Dear Queenie,
My son is learning good English in school, but in his father’s family they don’t speak good English and when my son hears it sometimes he speaks up and corrects them.
I have explained to him that this is bad manners and he shouldn’t do it but he says that is what they do to him in school.
Queenie, how do I explain the difference to him?—Smartypants’ mother
Dear Mother,
Tell your son he goes to school to learn new things and it is the job of the people there to teach him these new things. However, it is not up to him to teach these things to the adults in his life – in fact it is rude of him to try to do so in a social situation.
If he thinks he has heard something wrong he should come to you privately and ask you about it and you can then tell him whether he is correct, but he should not be trying to correct his adult relatives’ mistakes.
