My four-year-old does this.

She stubbed her toe yesterday on the floor by jumping up and down in some silly way. I laughed. She told me it wasn't funny. I laughed again because seeing someone stub their toe on nothing and get mad about it is funny to me. She hit me in the face with her stuffed monkey and the plastic eyes bruised my cheek. I stopped laughing and sent her to her room. We don't hit in our house.

I sat down next to her on the bed and through sobs she explained that she was mad because I was laughing at her and she didn't like that and I didn't stop when she told me she didn't like it. Then she said: "You made me feel embarrassed, Daddy. That's why I hit you with monkey."

"I understand you felt embarrassed but you still don't get to hit someone. Not even when you feel embarrassed. Not for any reason. It's not allowed. It hurts people"

"I don't think it should be allowed to laugh at people either. It hurts people too."

And this is where I get stumped. She's right. She's definitely got a point. But there is also a lesson here that needs to be learned about graciously making mistakes and learning to live with the fact that mistakes are often funny. I can promise not to laugh at her mistakes in the future, but the rest of the world is not going to make that promise. I've got to some how teach her not to feel anger when she feels embarrassed, or to not feel embarrassed when she makes a mistake and someone thinks it's funny. But I don't know how to do that.