To think that parents who don’t control their kids in public deserve public shaming?

I don't entirely disagree but I added in a later post- ideally I'd remove the child but not everyone has the physical ability.
I'm heavily pregnant and can't lift my three year old. She's generally pretty good out and about but actually she had a meltdown in a cafe the other week- turned out later she was brewing a cold and probably not feeling herself- but I couldn't honestly do anything. I didn't ignore her but I was fairly useless. Any attempts to touch her or intervene resulted in screaming.
It was a family friendly cafe but still very disruptive. Other than never take my daughter anywhere it just can't be helped unfortunately.

But you take them out of the restaurant surely!?

You don’t subject everyone else in the restaurant to your child screaming while you rummage through your temper tantrum management strategies.

One of you, or you if you are the only parent present, leaves your food on the table and asks a staff member not to clear it away as you bear your rigid or flailing child out of the restaurant where you then try to calm them. That’s what used to happen and mostly still does happen I would hope. It’s shit but it comes with the territory. Hopefully you will get to finish your meal.

It’s like weddings, please don’t just stand there jiggling and hushing your screaming baby; the parent least close to the couple marrying takes the baby out of the room as quickly as possible without breaking into a run. People are so selfish and don’t want to miss something themselves even at the cost of everyone else’s experience. If you miss your mate’s vows then again, it’s shit, but it’s your child and sometimes that’s the way it goes.

To all the self righteous perfect parents (and the lone dog owner) who have piled on here to whinge about other people’s kids, do you really think shaming the parents for your perception of bad parenting is the solution?

Yes there are annoying kids and shit parents everywhere. But there are also really badly behaved adults in so-called “adult spaces” (what are these, incidentally? Casinos? Bars? Over priced coffee shops?). What’s the answer?

You don’t actually have a solution here, you just like feeling superior and better than other people. Just as insufferable in my opinion as the parent scrolling on their phone as their kids rain down hell.

Why?

I’ve seen parents removing an overwrought child from a store and from a restaurant. That’s quite normal, I should have thought?

This is crazy. What an absolutely ridiculous scenario you're depicting here.

Toddlers generally don't enjoy cafes. They don't drink coffee and mine found the experience oppressively dull. (some know-it-all will be along shortly to tell me that I'm wrong and little Tarquin loves a visit to the local artisan cafe to enjoy a good chat and a babyccino. . . ).

What the parenting books don't tell you is that you need to be ready to pivot at any moment when you have kids. Child throws a massive tantrum in a restaurant = leave, child hurts himself in a play area that you've just paid nearly a tenner for and is traumatised at the prospect of going back in (yes, this happened to me) = change tact and look for a different activity, child starts throwing up just as you've put dinner on the table = looks like it'll be takeaway tonight.

This is a situation that could have been a) avoided, or b) resolved a hell of a lot sooner. Do you think that because you're outside that no one can hear?

Anyway, broadly agree with the sentiment of this, op. 'Shaming' feels like the wrong term, but I get what you mean and I think it links in with a thread I saw on here last week about general declining standards of behaviour in public from adults.

Those of us in retail can easily spot the parent who is doing their best and there may be other stuff at play
versus
The parent who is actively ignoring their kid, giving customers and staff the side eye if we even look in their direction or tell the kid to slow down or be careful
Or the parent who is ignoring their kid saying they need the toilet and let them wet themselves in store
Allowing their kid to throw food around or rip stuff of shelves while they shop

You are not the same at all

I think they should be held accountable.....if their childs behaviour is impacting others and they are ignoring it.
Obviously kids can have tantrums or misbehave and I have no problem with that if its obvious the parent is aware and doing something about it (even if that something is ignoring the behaviour but monitoring it closely).

It really bugs me when they just ignore it and basically try and absolve themselves of all responsibility.
Im not a parent but from the perspective of a dog owner (tiny dogs so, 'awwww puppy!' responses). Ive been chased around parks plenty of times by kids whose parent were way off in the distance showing no interest.
I almost got a free toddler once when a tiny little girl wandered over to me and demanded I take her home to visit with the dogs! Her dad was off in the distance on his phone....maybe he had enough kids he could afford to lose one!🤔

But she’s clearly not talking about you? She’s talking about parents who aren’t trying to manage their kids behaviour.

As for not judging, everyone makes judgements every minute of the day. You do it too, it’s usually subconscious and instant.

As a parent of an autistic child who sometimes has tantrums in public, your post and the poll confirms the terrible feeling I always have that many people are feeling hostile and judgmental towards my situation when I am trying to deal with my child in meltdown

We're talking about parents who ignore the situation, not those who try to manage it., so it doesn't apply to you.

Yeah like the drop kick parent at work today letting her 3 kids, under 6 use a trolley as a racecar, playing chasey with it

She knew, she didnt care, she was using the trolley and store as a babysitter

It’s the parents that let their children cause mischief at soft plays or run around restaurants/cafes that annoy me the most - and I’m a mum myself!

For goodness sake put your phone and coffee down and stop your 3 year old from throwing toys down the slide or knocking otter kids over!

When possible.

If you have more than one kid, you might not be able to, at least quickly. If you really need to get the kid to eat, you might not be able to. If there's only a busy street or car park outside, or it's freezing, or raining, you might not be able to.

@MyEdgyAmberZebra

So when you come across it in real life just tell them to sort it out then. I mean you are allowed to do this, what happens afterwards who knows, but you are allowed, no need to ask if you "should" be able you. You can, if you want.

Take them outside?

My kids did through the odd tantrum. I did try and control them but it is not always easy and people tutting as they walk past is never helpful. Also I am conscious I do not understand what a family is going through or if the child has health needs. I found that there isa very difficult attitude in Europe to the UK. In Italy when I tried to leave a restaurant with a child who was crying the table opposite immediately said sit down and eat Madam and the proceeded to try and entertain my baby- which worked. Many European countries are much more child inclusive and helpful than the UK which can be quite judgemental of parents IME.

As a parent of an autistic child who sometimes has tantrums in public, your post and the poll confirms the terrible feeling I always have that many people are feeling hostile and judgmental towards my situation when I am trying to deal with my child in meltdown.
I think if you have only had NT/biddable children who are easy to "handle" it is so easy to feel this way(i have another autistic child and a NT who have no behaviour difficulties). I beg you not to judge people, as you don't know what they are dealing with, and there is no worse feeling than having to deal with a dysregulated, tantruming child in public whilst feeling the judgement of the people around you.

But, as many people have pointed out, for some children ignoring the tantrum is the quickest way to end the tantrum. You want to approach parents who may well be purposefully using this technique to try and minimise the intensity of the tantrum on the basis that you think this method of diffusing a tantrum looks 'easy' or 'lazy' .

What if they told you they were deliberately ignoring it as that's the quickest way to make it stop? Would that change how you felt about their approach? Because I would probably assume that is the case if I saw someone in that situation, and it wouldn't bother me as I would expect them to be finding the whole situation harder than me already.

Maybe because I've had kids that tantrummed occasionally in public, my tolerance for noise has increased in line with my gratitude that it's not my child - an unexpected potential silver lining there!

Alternatively, you're talking about parents who are happy to sit and allow their child to be distressed when they have the power to stop it, in which case I can't imagine they'd care about you being bothered by the noise if they don't even care that their own child is miserable and won't comfort them even to spare themselves the disruption and noise.

FWIW, my child free bestie speaks far more sense about parenting than some friends who have children.

Bestie understands that children need rules, structure, sleep and boundaries to thrive alongside love and care. Loving is giving them boundaries and a safe space to operate and learn within.

Sadly a lot of parents don't do this. They're too self centred to see what their children actually need and hate to be thought of as the bad guy.

You don't have to go to adult only places but then don't moan/try and parent other people's children.
Of course you have to teach children to behave but how do you teach them if you never go out? And they may not behave perfectly every time.
As I said my older children were always well behaved in public but my son less so. He is 5 but his understanding is around 2. I will not apologise for him acting like a 2 year old and my way of dealing with tantrums proberly looks like no/shit parenting but I am dealing with it. With ND children you can't act the same as children who are NT. Perhaps we should just be confined to the house.
If it really annoys you don't go somewhere family friendly places then you won't get annoyed.

Kids under about 3, no. Even with all the will in the world, a tired, overwhelmed toddler can be a handful, although I'd hope at that point the parent would just remove them from the situation.

Over toddler age and the parents are doing everything they can to manage the behaviour, also no, although again, removing them from the situation is the best thing to do ( not always possible if on train etc, so I would expect them to be dealing with it(

Kids who are just left to run riot with no attempt by parents to do anything about it...yes.

I've got four kids. They're all well behaved but they have all had their moments as children do. I've never let them run riot and if they start playing up, they have a warning to behave more appropriately, and if they continue, we leave the situation/sit out etc

What do you do when they’re too big to
pick up and carry? Some autistic kids continue to have meltdowns long past the ‘small child’ stage. You do prepare, do everything you can to avoid triggers etc, but sometimes it just doesn’t work. You do the best you can but it’ll never be good enough.

OP, I find your attitude very ableist and very upsetting.
You sit and judge who is trying hard enough and who is not?
How would you even know?
Parenting neurodiverse children looks, by necessity, different from parenting neurotypical ones. The strategies used are often quite different and you probably don’t even realise this. But it seems you’ll still judge. Shame on you.

Maybe she should have parented her kids then

I visited a war memorial recently. A child discovered that it had a good echo so started shouting/screaming; not in distress but just for fun. Instead of telling them to be quiet or removing them, the parent encouraged them to continue. I rolled my eyes very loudly but didn't say anything. If they couldn't see how inappropriate it was then I doubt they would be receptive to criticism of their parenting.

This reminds me of when I was in the doctors last week.

A man had his two children with him who were running round, jumping on and off chairs and his daughter was shouting “I wanna watch a movie” over and over for about 10 minutes. She was standing under the screen that calls the next patient and then pulled out a toy guitar and started hitting the screen.
His son was rolling round on the floor and making loud howling noises.

The dad was sitting on his phone except occasionally looking up and smiling and shaking his head, eventually an old woman asked “is their something wrong with those children or can you just not be bothered to teach them to behave?!”

I was expecting an argument but it did literally shame him into doing something, he took the kids outside and asked if someone could pop outside to let him know when it was his turn to see the doctor.

I think the man was genuinely surprised that his kids were annoying people and that’s why he didn’t get defensive, in most cases people don’t react well to their kids being criticised when they misbehave!

Why should people have to go to adult only places, having children does not exempt anyone that normal social rules apply and yes I include my self in that

This 'go and have kids' business, I did and I am still well aware on how I and children should behave in public