
Complete your sentence with a period,
what the English call a "full stop".
If there's a question at the end,
he won't hear it as a statement, he will hear it as a maybe.
Good luck.

I think this is an important question, having had my daughter on the receiving end of many thoughtless comments over the years. She was born with a birth defect and has been the subject of much staring and finger-pointing her entire life, from both children and adults. I could always accept the kids' comments easier than the adults, because they are naturally curious little creatures, but the comments from adults really got to me, because you would hope that they would know "better" than to embarass a child. I think as parents we should encourage tolerance of physical differences. I know this is hard sometimes because we as adults often feel uncomfortable ourselves when confronted with someone who looks "different" from us. I commend you for wanting to address this with your little boy - yes, he is only 4, but it's certainly not too soon to start educating him that there are some thoughts we should keep to ourselves because we don't want to hurt someone's feelings. I always tried to get my kids to put themselves in the other person's shoes before opening their mouths (yes, even my daughter with the birth defect - it didn't give her a "free pass" to turn around and then be cruel to others). The fact that you are concerned that your son may have hurt someone's feelings says to me that you are a kind and caring person - just keep gently reminding him as you have done. I really wish everyone cared so much!

I'm so sorry, but I can't help but chuckle a little bit. But I've been through this before. Just last week we were at a boy scout meeting and my almost 4 year old girl said (thank God were no one else could hear) that the person talking "Had a big fat butt". OMG. I don't even know were she got that from. With my older son we had a few talks, One is just never enough, and I taught him to whisper it in my ear, or wait until that person is way far away to ask me or tell me. Give them an option to still get it out of their system, just teach them WHEN they can make their comments.

All of my children have had this problem. My mom tells this great story about how she went to visit her mom and her big sister, which she has never been fond of, was also there. They had a private conversation about her children. My mother said they were ugly. So what does my sister do the next day... she tells her that her children are ugly her mommy said so. OMG! My mom still tells the story but I can never imagine how mom got out of that.

Now my husbands father was abusive. My husband and me have talked about it with him obviously hearing it. So naturally my son, while we were over there, asked grandpa why he was abusive towards my husband when he was a child. My god was that a terrible dinner.

So you aren't the only one. I just had a very long convo about how talking about mom and dad's business is not ok and that things said about others in this house wasn't acceptable. Then with dealing with the more wide spread stuff like you talk about I told him that if it would hurt someone's feelings like to do with weight our appearance in general that he could hurt someones feelings and make them feel badly. I think we had this discussion 12 times before he got it. But eventually he did! Thank goodness.

Haaaa, I'm at that point as well with my 4.5yr. old son. We were at the grocery store & there was this OLD lady in a motorized chair, looked like she was on deaths door & my son said "she don't look so good". I just told him that it's ok to notice people but he needs to tell mommy or ask mommy questions when we get out to the car. That he might hurt someones feelings by saying it out loud like that. Or to tell me when we are out of sight. Yes, you just want to crawl in a corner but I do hope most people understand that they are just little & don't know any better. I do love it though, just shows that their little minds are always curious & observant.

I am sure no harm, especially if she has kids of her own or has been exposed to them.

My daughter was of a very curious nature and made a lot of comments. I often told her to wait until we are in private to ask questions about others so we can talk about it, because we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. It took a bit, but she caught on.

lol.. you don't say things that you don't want repeated to that person because a 4 year old won't know it isn't nice to not repeat it. People understand about young children, a little person may laugh off a child who says "you are little like me" while be insulted if an adult mentioned it. What you do if you are in the position of a person in the restroom is get down to the childs level and say "we don't say things like that" and ask him to appoligize to her. Explain to him that we don't say something that will hurt someones feelings and explain why that would hurt their feelings. Then write this down because you will laugh about it when he is older!

One thing that has worked well for us. If my daughter made a comment about someone we saw - always innocent. I would always say so the other person could hear too - "We are all different - wouldn't it be boring if we were all the same." This works great with things like skin color, weight, and disabilities. It really got her realizing the differences weren't that big of a deal. She quit mentioning them because we are all different. Other things we had to talk about how that might make someone feel if we said that about them. It's never to early to teach empathy.

out the mouth of babes-they call as they see it-the truth..i went thru this with both my kids-alls you can do is keep talking to him an teaching him.