AIBU to expect kids to keep their hands to themselves?!

[crapistan]

Over the last week, I've had a kid of about 6 poking at my cellophane-wrapped chicken on the conveyor belt in the supermarket while queuing to pay. Her mum said nothing, and when I told her not to touch please she looked at me and carried on until I physically removed her hands.

Then my friend's 5 year old kept picking up my nice and fragile Christmas candle holders, despite being told several times to leave them alone.

Then....at school I had to supervise a group of 5 and 6 year olds for about 10 minutes who WOULD NOT leave the Christmas tree in the room alone. They started taking all the decorations off and seemed very affronted when I told them to put them back and NOT TOUCH THE TREE! (Apart from my dd who would not have dared and would not have been suprised to be shouted at if she did!)

My dcs are not angels by any means but they know they are not allowed to touch everything! AIBU to expect kids of this age to be able to keep their hands to themselves? Or am I stricter than most about this?

Diamond - soo right!

Ahh that amount of children in DD's class (Class 1) this week who have come out of school and headed straight for a HUGE puddle in the playground (literally about 8inches deep) and splashed each other and ended up completely soaked, with parents looking at each other and shrugging their shoulders and not knowing what to do! Or do the whole 'Oh darling Rosie, I know that you love swimming around in puddles, but darling Mummy really doesnt want to do another load of washing when I get home. Also darling, you are going to make the car a little bit wet and that wouldnt be very good would it? Har har'

DD has run with her friends and got to the edge, but as soon as I shout 'MiniKate, NO! Get out!' - she legs it back to me and wouldn't go back in. The other parents look at me as though Im completely evil!

I think a lot parents think that if they say 'No' to their child, their child will hate them forever and never forgive them - so instead they give them a whole lengthy speech on why they shouldnt do something.

OP - I completely understand the annoyance and you are NBU.
My own DD's love fiddling around with things and touching things (What child doesnt?!) but if they did it in the supermarket to someone elses food, if the owner of the food even looked at them, they would snatch their hands away sharpish! I would be pretty horrified if, after being asked by a stranger, they ignored them!

And also the same with the Christmas-Tree-Fiddlers; most children, when asked not to do something by a stranger, wouldn't question it and would stop immediately - just because its a stranger and they are probably slightly scared to argue.

Very strange thread.

I don't agree with you removing the childs hand but then I don't have a chicken prodder.

But that is the opposite of what I am talking about, esta. I am talking about what is done to someone and how we can't decide whether or not they should be bothered about what is done to them (or their stuff)

You are reversing that and talking about qualifying it in terms of what people do TO other people. That's a different thing and wasn't what I was talking about.

I was talking about how people feel about what is done to them. You can't decide how someone should feel about what is done to them. If what someone does to them is a problem to them - it's a problem.

I am sorry that I wasn't clear.

DD1 is a compulsive fiddler. Seems to come bundled up in the lack of social awareness that goes with her dyslexia, she's not great at personal space and will admire jewellery etc by touch as well as words. Candle holders would defiantly be fair game, tree less so (I collect glass ornaments and she's well trained).
She might poke a chicken without thinking, I'm certain much of her fiddling is not conscious, but she'd stop for another adult.
DD2 would have told her off, before you noticed.

lol OP,
'Judging by the defiant look on her little face', as if yes she was really just thinking evil thoughts and needed telling off, lol

Honestky, I've been though it all, people tutting and rudely asking me to tell my child to stop, if he's tapping or making clicking noises.

People shouldn't just assume it's rudeness, there may be reasons they're acting that way, and that telling them not to do a compulsion can cause a meltdown, would they prefer that?

It causes massive stress and uncomfortableness for me when people get annoyed with my son.
It's hard.

I use distraction of course, but I'm sure people are thinking ;oh for gods sakes why doesnt she tell him off'.
Well that's an ASSumption that he would understand a telling off.

Him being mentally different is just parental laziness right? That's what people seem to think

I'm sorry your son has autism fred. I imagine you must feel extremely protective of him. My boys don't have autism but I hate it when other people chastise them - however, I accept that it is for my children's benefit and I would not be doing them any favours to indulge my own feelings of wanting to make the world a super lovely place for them all the time.

SN or not, hecate is right - your son has to find his place in the world and that includes learning that poking other people's stuff results in them getting cross and saying so. Better to start that process as young as possible than let him out into the world as an adult or teenager who still doesn't know. You can't always be there with him and while most people would tolerate a poky 6 year old within reason, an awful lot of people are going to get angry at a poky adult with no obvious disability.

I would usually not be bothered about my dcs jumping in puddles. But, if I did not want them to do it one time for whatever reason, I would tell them NO and expect them not to. I might give them a short explanation, if they asked.

I'd have moved the chicken.

And given the mother A Look.

My son put his arms around a stranger and squeezed/hugged her the other day. Luckily the woman didn't tell him off or anything, thank god, but I tried to explain to him (knowing that he wouldnt understand). I explain things to him in public for others peoples benefit mostly to make it looks like I'm 'taking action to stop his annoyingness' lol Seems to satisfy others a bit more

Oh and I've had the looks from other parents because I'll shout at DD1 before she gets into something she shouldn't. You can't win.

Himynameisfred - quite apart from anything else, what about the health implications for your child if he started poking a raw chicken? Even in cellophane you cannot guarantee that the outside of the packaging is free from contamination, and if your son touches the chicken and then puts his hand in his mouth, he could get a nasty dose of something very unpleasant like salmonella.

And to be honest, I cannot see that there is any difference between "Don't touch that, please", which is what the OP said, and "Don't poke that, darling", as you suggest.

I think that it is also pretty fair to say that it is unlikely that the child concerned has a level of autism similar to your ds - it is far more likely that she had no social boundaries and was simply rude enough to carry on touching someone else's shopping after having been asked nicely to stop. And that's her parents' fault. My dses didn't go round prodding other people's shopping, and would have got a sharp, "Stop that now" if they had. And that is what some of parents of NT children aren't doing, imo. Yes, your ds's needs are different, but you can't expect the world to know what his needs are just by looking at him, so you have a heavier responsibility to keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't do things that overstep the social norms. As another poster said, he does need to learn these things if he is to have any independance at all.

Yeah, telling off doesn't always work. I had to go for physical intervention at all times when mine were little. Neither of them understood verbal instructions. And then when they were older and did understand, they didn't give a shit (youngest still doesnt and he's 11!)

Is yours still little enough to get chucked over your shoulder? when mine were little, I used to have to do the fireman's lift thing and carry them off. With them screaming and trying to bite me.

But needs must, and when you've got to get them the hell out of somewhere, it's the lesser of two evils, isn't it?

They're as big as me now, so I've lost that advantage

I've had that too startail, don't really care these days.

A child giving me a random hug wouldn't bother me in the least, I would think it was very sweet.

Believe me, the poky girl knew exactly what she was doing! Why does everything end up in a SN discussion?

How do you know the girl knew that she was just being naughty or causing annoyance?

I don't think you really did much wrong, I'm just tired and recalling times when strangers have treated my son like he's naughty and assumed I'm a bad parent.

Anyway, going out, byee.

Sorry for my pissed off posts, you wouldn't take it personally here in AIBU? surely? hopefully not, lol

Himynameisfred. You are doing your son absolute no favours, you do realise that?

And this thread is not about your son,it's about the child whose mother clearly didn't give a toss that her child was doing something deeply annoying.

Urgh to the nappy changing on the conveyor belt OP,just urgh.

bucharest, I doubt you have much idea.
You wouldn't tell your child off in ancient arabic would you?
I redirect my child in those situations.

Indeed, I could hardly look.

Mine can be both terrible fiddlers at times and dd1 has Aspergers but if they were to touch somebody's shopping I would tell them not to and would apologise.

Can understand children finding it hard to leave a tree alone, although I think most would stop touching it if they were told not to at school.

At the nappy-changing I mean.

Whatever happened to, 'Look with your eyes, not with your hands.'

I still find myself pressing my arms flat to my body when I walk through the glassware/crockery bit in John Lewis.

Blame the parent, not the child

Several posters on here give examples where they blame the parent for not pulling the children up on touching other people's stuff. However, DD has a good friend who, up until she was about 10 or 11, would always pick up stuff without asking when she came round to our house. DD's mobile, DH's mobile, ornaments that took her fancy. I wouldn't mind if she said "Can I have a look?" but she didn't.

Thing is I know her Mum quite well and there is no way she would be allowed to get away with that when either of her parents were there. In fact, they have told her off for it when she does it when they are there.

She grew out of it eventually

Himynameisfred - I can absolutely understand you being upset when people tut at your son for clicking or tapping things - I wouldn't let that bother me, and I would be really touched if a child came up to me and gave me a hug. And if your ds was having a meltdown in the shop, I smile sympathetically at you, and make some comment about children not enjoying shopping, in a friendly way.

I was just coming back on to apologise for my snippynes. But actually, I'll tell you to fuck off instead, you just carry on justifying your own behaviour.

Don't you dare presume to tell me what I have ideas about.

Like many have said. It's the parents, not the child. You have quite clearly proved that one.

Agree, walking through there with my dcs sends my blood pressure up. If you see a red-faced woman with 3 dcs in John Lewis repeating "look with your eyes only!", you'll know who she is....

himynameisfred I wouldn't bat an eyelid if your son came up to me and hugged me!

I think it's awful that parents with children with SN end up apologising for their children. I'm pretty tolerant of any behaviour from a child if I suspect it is down to SN. And despite 'invisible disabilities' I think it is quite often possible to recognise a child who has an SN like autism because there are quite often 'classic' behaviours. Aren't there?

This has reminded me of a time when DD was a baby in a pram and a girl with DS was cooing over her in the pram. No touching, she was just doing what everyone else does when they see a baby. I was smiling and telling her DD's name, she was telling me she was a lovely baby. (Which she was ).

I felt awful when her mum came over and shuffled her away with a "I'm so sorry" to me and a "you can't fuss people's babies" type comment to her. I tried saying it was ok and she was just looking but her mum wasn't listening. I was a bit

However, I do agree that every conversation can't end up as a "but what if he/she had SN". Whether the girl in OP did, or not, is irrelevant. Once it was obvious Crapistan didn't want her chicken prodded, the other mother should have stepped in. Then Crapistan wouldn't have had to take any other action.