To wonder if talking to your child should take precedence over reading your book

[clemetteattlee]

I genuinely don't know how I feel about this one but it has been on my mind since yesterday (I am revising for exams so my mind is easily distractable at the moment) so I thought I'd see what you think.

At the cafe of the swimming baths with my daughter last night, waiting for my MIL and son to finish his lesson and come down. Next to us was a woman reading a novel and a child who must have been about eight or nine. For half an hour she read her book and didn't speak to him. He didn't have anything to do but equally wasn't playing up. He just stood there watching the world go by, occasionally scuffing his heels.

Now I am by no means the perfect parent - my daughter and I were playing drawsomeon my phone not having a deep chat, and when I am on holiday or at home I do get engrossed in a book and try and encourage my two to do something independently, but they are in an environment where there is stuff to do rather than in a grungy cafe with nothing to occupy them.

I am not judging this woman, who knows what her child/relationship/background is like, but I suppose I wondered if this is unusual behaviour, or maybe I just play "entertainer" to mine too readily?

I would expect my 8-9yo to read a book in that time. Or bring some homework or drawing or a ds and games. I'd remind them before we went out, and then I wouldn't feel bad about reading my book at all. I'd remember one of my favourite pieces of research that suggests that reading in front of your child is one of the best things you can do in terms of turning your children into keen readers. I know not all children are going to become keen readers, but I would expect them to have other ways of amusing themselves at this age.

Well, you posted in AIBU, and the content of your posts and the language used makes your view very clear. No matter how many times you say 'I'm not judging but....' - you actually are/were judging.

Mind reading across the miles ceeveebee. Impressive. Thanks to those who took the time to answer me politely and I will have a look at that book.

I think you are reading an awful lot into a brief snapshot of one moment in one family's day.
If it is possible to train your children not to expect to talk to you by reading I'd love to know how - I would be that Mum reading but extrovert DS who never stops would have been going on and on and on....DD wouldn't though.
It sounds much more as if she was happy reading,and he was happy thinking his own thoughts,which is a good thing.Leisure centres are terrible places for meaningful interaction anyway,or at least ours is - very loud.
Half an hour isn't long at all,he may have had an hours interaction before that and be heading for an evening packed with family activities afterwards!

Yes, as impressive as making a snap judgement on observing 30 minutes of behaviour in a cafe. I hope you enjoy the book, it is indeed very good.

"can you assume?"

Yes you can. Statistically a very tiny minority of children are neglected or abused. On balance, therefore, it's safe to assume that the child sat at the next table is not being abused or neglected unless there is something very definite to make you think that.

Impossible to know.

I have just finished studying social work, and i do not understand OP, How watching this mother and son for half an hour brought you to thèse conclusions, you are over analysing and bring unfair to people you dont know and being over critical over very little, that worrys me, If you do work in the social work field i hope you dont juste the familys you work with like this. You are being U

clemetteattlee Fri 15-Jun-12 10:00:38
"I didn't think you could judge it on 30 minutes but I was intrigued that every response assumed it was benign neglect. I don't know, no-one does, but can you assume?"

I think our point was that you shouldn't assume anything on such a short view. And if you read my last post carefully, non-benign neglect (=not being used to speaking to parent) was one of the possible options I did put in. I fully recognise that it could be one out of a great many possible explanations. But only one.

Unless you are Sherlock Holmes, there simply isn't a way you can look at a passing stranger and learn anything very useful about how she is. Proper investigations take a long time.

I have had a fair bit of acquaintance with SS (due to disability issues, not because I am a neglectful parent). And I have found it very reassuring that they look for the whole picture rather than speculating on one single piece of evidence.

Following on the "benign neglect" line of thought,I don't think letting your child sit with you for 30 minutes,looking around etc while you read (or talk,or do housework)and don't interact directly with them is neglect at all.Life is full of times which are less than 100% entertaining,you do have to spend time waiting for other things to happen,and as long as a child isn't distressed,and being ignored,I really don't see the problem.

Cogito I think that's why i asked. I WAS genuinely interested in whether other people do this. I don't because my children are not quiet types (whether from being overstimulated or not I have no idea). I have never seen it before because generally I am not in one place for very long or don't have the time to pay much attention to other people. As a former teacher and now a medic we are bombarded with safeguarding information and actually it can become quite difficult to get perspective on what is "normality". I have now found out, with some of the less defensive answers on here that this is completely usual for some families and works well for them.
I overcompensate with my children because I work stupidly long hours and I had a crappy childhood.
I think if we never asked the questions we would never have our views challenged and would never continue to get a better understanding of how society works.

I was raised in the seventies and although my mother made some mistakes one of the things she did teach me was to amuse myself and it is a skill that I use everyday . And one I've tried to pass on to my children.

Children don't need to be stimulated every moment of the day.

I can understand that if you yourself were brought up by a neglectful parent that makes you very anxious not to repeat the same mistakes- and also perhaps there is a small part of you that wishes that somebody could have caught sight of what was happening to you and done something about it.

But you have to recognise that there is also another side to this. Confident people brought up by non-neglectful parents will sometimes look almost the same. Some of them may have other stresses in their lives. Making assumptions about them really doesn't help anyone.

I'd say there are two kinds of silence:

companionable silence which springs out of many hours of shared happiness

and neglectful silence which springs out of not wanting to, or not knowing how to, connect to the other person

Oh and add to that a third: exhausted silence which is what you get when you've been up all night together in A&E (we are a little short on sleep this week)

Most of the time, when not talking, dc and me share companionable silences; silences where we are each thinking of our own thing but know at the same time that the other person would be there for us if needed. But exhausted silences are not unknown either.

Get you OP, blimey, YABU.

He is possibly a quiet kid, who likes quiet time with his mum, likes it when she is at peace, reading...and was probably more than content people watching and having this quiet, unspoken time with his mum

or maybe she wasnt his mum, and he was just a really chilled child with a nanny or carer whatever

goodness, if a kid and a grownup are judged like this when theyre chilling out in a cafe...whatever next?

what would you rather he was doing?!

plus he possibly had just been for a swim and was tired

as a kid, I LOVED quiet time, but it was very hard to find unfortunately

This would have been me and my charges yesterday and I'm sure that as a nanny I would have been judged much more harshly than if I was their mum!

7yr old charge had an after school activity and as always we went to the park in the short space of time between school and activity, she was tired and not in a chatty mood so we sat next to each other on a bench for 20mins without talking just watching her 3yr old brother, had she wanted to chat I of course would have been happy to and despite the fact that I know it looked like I was ignoring her I don't care what anyone else thought, she needed some wind down time where she could analyze her day by herself before the next activity, maybe this boy was the same and just needed some quite space. Fwiw on the way home from activity she was talkative and told me all about her day.

Traffic was horrendous so instead of dropping her at activity and going home like normal I decided to wait in the car, 3yr old charge was playing his own game in the back and had no interest in me so for the hour we were waiting I read my kindle, putting it down to interact with him on the couple of occasions he wanted to talk to me, he was in no way being ignored and I always have toys and books with me to keep him amused so would have happily spent an hour playing travel snakes and ladders or reading to him, but he was happy using his imagination to pretend he was on a submarine. To an observer I would have looked like a bad neglectful nanny who had no interest in her charges, in reality I had spent all day playing, painting, reading and cooking with him, he was happy to have some time to just be by himself.

I think all children need time to analyze and amuse themselves and constant adult stimulation in some ways stiffles their imagination, as a child and even as an adult I would make up stories about people in cafes/shops/car parks etc and could/can occupy myself for hours without the need for computers/tv/games consoles!

DD1 reads her book and doesn't talk to me, OK she's 14 and had nattered all round the shops.

Well done you for being such an 'involved' 'hands on' mother. Rolls eyes

OP, I think you should try just reading a book when with your DC in a similar situation. It's the only way to find out if it is something you're comfortable with or not.

FWIW, I think there's no wrong and what the woman did is normal, but if it's not for you, that is fine too.

YABU, if the child was not distressed or misbehaving, I don't see the problem with the mum getting on with reading her book. If he needed something, or wanted to chat, then surely at 9 years old he could have said so? Maybe he was perfectly happy to just daydream and watch the world go by, and even if not surely it won't actually harm him to be a bit bored for 30 minutes.

I haven't read the whole thread but the comment "Most days I only get about an hour to talk to my children so I suppose I feel like I need to make "every second count" when I'm with them." struck me.

I only get that sort of time to talk to my children in the day as well - but that doesn't mean that they want to talk to me.

DS (9) just wants/needs to switch off after his pretty full-on day and the last thing he wants is to be interrogated by me. If he has stuff to say, he will say it generally at bedtime when he is supposed to be going to sleep but that's his choice, and under similar circumstances to the OP he would be quite likely to just sit/stand quietly and would be grateful that I was reading a book and not expecting him to talk to me.

DD (5), OTOH, unless she is completely shattered, will go into "broadcast" mode the moment she gets out of school, having had to restrain herself from voicing every single thought all day (not that she isn't talkative at school, she is, but she does get made to let other people get a word in edgewise sometimes, which means she is not talking as much as she would like ) - I get a rehash of the entire day with intermingled questions/requests/demands to make sure I am not just making active listening noises. No chance that she would be being quiet while I read a book.

This is also me on a regular basis with my autistic 3 year old. DS loves going out to our local Costa. Once there, he doesn't want my interaction, he wants to study the traffic going past the window and drink his "frothy milk", leaving me to my own thoughts. He's not a child who shares his presence like most 3 year olds and is perfectly chilled and happy. We have plenty of other opportunities in the day for working on his interaction, and he is far from ignored.

I have often wondered if others in the shop are judging me for seemingly making no effort to talk to my child...

hahaha

I remember doing this when ds (pfb) was very little

I saw a woman in Sainsbos with a tiny in the trolley, and, do you know, she wasn't talking to him? Nor did she keep up a commentary on everything she was putting into the trolley, or even give him a red and a green pepper to compare/chew

I recall actually phoning my mum up to tell her all about it and about how appalled I was

I am now, thankfully, beyond that stage. And if any of mine would sit, calmly watching people, alone and happy in their own thoughts while I read a book, I would be fucking delighted

I'm on mn now. 1 year old is fully occupied with shape sorter, 2 year old playing Lego alone. It's not quite midday yet but we have been to a music class, to the library and back via the park. We did a multitude of puzzles together at 7am this morning. Throughout the last 5 hrs they have been awake the have be sung to, talked to and enjoyed each others company.

They at now amusing themselves for half hour whilst I catch up on emails and then make lunch.

They hate not having alone time where they can just do their thing

Do they sound neglected?