Surely you shouldn't let your toddler ROAR in a cafe?!

[Worrieditsamistake]

Sat here trying to block it out but good god it's hard! Cafe in question has a very small soft play area in the corner but is is definitely NOT a softplay cafe. It's quite busy and I would say 80% of customers do not have young children.

There are around four young children playing (all under 4 I'd guess) and a couple of women who I'm guessing are the mothers are sat on the table next to the play area.

The children are having fun and there is a lot of excited screaming, which is fine. But one of the boys has been stood for ten minutes literally roaring at the top of his voice. Little fists bunched up, arms back, leaning forward and ROARING. He's definitely not upset, it seems to be part of the game (they are playing monsters or something, and the other kids are running up to him, squealing in excotemt and running away again). The mother (I assume it is the mother) is smiling on indulgently.

WTF?? What has happened that allowing a child to roar continuously i a public place is OK??!

YANBU! I'm thinking of starting a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to buy hearing aids for the children in the area I live. It seems they are all hard of hearing, as they are constantly, and I mean constantly, screaming, bellowing and yelling at each other, even though just yards apart and don't get me started on the kicking a football against a wall, it's relentless!

Totally agree

There should be child free cafes

ND does not mean unable to learn or have that energy directed in other ways that don't disturb others.
^

Finally some sense spoken.

My DS (ASD) was a shreiker. It drove US nuts so we just avoided until we could address the issue.

Now both our DC just talk non stop 🙄.

I avoid cafes/restaurants with play areas for toddlers. People are constantly looking for them online & once publicly outed, they're inundated with mums with small kids looking for a parenting coffee break. Often the kids break out & come to my table. I've even had one wiping a snotty nose on my pants before I realised, or the parents noticed they were gone. 🤮

I grew up with my cousins because my siblings were much older.
My cousins were good out in public but they fought like cats & dogs at home - and my aunt & uncle let them.
Hitting, punching, kicking - all of it so violent, and for no reason other than just to be violent.
And they screamed at each other.
Once, I was staying the night and they began to fight and one cousin pushed the other backwards into a glass coffee table.
It was bizarre to me.
She ended up having to get dozens of stitches.
They grew up incredibly close, but watching them as children affected me.
My family just wasn’t like that.

If there's a play area for children then I'd expect there to be children, well, playing.
But anywhere, even somewhere 'child friendly' there's other people to consider and so many people just don't think they should.

But its not limited to children and parents, or a certain type of person as described up thread. I see it from so many people now, total self absorption with no regard for anyone else, and woe betide you request that they modify their behaviour to make a shared space enjoyable for everyone to use.

Yet if someone else impacts on their enjoyment, all hell breaks loose and there's tears and tantrums (and that's usually the adults) some people are so demanding of being tolerated for whatever it is they want to do, yet absolutely refuse to tolerate anyone else in that space if it inconveniences them or impacts them in the slightest.

I work somewhere that isn't particularly set up for children, but they are welcome with their parents, so many running riot, getting under wait staffs feet, shouting, banging, climbing on the furniture and ruining other people's experience - who complain, you say something and they create a scene that everyone else then complains further about and somehow this whole situation is my fault 🤷🏼‍♀️.

I'm not responsible for other people's behaviour or parenting, nor their reaction at being asked to behave decently in a shared space, but while other people affected by it take out their frustrations on the 3rd party, the people actually causing the problem are not having to face any concequences of their actions because someone else is taking the shit for it, and that's why it continues.

I'm sorry, but that is hilarious! And I'm someone who doesn't tolerate children very well.

Don't know if the pp you were quoting has answered, but I can certainly tell you I glare at parents if they don't make any attempt to rein in tantrumming kids. The number of times I see people just sitting on their phones while their kids run riot. Also, it isn't 'joyless' not to want to have to listen to children screaming and literally roaring for minutes at a time in a public place.

This is so true. If you're on holiday in one of those countries and you hear children shouting or screeching, it's usually British children, and that's embarrassing.

I have, in the pat, employed the ‘teacher look’ to good effect. Done properly, it can stop a child in its tracks.

Peak Mumsnet 🥇🏆

Roaring monsters or dinos? Can you not join in?
In a roar so big they instantly shut up.
Bonus points for t-rex hands.
Double bonus if you're in an Asda cafe.
Shouting at me in the supermarket | Mumsnet

A cafe with softplay in it is going to have noisy, over excited children playing and you are off your head if you think you are going to have a peaceful quiet time.

Go somewhere else thd next time.

But there is a reasonable middle ground, @GonnaeNoDaeThatJustGonnaeNo - of course there is going to be noise from children playing, but why can’t the level of noise be kept to a more moderate, indoor level?

The cafe isn’t just meant for families with small children - it is meant for other ages of customer too, and there needs to be compromise on both sides. The other patrons need to accept that, as the cafe does cater to young families, there will be a certain amount of noise, and the parents of the young children need to make sure that the noise their children make isn’t excessive, to the point of destroying other people’s enjoyment of the space.

I know you posted in chat, rather than AIBU, but you absolutely are NOT BU.

Proper parenting includes bring dc up to think about other people, and also to know there is a time and a place.
A lot of Nurseries and Infant schools talk about 'outside voices' and 'inside voices' which is a concept the smallest of dc understand.
What a shame these parents don't.

The trouble is not the children, the parents or the noise, the trouble is the equilibrium in society is not in balance.

This means that even though a large part of British society does not appreciate how many children behave, it seems that they don't feel comfortable showing this in day to day interaction. I suppose you might see this as a backlash to times when parts of British society was very much children should be seen and not heard.

In countries which are traditionally seen to be welcoming to children, say southern Mediterranean for example, you don't find whole swarths of adults who are silently seething at how the children are behaving. They are ok with the behaviour and if it crosses a line, which society as a whole agrees with, then this is clearly expressed by everyone.

Obviously where the line is drawn is dependent on many factors, but at the moment in a lot of the Uk, there is no common line. It's really a case that you can have one group which allows screaming children and floors covered in food and another who would prefer to not even acknowledge the presence of children at all.

Meh I agree and I don't. I think the fact they had a dedicated play area encourages wilder play and quite frankly children get loud when they play. The vast majority of cafes don't have that so you have plenty options to go to if you don't like it. In any other cafe that doesn't have this I would totally agree.
But then I do think Britain tends to be very unfriendly towards children behaving like children so I'm not surprised a lot of people agree with you.

Only in the UK are people this upset by the sound of children 😂

I don't mind children playing, talking, laughing

I object to screaming and shouting. Funny everyone says oh children are allowed to play, then I posted a video of the screaming and everyone went "Jesus no not like that"
It physically hurts and my garden is unusable without earplugs as they scream all bloody day

And you don't do it in the supermarket, cafe etc

A lot of children are left to parent themselves. Teachers too.

Some parents think their sole parenting job is to respect their DC and their needs.

My experience of French adults is that they are arrogant wankers who will make fun of your attempt to speak to them in their own language instead of being "that Brit" who only speaks English abroad.

They also have a culture of hiding disabled children away, which goes a long way towards the perception of French children as "better behaved".

I was in a massive queue in Boots the other evening and there were two kids screaming at the top of their voices whilst trashing the counter displays and throwing things around. Mum and dad stood there saying nothing. There is a huge play area just outside the shop, why in earth did one parent not take the kids outside while the other waited in line!

I don't get this either...two parents with no sense.

I was at a self service till a while back and a two year old was kicking, thrashing, trying to break the screens, the card maching etc - the security guard had to speak to the mother/grandma twice to say she couldn't let him do that and he was going to have to ask her to leave her shopping and calm him down...she had a teenager around 15 with her. She refused to leave and "calmly" went about her scanning, "ignoring the bad behaviour".

And do you know WHY the kid was screaming and kicking off?

"I WANT AN APPLE!!! GIVE ME AN APPLE!!! I WANT AN AAAAAAPPLE NOOOOWWWWW!"

Some old man said, "can you not just give him a bloody apple, love and shut him up?"

Best bit, not only did she have a bag of apples in her shopping, we were all right next to the sandwich meal deal section where she or the teenager or any one of us had she allowed us to help could easily have grabbed a treat bag of apple slices for 30p.

She said, "Absolutely not! He's already had an apple today and I'm not rewarding this behaviour!"

Ah, yes. Because it's SO much better parenting to let a child cause hundreds of pounds worth of damage, than give them a piece of fruit. Bravo, lady. Slow clap.

I'm sorry you went through that. The vet should be banning them though that wouldn't make your distressing experience any less distressing.