To think of your child is 5+ and still can’t behave in public, you’re the problem?

Do you understand that a child of 5 does not have impulse control? Do you understand that children have just started back at school and they’re tired. I think as the grown up you should have more compassion

Is it really though? I have 10 and 13 yo boys who don't do that and wouldn't be allowed to either. They're pretty average kids too. I've had a blanket no hitting policy their whole lives and I can't remember the last time they broke it - they know all devices would disappear in the blink of an eye for several days. I'm not from the UK originally and I'm always surprised at how passive /defeatest British parents are about behaviour and discipline. I have other foreign parent friends and sometimes we compare notes about it 😂

So your thread was noting there are some people who, for various reasons, aren’t effective parents? Because that’s a bit of a no brainer.

Such a difficult topic as there's so many reasons why children act out. I do hate when children arnt properly supervised in play centres or activities though. I feel like things happen and kids misbehave but I hate having to search for parents when my son has been hurt or picked on.

One thing that isn't always mentioned on these threads is that ND children themselves can find the behaviour of badly behaved children distressing - the noise can be upsetting if they have sensory needs and autistic children whose parents have high expectations of their behaviour can be upset if they think that other children are breaking the rules.

The issue really is parents ignoring bad behaviour, not children having tantrums and being naughty, which they all do.

Also, any child can act up at any age. The 5y cut off is silly. Most of the badly behaved kids I see in cafes are under 5s. Parents sitting doing nothing.

Children with additional needs don't walk around with a big medallion marking them out. Maybe they should take some Tylenol so you can see the difference.

Ooh lovely. The behaviour management expert has arrived to tell us all how to do it!

I’ve got 15 years experience of working in and around children with behaviour that challenges, a degree and masters in Education, and top up qualifications in SENd. I specialised in social, emotional and mental health needs and worked for a long time with children in the care system or who had been excluded from school.

I’m de-escalation, restraint and behavioural communication trained.

I’ve also got an autistic 9 year old who sometimes presents us with behaviour that leaves me stumped, because children (people) and behaviour is complex and one size does not fit all.

But please do share your advice. All ears.

5 is very young, even some adults can't behave in public you can't expect any child to behave impeccably all the time.
But also please don't be so judgemental you have no idea what lies behind a child's behaviour.

It seems you feel the need to judge, but that's not a great approach.

A lot of people are a bit non-perfect, life's tough, parenting is hard and it can be tricky to get it right. And I guess some people don't want the battle, for a whole host of reasons that range from valid to invalid.

I congratulate you on being a top-tier parent, but not everyone can get life as right as you.

Rather than judging, just give yourself a pat on the back.

All kids have their moments imo 🤷🏼‍♀️ you could be the most perfect parent that walks the planet but I guarantee your aged 5+ child has played up in public at least a couple of times. What I’d find more odd is a stranger judging someone’s entire parenting skills off one interaction - an adult lacking emotional intelligence is more concerning than a child playing up.

I do get what you mean. I think generally parenting seems to be becoming quite lax in quite a few groups. Sometimes I feel I’m the only one with high expectations of children’s behaviour (which I know is not the case).

My child is autistic, he’s very bright but struggles a lot in certain situations so I fully understand meltdowns and have every sympathy with parents having a tough time. It’s difficult for us to go out without incident but what we are not is passive in our parenting. We work very hard to avoid / help in a meltdown.

Examples I’m talking about are going to the theatre, we fully prepare eg. Ear defenders and will take son out so as not to disturb the experience for others if he needs a break. But it seems I’m often alone in being interested in others experience, others’ kids are loud, jumping on seats, leaving rubbish behind. These are all things I find unacceptable when others have paid for an experience.

We’ve had play dates where other children run riot around my house where the parents don’t even seem to notice what I deem to be unacceptable behaviour. Things like chasing my animals, smashing the window in our playhouse, throwing food in the house. No SEN that I’m aware of.

I’ve been called fat at school drop off whilst the parent watches with an ineffective ‘that’s not kind’.

Being a parent of a child with additional needs I’m aware these needs might not be obvious and try to be compassionate but I’m actively trying to teach my child what is and what is not acceptable but increasingly feel alone in this!

I’m now ready to be ripped apart like the OP.

My 17 and 16 year old still sometimes hit or push each other when out, only occasionally mind but I thought that was normal sibling rivalry.
Sometimes kids have crap days too believe it or not and can misbehave. My 6 year old had a complete meltdown on a recent camping trip, I have never seen her like that before. She was tired and overwhelmed.

I do understand this but often it's really hard to tell which kids have additional needs. When my DC were younger, even though they were non verbal by just glancing at them you might not know. The amount of stares, tuts and comments we got was awful (even though we were running around trying to manage the chaos). Now they're older they finally tolerate ear defenders and other signifiers of disability / aids and they have very obvious mannerisms etc - people give us so much more help in public now.

Do those kids exist? I have rarely seen 5+ kids behaving in the way you describe, apart maybe occasionally at soft play where apparently everything goes "because it's soft play".

And if it does happen, how do you know it's "clearly repeated behaviour", when you don't know them, their background, what might have happened that day...?

Some children don't look like they additional needs though so YABU.

My DD doesn't look like she has additional needs. But she does. And when she doesn't "behave" in public I've no doubt she looks like a "brat" to outsiders.

YNBU

There are always parents who come onto these threads and are very defensive because they are fed up of being judged for the behaviour of their SEND/ND child but you made it very clear that you weren't talking about those families.

I was in town this morning and a woman walked past with 2 boys, 1 about 7 or 8 and the other an older teen. The younger one had clearly been playing up and the mum was taking him home. He was tearful and she looked stressed. I caught her eye so smiled and made a comment on the lines of We've all had days like that. We exchanged a few words, they carried on their way and the teen said thank you as they went off.

I have every sympathy for parents in those situations where they're clearly either parenting a child with tricky behaviour or they have a child who is generally a good kid but is having a bad day. The key thing is that you can see that they are actively parenting the child.

What I can't stand is parents who allow their child's behaviour to affect others (eg by allowing them to run around noisily in a cafe or restaurant, which is both annoying to fellow customers and potentially dangerous) and don't bother doing anything about it.

So you are only talking about families where you know them well enough to know whether there is likely additional needs and what kinds of parenting goes on at home?

But perhaps you see a snapshot later in the day but in fact the child has been awake and been expected to behave without any breaks or suitable entertainment/distractions for hours.

Fgs can we just stop with all the excuses for bratty behaviour. Ops point is more about badly behaved kids with parents who don't give a shit rather than autistic kids having a bad day.
It's like everytime someone's older parent or spouse is being a nasty twat the question is always "could they have dementia?" No sometimes bad behaviour is just exactly that.