To think it’s OK to criticise parents for their children’s behaviour?

@autienotnaughty, yes! We are very involved parents, but the usual parenting techniques are not responded to in the same way. It is very difficult to address behaviour if sticks and carrots mean very little to your child.

My child refuses to sit and colour. Pulling off all the sofa cushions and creating a survival course, however...

I am so happy with your comment, as this is the situation DP and I are in with our DC (born very prem). Not every kid has the same difficulty-level. DC is very active and strong-willed, significantly more so than I have seen other kids be during baby groups, etc. DC has genuinely been that way since birth and parenting has not been straightforward. If we didn't pick our battles it would just be all-day negativity, which we don't think will help long term.

After having whirlwind DC, I have become a lot more humble about 'assessing' other people's parenting skills.

"Is this for an article?"

Or a bunfight.

A parent who is laughing or encouraging bad behaviour yes.

I think what a lot of smug parents don't realise is they implemented some boundaries and routines and their child responded well to it. Due to their child's personality.

Imagine you do all of that and then your child doesn't listen or care. What do you do?

Parenting techniques are basically-

Reward positive behaviour
Discipline negative behaviour
Teach age appropriate consequences/impact of actions

If children don't respond to that what do you do ? Well you can-

Bribe
Shout/threaten
Hit
Ignore

These days most people avoid the hitting. Shouting , threatening and bribing aren't particularly nice or always feasible so parents end up picking their battles.

I say this as a parent who after raising two delightful children who would sit and colour in, who always did as they were told and responded well to parenting techniques. After being a chidcare provider who has worked with at least fifty children of varying needs. After completing a degree in early years education. After working as a parenting support worker with vulnerable children and delivering parenting training to struggling parents. Being trained to deliver Solihull parenting, Incredible years and Triple P. I gave birth to a child who does not respond to traditional parenting methods.

I had to learn a completely new way of parenting and to pick my battles. I regularly look like a shit parent when the reality is I'm an extremely qualified parent. If I wasn't as experienced as I am I would blame my self (like many others do)

My DS was very badly behaved as a young child but we know now has AuDHD. I tried very hard to get him to behave. But the more I tried the worse his behaviour became. The best thing I could do was ignore his bad behaviour and praise his good behaviour as if not he spiralled.

Eh?

It's never OK to criticise the parents by calling them out to their faces, even when you pretty well know or can infer that what's going is down to them. You just never know their circumstances.

Deal with the immediate behaviour: I'm trying to eat my lunch could you take your child away from my table?

It's like dogs: Your dog is upsetting my dog, please would you take it away?

Neither of these will guarantee a civilised response or the action you want and all hell might break loose. The more feckless the parent or owner, the more likely they are to kick off. Still It's the better thing to do.

Well, where I am there are kids between the ages of around 10-16 ruling the streets. They have balaclavas on or hoods pulled up tight so you can't see their faces and the police won't come out for anything they do. The local town centre shops have to accept them attacking people and/or smack heads stealing because the police won't come out and if the staff members challenge them, they risk being physically attacked so they just don’t bother any more.
Coming home from Asda just across the road from me I've witnessed two kids (at a minimum 14 years old) jump over the wall into the carpark just before a huge fire broke out. I called the fire brigade, they ran up my street then posed for photos in front of the fire engines while the flames were above house height. I doubt anything will stop these kids any time soon.

Is this for an article?

No. My child is difficult. I do my best and the last thing I'd want is someone else commenting and making me feel bad. It would make me want to never take the kids out again.

only if you video and upload results.
Even the best behaved kid can pull asshole mode when you need it least.
Crittercism is ...unlikely to end well.
cant you just do a wee prayer or sprinkle glitter or mind your own?
As it goes im not a fan of rude,vulgar unruly kids(or dogs) ...but am no that keen on people either.
if ...its a bad day n you throw your judgement-expect wrath....(and upload it)
here..

I can bet your kids (if any ) are right charmers.

Kids are mirrors of their parents.

I do. There are two brats in my daughter’s school. Older brothers are little brats too. Parents just defend them, roll their eyes and say “boys will be boys” and occasionally gulder at them. They are shit parents brining up kids with no boundaries or discipline and it shows

You’ve no idea what SEN or diagnosis or health a child has. You’ve no idea what parents are going through that day/week/month. So be compassionate and kind. Use tact if you anbsolut need to speak up and the child is at serious risk of danger. No need to be an arse, that reflects very badly on you and your upbringing

My son is nd, you wouldn’t overly see to look at him. He’s quite small but 13 but his behaviours are very immature as is the way he speaks. He is watched v closely but that doesn’t always prevent a wobbler or some dysregulated behaviour we would redirect/leave whatever we were doing.

But what would you ‘calling me out’ achieve in that situation op or really any parent? Do you think kicking someone when they are down is helpful? I get some parents just don’t parent but the rest of us are here doing our best and some in very difficult circumstances it’s bad enough you’re sat judging something you know nothing about but to wade in? Not helpful - also dangerous you don’t know who might react aggressively to your judgment. I tend to live and let live, unless I saw abuse/violence, we don’t know the full story from one snippet of someone’s lives you see at the park/supermarket etc

Who has put you in charge? Why do you get to police everyone's behaviour? I'm sure there are countless things that you do that irritate other people, but if everyone called out everyone else the world would implode!

@Ostagazuzulum in a home setting I would definitely make the rules very clear that her behaviour is unacceptable. If she behaves like that with her mum at home it's her mum's problem but in your home it's your problem and if mum doesn't know how to educate her child well then someone else will have to do it. She won't get away with that behaviour in school so she is clearly testing the limits. You just have to spell them out for her (kindly but firmly).

Well, be careful. Some children could be ND (so their parents should watch over them even better one would presume) and some children behaves badly because their parents are nutcases and you might get aggressed by them so be careful. I have always intervened if a child is being hurt/put in danger and I don't see a parent moving towards it. You can tell children to be careful, play nicely using your kindest voice, that's what I do because I can't let these things pass as an adult. Sometimes the feral ones are happy to have an adult to talk to and start chatting to me and I end up organising games for them. So don't be too hard on them, most of them aren't bad kids, they just need attention and be told of boundaries and it's quite heartbreaking to see how lonely some of them seem.

I’ve had a continuous stream of children here for play dates for the last 15 years. Children are all different. I’ve had siblings here who behave in completely different ways to each other. Mostly, parents are doing their best and children can act like untamed animals in new exciting settings. They might grow up to be terrors or settle down. I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt to parents. Yes, Callum did grow up to be a sanctimonious and boastful young adult, David turned out to be ND, and angelic Eva became a teen bully. Kids are just small guests to be wrangled with tolerance, humour and boundaries according to your own house rules; most adults hope for their children to be well-behaved guests.

It really depends on the ages and the situations. A 5 year old having a tantrum for an ice cream? No judgement. A 12 year old having a tantrum for the same reason (no ND/LD) - yes absolutely I would judge.

There is a huge difference between parents at the end of their tether with a kid having a bad day vs parents who simply can’t be bothered to put in any boundaries.

My kids are very different people, one in particular constantly challenges and refuses to listen etc. The other rarely does anything out of line. It’s a real challenge as I am learning on the job - and constantly getting it wrong - and I cringe thinking I must come across as a terrible parent on the rare occasion when bad behaviour is public. And it is only a rare occasion because I never willingly allow poor behaviour and always pull my children up on it. At home the boundaries are tested far far more.

Depends - very broadly speaking, yes, but you can’t come to any kind of judgment in most cases without knowing the full facts.

Can you give examples? I think calling out strangers who are handing the situation as best they can is more of a 'you' problem than a 'them' problem. Do you have DC?

I think it's fine to judge silently. I sometimes look at people making very different parenting choices to the ones I would make and I think "ok, I wouldn't have dealt with that in that way". But actually speaking your mind and calling them out publicly is different and unjustified in most cases. Often it's not necessarily that the parents are lazy and useless, but different choices and parenting styles.

If you have a fairly compliant child, for example, you might be able to enforce the small things because you don't have to worry about the big things. But for demand-avoidant or confrontational children or simply those with different needs, a parent who picked up on everything would be constantly correcting and disciplining, which wouldn't be good for the parent-child relationship. "Pick your battles" is probably particularly appropriate here. So parents of such children might seem to be letting things go that other parents would pick up on, in the interests of having a good relationship with their child.

MN is supposed to be 'for parents, by parents. Except it's not. It's the very last place I'd come to for parenting advice. It's full of judgmental smug 'not my children' bollocks.