Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

To Be Annoyed about this (Poss SN) Childs Behaviour

999 replies

fantasticfanjo · 28/12/2012 13:32

Ok so we went to The Panto last night which wasn't a cheap night out with the tickets costing £100 + for 4 of us.

We were sat 4 seats in with a family of 4 occupying the end 4.

The Father of other the family preceded to lift his DS aged about 10/11 over the seats (spare) to the row in front so he could get a better view and was now sat directly in front of my DP.

This child then spent the entire performance jumping up and down on the seat in front,shouting loudly for sweets,flapping arms,banding his head with his shoes which he'd taken off and generally distracting everyone around him. To give the father credit he did repeatedly tell the child to shut up /sit down and threaten him etc.

Although My experience of ASD is quite limited, I'm assuming the boy was on the Autistic spectrum and although the panto is a family performance and I expect to be disturbed by kids needing a wee,rustling sweets etc AIBU to be pissed off with our evening be ruined especially seeing the boy could have been seated on the end of the aisle where he would have disturbed others less ?

OP posts:
IneedAsockamnesty · 28/12/2012 15:35

Yabu.

But I'm quite interested in how you would explain to my LF ASD children that arm flapping and making odd noises is considered bad behaviour and this means they shouldn't attempt to enjoy things as a family that other family's enjoy.

pigletmania · 28/12/2012 16:05

Yabu this boy has sn that he cannot help, he is not just being naughty. Therefore we have to have a little more understanding and compassion. It's Mabey his way of enjoying the panto, should we have to keep them indoors and not take them out Hmm. society is made of different people how are children supposed to accept people with special needs if their parents cannot. My dd 5 has ASD and I do no take her to a pantomime/cinema as she cannot sit still, does not like the dark or loud unpredictable sounds.

Mabey t dad should have moved to the end of a row something, bu noway should they be asked to go if that boy is enjoying it.

CaptChaos · 28/12/2012 16:08

If this had happened at a performance of Shakespeare, I might be inclined to have a better opinion of this whole thing, although probably not. It was a panto, yes? You spent lots of money. I'm assuming that the family you are describing paid the same amount for their tickets, so that's a red herring.

Did you bother to talk to the family, ask them if they could move him to the end of the aisle? Or did you, like so many other people like you, sit there with your lips pursed, tutting the whole way through? Did the seat at the end of the aisle have a forcefield around it to dampen the noise and keep the child in his seat? Since when did a father threatening his child become a good thing to do?

Thanks for your post OP, it's confirmed my belief that we did the best thing possible in not taking our ASD DS2 to anything like this, the tutting in supermarkets is bad enough, but we don't have to pay £100 for the privilege!

Allonsy · 28/12/2012 16:35

Tbh you dont really know if the boy was asd at all sounds like exactly the way ds1 would act hes 7 with sensory processing difficulties. Hes a sensory seeker and taking him anywhere is almost impossible, christmas has made things especially difficult lots more unknown going on, people, excitment, things changing in shops and lots of lights and sparkles and hes flapping alot at the moment.
Perhaps he wasnt on the end of an aisle as he may run off? maybe he was put on the row infront so he had space around him, id have more sympathy for the op if the parents wernt trying to do anything to stop him but they were, its very very difficult and the parents were probably mortified.

Redstockingswillstopsanta · 28/12/2012 16:39

Sad Angry

pigletmania · 28/12/2012 16:40

If the child is showing signs of distress and upset ten yes the parents should take them out. But if te child is happy then why should they be taken out.

DozyDuck · 28/12/2012 16:42

Can't be bothered with this thread anymore. Shows all the reasons why life is so fucking hard for us. Not because of DS but because of horrible judgemental disablist people like OP

Moominsarehippos · 28/12/2012 16:46

Pantos are like bear pits anyway. You expect kids to get all over excited and leap around and make a lot of noise. I'm not sure why the parents decided that sitting a high octane child in a separate row was a good idea if they spent the rest of the evening trying to calm him down and threatening him. Odd behaviour from the parents.

HECTheHallsWithRowsAndFolly · 28/12/2012 16:57

The truth is -and it is a hard one - the world does not give a shiny shit about our kids. It doesn't see their needs as more important or taking priority over their s and most people you encounter will be nice and undedstanding exactly up to the point that it impacts on them and theres no point pretending otherwise. This is the world we live in, this is the world our kids live in - one that would really rather they werent aound.
Shitty? Yes. But that's the reality of it.
And we have to teach our kids to function in it, and when they can't, we have to be their buffer. The ones who stand between them and a world that doesn't give a fuck and protect them. And to me that means removing them, seeing when other people are having their experiences ruined, understanding that people are hostile and that our kids @are nobodys problem but ours and also remembering that other people do matter too.
Do I wish it was different? Hell yes. I'd love to live in a world where my kids didn't get sneered at, laughed at or excluded, but that world doesn't exist. And if that makes me sound bitter, then I'm sorry.
But what I am not sorry about is protecting my children by ensuring as far as possible that their behaviour doesn't give other people excuse to sneer, laugh or yell or to look down their noses or tell me my kids shouldnt be outside.

zzzzz · 28/12/2012 16:59

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

misterwife · 28/12/2012 17:01

We're all reacting like the boy in question was on the autistic spectrum, when that hasn't actually been confirmed. I know zillions of people affected by ASD and 'jumping up and down on a seat' isn't a 'stim' I've ever seen. It might have been but it's not likely.

Having said that, although I normally come down on the side of the disciplinarians I can't here. It's a panto and kids are supposed, even allowed, to be noisy and vocal at pantos. It's the one theatrical context where it's OK to do that.

HECTheHallsWithRowsAndFolly · 28/12/2012 17:09

Flapping his arms and banging his head with his shoes are more stim like though.

manicinsomniac · 28/12/2012 17:30

Hard to judge just from a description of the experience but, if the disruption was really to a point where it made it impossible to enjoy a £100+ family trip then YANBU, no child should be allowed to cause that much upset and annoyance to others around them.

The responsibility is all the parents' though, not the child's. I really don't understand why one parent didn't take the child out and leave the other parent with their other child so that not all their money was wasted.

On the other hand if none of you said anything to the family maybe they didn't realise how annoying it was (if they are used to it?)

Your description of the child doesn't necessarily suggest he was autistic at all to me though. In your title you say 'poss SN'. He could just have been an over excited child who maybe looks older than he is (I know an excitable 8 year old who looks about 11) - that would explain the threats from the father.

Journey · 28/12/2012 17:38

I think the thing that would have irritated me the most is the reaction of the parents. Surely threatening the child isn't going to stop the behaviour if he is autistic.

If the boy was just being naughty and didn't have any sn then they should have left the pantomime.

MovingOnNow · 28/12/2012 17:47

Oh dear. To be fair yanbu to feel a bit out put out if your experience was ruined. But, I probably think, get over it. When you have a child with SN, people being peed off and judgemental is part of every day life. Even a trip to the local shops can be a flaming nightmare. So maybe turn it around and think thank god I don't have to go through that every day of my life. You really don't know until you know what it is like.

cinnamonnut · 28/12/2012 17:52

Everyone is saying the family deserved to have a nice time, but surely so did the OP?!

cinnamonnut · 28/12/2012 17:53

And let's not forget we can't exactly diagnose SN just from the first post.

shockers · 28/12/2012 18:12

If the boy was just being naughty and didn't have any sn then they should have left the pantomime.

Or made him sit next to them so they didn't need to discipline over someone's head!

MNHQ
LittleTownofBethleHelenMumsnet · 28/12/2012 18:15

Evening. Thanks for the many reports of this thread.

We'd just like to clarify a few things.

While we're happy to accept that the OP has limited knowledge of SN behaviours (if indeed the child she's describing did have SN), we would regard any post that states or suggests that a disabled child should be removed from a theatre as disablist - and we would delete it.

AmberLeaf · 28/12/2012 18:15

The descriptions from the OP ring bells with lots of us parents of children with ASD here. So I don't think anyone is diagnosing as such.

There is no reason why the behavior of this boy should've infringed on the OP and her families enjoyment of the panto, if it were a bunch of excited 6 year old girls giggling she wouldn't have even posted, but because it was one of those 'wierd kids' she did.

And we have to teach our kids to function in it, and when they can't, we have to be their buffer. The ones who stand between them and a world that doesn't give a fuck and protect them. And to me that means removing them, seeing when other people are having their experiences ruined, understanding that people are hostile and that our kids @are nobodys problem but ours and also remembering that other people do matter too

I get you.

However, I always think of the day when I won't be here to be my sons buffer.

My son needs to learn to be himself confidently.

My son is not the problem.

Other peoples lack of empathy is the problem.

One day my son will have to navigate this world by himself, Id rather spend my spare time attempting to educate society to please, please just make room for people who are not like you.

My son has a place in society.

Pantomimedam · 28/12/2012 18:21

Indeed your son has a place in society. But it would help children with behaviours that may cause a reaction in strangers if their parents could help to moderate their behaviour in theatres - somewhere where people are trying to pay attention to the stage, not other members of the audience.

(And of course there are plenty of potentially irritating people in the audience who do not have SN - sweetie wrapper rustlers, people who leave their mobile on, seat kickers... worst I've had is a couple having sex in the cinema. Although I couldn't blame them, it was the first of the new Star Wars films and it was bloody boring.)

Pantomimedam · 28/12/2012 18:22

I'm sure 9/10 of parents do try to help their children behave appropriately, btw, but it seems the parents of the boy in the OP did not.

HecateQueenofWitches · 28/12/2012 18:36

I'm too scared, amber. I shield them from everyone. I even stop them trying to chat to people. I teach them essential interactions eg shop, etc, but I am so scared of how the world treats them that I constantly stand guard. Maybe that's why I won't allow anything that other people might feel disturbed about. I can't bear the looks they get. Breaks my heart. And it seems totally contradictory to my belief that I must teach them to function in this world but function to me means carry out essential tasks in a socially appropriate way. I can't bring myself to let them 'out' into the world. I'm too scared for them. What if people are cruel? Or use them? Or abuse them? You even hear of kids like ours being killed. I know I'm ridiculous!

HecateQueenofWitches · 28/12/2012 18:38

I'm a total hypocrite, I know. What my head knows is right is totally at odds with what my heart screams at me

LynetteScavo · 28/12/2012 18:50

If the child was bothering you, and could have sat elsewhere you should have addressed it with the parents at the time.

Different people parent differently. This wasn't great parenting, but no one ever starts a thread about the child who although had SN was behaving impeccably because their parent was just excellent and was handling a situation brilliantly.

Which probably happens a lot more than you realise.