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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask how to distinguish between condescending and explaining

5 replies

WhitePhantom · 07/03/2018 12:01

Bit of conflict with DS1, who's 16 and thinks he knows everything.

He needed to reply to an email the other day re. work experience, and he ran it by me first as he'd rarely send emails, let alone business ones. I told him he needed to clarify something - forms that were asked for in the original email, but he had already handed them in, so I said just mention something about fact that the other person already has the forms.

Well he started arguing that it was obvious that the other person had the forms, there was no reason to mention / clarify it, I was being ridiculous, etc. I pointed out that his forms / work experience aren't at the forefront of the other person's mind, they've a lot going on, it was possible that they had mislaid the forms or had forgotten that he'd already handed them in, and that if he didn't mention them and just turned up without them it could cause problems on the day.

So then he started telling me I was being condescending! God grant me patience!! How do you tell a teenager that you're just explaining things he's not yet familiar with, and not being condescending?!

OP posts:
SluttyButty · 07/03/2018 12:06

When you find the answer to this then let me know. Mine are the same, particularly dd18 who I’ve had virtually the same conversation with this week Confused

Userplusnumbers · 07/03/2018 12:10

Well, it's actually impossible to explain anything to a teenager without being condescending - after all, they know everything

SneakyGremlins · 07/03/2018 12:11

Explaining - you learn something.

Condescending - what you learn is how much of a dick the person talking to you is.

HTH Grin

HarrietSmith · 07/03/2018 12:16

I just tend to say,

'Well you asked me for advice. This is the advice I am giving. It's up to you whether you take it or not, so I'll leave you to think this over.'

Or possibly add, 'This is how things tend to go in workplaces in my experience. There are areas where you have more experience than I do, so then I'd ask you for advice. It's a two way process, where each one of us will try to help the other.'

Yarboosucks · 07/03/2018 12:18

My DH and I are both reasonably successful in our fields and both hold senior positions in our (international) organisations. According to our DS we are naive idiots who know nothing and have experienced nothing.

If I talk to my DM about this, she rolls arounds on the floor laughing. Hmmm! What does she know!

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