AIBU to be fed up with screaming children in the supermarket?

This is why people hate gentle parenting 🤣. Well done for using constraint to help your darlings self regulate, but while they are learning to self regulate how about some consideration for those of us in your immediate vicinity? The world does not revolve around you.

Well done for finally getting that it is not the occasional tantrums that people are referring too.

The screaming children thing on here confuses me. I've literally never been anywhere where all the children were screaming.

Anyway next time I go to Tesco I'll just lock the weans in the car boot and hope for the best.

My town must be something of an outlier: here, screaming kids seem to be more of an issue in Waitrose than in Tesco.

It's possible that it just seems that way though, as my local Tesco is a lot bigger than the Waitrose and doesn't get as crowded.

If there’s ever a screaming or whining child behind me in the supermarket queue, I turn on my Scary Eyes. Very effective they are, too. 😈

You went to the shop at the time of day when the parents have finished work and the kids are just out of nursery and after school club…they are tired.

Yes, but not all parents with small kids do this. 🤷‍♀️

YABU for expecting good behaviour from children anymore. There are all kinds of reasons and research that support their need to scream, tantrum, scoot around shops and all kinds of other antisocial crap.
It's the way of the world now 🤷🏾‍♀️.

I am fed up with screaming children in supermarkets, shops, buses, trains, and coffee shops!

I know children can't help it but what annoys me is the parents who make no attempt to try to calm their kids down and/or distract them.

That's my issue.

I remember being on a bus with a screaming child old enough to be told to calm down and both parents were sitting there playing with their phone and just letting it happen.

Then because people on the bus were turning around to see why the child kept screaming the parents started mouthing off and having a go at them for looking at their child! an argument started with several of the passengers, including an elderly lady and the father threatened to start punching people.

That's an extreme example but it shows that some parents these days don't give a damn about trying to pacify their kids and teaching them how to behave and just expect people to put up with it.

So I have a lot of sympathy for parents who do their best but none for the lazy, entitled ones.

I agree with you op. And it’s not about ‘regulation’, what bullshit.

There is a difference between a genuinely distressed child (which should be relatively unusual given that the parent should’ve prepared properly for a shopping trip so a child isn’t ill, hurt, hungry, thirsty, overwhelmed etc) and a child just making noise at the top of its lungs for fun, or screaming because it’s never learned the word no.

The majority of the screaming I am forced to hear around Tesco is 90% the result of gormless and inconsiderate parenting.

You can easily move away from the performative parent - the screaming child can be heard across the biggest supermarkets. Last time it was about a five year old wanting a gun, the child tantrumed for a good 10 min about no being allowed a gun, now that could have been taken outside, it eventually was but it was bloody painful. Time before that it was primary school age kids screaming and running around a supermarket, it's not a playground. It's not acceptable - they should have been taken outside.

Exactly, it’s like getting annoyed because a 2 month old baby is crying, no shit Sherlock, babies cry. Toddlers throw tantrums. If it’s bad behaviour and parents aren’t doing anything then ok I can understand being annoyed, but bad behaviour and temper tantrums are completely different

How do parents ‘just allow’
how do you stop a child who is mid tantrum? What punishment or threat or clever technique works?
other than moving away from the place - people need to eat food though so sometimes just leaving the food shop isn’t possible. No one is more stressed by a screaming child than a parent.
(unless you’re talking about playful silly screaming in which case I agree they should be reminded about which volume of voice to choose when inside)

Supermarkets should have adult only days where we can go shopping without being tormented by screaming brats.

No, children can’t pick and choose when to self regulate, even yours

I guarantee you that retail staff are more fed up because it’s probably the 12th little darling we’ve had to endure in a day.

I’d rather screaming than the ‘performative parent’ treating the shop as a learning experience/ opportunity to tell everyone what an amazing diet their kids have.

Work in a supermarket and am normally fine with noise but totally yes to this some days- it’s like it’s a playground with kids screaming, happily or having meltdowns. There was one day I faked having to go to the bathroom and sat upstairs for a few minutes with the worst headache.

I get that you don’t want things to disintegrate further sometimes or you’re afraid that people might judge, but sometimes it’s hard to take. The worst is when it’s happening and there’s a family and you’re thinking please take the child out but both parents still stand in the queue and then unpack and pack with the kids going mad around them. I know we all want kids to experience everything but I do agree that sometimes kids should stay home with the other parent or the parent should go while the kids are in school for example

I’m hoping they’re gone back to school. Supermarkets are not playgrounds.

You are very lucky! These days I can't get on a bus,or go in a supermarket or cafe/coffee shop without there being at least one screaming kid. I was on a bus today when a child getting on walked past me and let out the most ear piercing screech just as she was level with my ear. Not a baby,or even a toddler who probably wouldn't know better,but a child of about 4 or 5. When I jumped,her mother just laughed. Ha ha ha very funny.

Sounds like hell op I’m with you.

All these people banging on about ND kids and the OP "needing" a drink.

What if the OP is ND? It is very hard on a ND person no matter what age you are, and triggers (and self soothing) often changes with age.

ETA after a bit of googling, alcohol use is a known self soothing mechanism in older or undiagnosed autistic people.

@Njuy can’t believe other people’s screaming children drove you to drink! You are obviously already on the tip of the iceberg and just needed a gentle push.

When I see children distressed in the supermarket, I always see the parents parenting hard. Children get upset sometimes and are loud. It doesn’t mean their parents are shit.

They can self regulate at home. I had 3 and only once did one of them carry on in a supermarket. They didn't scream while playing in the garden either. There's absolutely no need.