Why do some people let their children behave so badly?

The difference would be that you would hopefully have been trying to stop him running around and telling him off. It's the parents who do neither that we're talking about here.

It’s lazy parenting.

I recently witnessed a parent receiving a call that their secondary aged child had been pulled out and put in their behaviour room. The woman laughed. She actually laughed and then argued with whom ever was calling that their child would not be doing an afterschool detention.

I couldn’t believe it, I won’t be speaking to her again and I’ve told my primary aged child to not go near theirs.

It’s disgusting, and I think it’s from where kids haven’t been raised properly, desperately needing attention.

Absolutely agree. There is so much permissive parenting and society is going downhill rapidly. These children will be the adults of the future.

In 40+ years of teaching in the UK and Victoria I have never ever had the parent(s) of a routinely out of order pupil surprise me by being anything other than condoning, minimising or excusing of their child's behaviour. Not once.

To be fair my UK experience ended in the very early 200s and what I see described on this thread hints at something more widespread.

Gently... Maybe they don't feel that they have to "excuse" their children's behaviour to you? Because you are not part of their "community".

If you want children to behave, the best thing to do is to be pleasant, polite and interested towards their parents. The parents are then far more likely to regulate their behaviour towards you.

Not at all. You are completely misinterpreting what I've written on this thread.

An example would be:
Kid runs around a playground hitting and kicking other children. Parent shrugs and says "he's autistic, he can't help it, what do you expect me to do?"

Err.... I expect you to at least try to stop him.

And where have I said that my DC does not behave as though he's ND? I can assure you that he most definitely does.

So in your world all disabled kids can behave as though they weren't disabled if their parents put enough effort in.

Bet a lot of parents are reading this and thinking, if only...

That reminds me of a time when DS was about 3. A boy in soft play was running rampage, hitting and pushing loads of kids and ignoring all adults trying to intervene. Noone could work out who the mum was. Then after he'd been hit maybe three times, DS smacked him one back (I STG I didn't tell him to!) Child immediately finds his mum and reports to her that he's been hit. Mother comes storming over to me to have a go and I explained child had been hitting a lot of other kids. She then made a big show of shouting at her kid "YOU LITTLE SHIT" and thrn went back to her table, rolled a fag, left bit of baccy all over the table then went off out to smoke it, leaving her 3 year old inside.

Many children who are neurodiverse behave well and are kind and polite. I can think of far more children who are not neurodiverse whose behaviour is an issue. They do often have backgrounds where they have been poorly parented or where parents are largely absent or overwhelmed with their own problems. There is a huge difference between a neurodiverse child who is overwhelmed and lashing out and a child who is disrespectful and has no boundaries.

Omg that reminds me of when I was out with my kids having lunch in a soft play and this little girl, maybe about 5, came up to our table, pushed my bag off the spare chair, jumped on and started eating my ds2's food. No parents to be seen.

I didn't say that SEN is not a reason for behaviour. I said that it's not an excuse to not bother putting the effort into parenting.

Maybe some kids are easy to parent and teach how to behave, but some aren't.

I took my 4, almost 5 year old to the supermarket at the weekend and he walked around nicely with me. However, about 4 months ago I took him and he ran around the supermarket. I left as soon as possible, but it was really stressful. I guess if you saw me then you would say I was a bad parent for letting him do that. It's really not easy if your child is wired a certain way. He has also runned in the library in the past.

I could choose never take him to the library or supermarket to avoid the judgy people like you get on mumnet, but how will he learn how to behave in these places if he never has the chance?

People are so quick to judge others.

Sorry wrong thread

I get that some kids are ND, totally not disputing that. And I even get that a huge number of kids we see acting up are probably ND and have all sorts of behavioural issues and maybe their parents are just fucking exhausted.

But you have to admit, there are times when it really is just shit parenting.

I was once having dinner in a restaurant and a kid kept coming over and hanging around our table. His mum just let him do it. Then he picked up a pepper pot and emptied it onto my food.
If that was my child (I mean mine wouldn't have been allowed to come over to another person's table and bother them anyway) I would have been mortified, hugely apologetic and paid for the other person's dinner.
Byt this mum just shrugged and said "you can't stop kids being kids"

Watching the news now

Why don't the French arrest the traffickers

Ever considered other people's kids may have more profound disabilities than yours?

Used to the more load back approach where I live. However, that is not the same as being violent or wrecking stuff, we are probably talking about different things. I agree with two other poster though I hate seeing big tellings off and shouting at children in public I think it is humiliating.

I got the impression you had young children for some reason.

I think this does come down to where you live as I’m used to scooters in the wrong places and probably more bold Children than the average town in Britain as it is definitely more an alternative/bohemian type of parent where I live. I visit my Mum in a different area 4 hours away and it is quite an old demographic but also conservative so people care a lot more about the right and proper way of doing things. I mean it is sometimes refreshingly nice but other times I used to think things weren’t such a big deal. I think mainly I had to get used to it.

It's not the children that have changed. Other adults used to step in and are now too scared in most cases. You only have to look at the vitriol unleashed on that poster who asked teenagers at the theatres to be quiet to see where the problem lies.

@abouttogetlynched aha well it got me riled up didn't it 🤣

Thank you. And yes it really does grind my gears when SEN is used as an excuse to not bother putting the effort in.

Endlessly repeating yourself, having to watch them like a hawk all the time, constantly having to be one step ahead and making sure that the routine is not too disrupted or the shop is not too busy etc. It's such a bloody slog but we do it because we want our DC to grow up to be decent members of society.

I agree with this; tolerance of childish behaviour whether it be bad or good is sometimes greeted with OTT dismay. Children are not mini adults. I think this intolerance is worse where the birth rate is very low. Where I live used to have many more families and I think my children, 1st born in 2007 enjoyed the heyday of life being very positive much more celebratory of children, around my area anyway. I remember my DD was about 3 and was scooting along a bit ahead of me and I could se an old lady walking on the pavement towards us, I called out to DD to slow down and stop, not that she was particularly fast as she was three, as the old lady past us she jokingly told me off for telling her to stop, she said, “she’s fine and having so much fun on that scooter”. I mean she really was quite close so I’m my mind a bit risky but I do think people of my Gran’s generation so children or young adults in the Second World War liked children a bit more than the subsequent generations.

Do they really need an ice cream on that day? The day that they've been hitting other kids? Is that really necessary?

I mean, there's not a chance I'd be buying my DC an ice cream after they'd just hit someone at school. But even for a parent with your way of thinking, wouldn't it make more sense to buy them an ice cream on a day when they hadn't been hitting people? That's just the logical thing to do surely?

Lazy parenting. Easier to do nothing.