was i right to tell my ds not to apologise to this woman??

[mummyjs]

my ds (4) and i were in the chemist waiting for a prescription.
my ds was stood by the door pressing the button to open it for people to come in and out and smiling at them and chatting away, people were saying than you and he was smiling and saying your welcome ect.
Anyway this older lady came in and he opened the door for him and she gave him a horrible look and barged past him. He said to her 'its nice to say thank you', which is something i drill into him so i suppose its my fault in a way. anyway she shouted at him 'how dare you speak to a adult that way' and then told me that i should control him and make him say sorry to her.
I have to admit my back was put up by the nasty tone in her voice and told her that i would not tell him to apologise, he was right, its rude not to say thank you and that a woman of her age should not need a lesson in manners from a 4 year old.
anyway she barged back out saying something along the lines of parents who dont control their kids ect.
was i being unreasonable? if he had of said anything rude to her then of course i would have made him say sorry, but i honestly dont think he was the rude one in this??

I do agree with Birdsgottafly. Op, sometimes people do get upsetting news at the doctors or are overwhelmed with the enormity, severity and longevity of their condition or illness. I have left my gp crying and scared over fairly minor issues. You as a grown up should understand this and let it go. You really should have let it go before you left the chemist.

'its nice to say thankyou' is not a rude thing to say. Unless you think it was rude just because he's 4, which is a little ageist isn't it? Or does that only apply to grumpy old people?

YANBU in the slightest - I don't think what your son said was rude (depends how he said it of course) but you obviously don't think it was said in a rude way at the time, so it probably wasn't.

Can't believe other people are saying he was rude - he's 4 - give him a break!! He's just learning and repeating what he has (quite rightly) been taught. And if other people were thanking him, I imagine he was probably just a bit confused about why she didn't thank him.

Yes it's embarrassing to be reminded to be polite, but FFS she was the grown up in this scenario and should have responded like one. I think you were totally justified not to apologise to her! I would have done the same.

I think it is a rude thing to say to any stranger regardless of age. At 4 he is still learning so it is up to his mum to now explain why it isn't nice and sometimes we have to keep thoughts to ourselves.

One other thing, have you considered the possibility she misheard him? My hearing is atrocious, well I am 43. I constantly mishear things.

Age doesn't make you incapable of saying thank you does it? I don't understand whit, if someone does something for you then you wouldn't thank them, it's common courtesy no matter what age, it's certainly expected of a 4 year old.

hi mummy

If I had walked into a chemist and was greeted by a 4 year old who said that to me I would be absolutely horrified and think how incredibly rude he was. You keep telling us, "he didn't know what he was saying...." But he clearly did seeing as he said it in an appropriate context. My niece is 4 and she would never say anything like that to anybody, adult or child. She hasn't learnt the 'art' of sarcasm yet and if I was the lady in question, I would be more horrified at his ability to be sarcastic than what he actually said. If he is clever enough to come up with that line, he's clever enough to understand the basic concept of not being rude.

She genuinely may not have known he opened the door for her. It may have been her first time there and not known the doors could be opened electronically from the inside. If I approached a door that suddenly opened I would assume they worked on sensors, my first thought wouldn't be to scan the area to see if a child had activated them for me. I know you said the doors were glass but if the button was a meter away and not something that had a flashing neon 'push me to open the doors' sign above it then there is no reason to assume she may not have seen it. Especially if her mind was distracted by news she'd had from then GP.

If it had been me in this situation and I knew the child had opened the door for me I wouldn't necessarily say thank you because I would assume he was doing it for his own amusement, because he liked playing the doors and not because he was having the thought concept of, "I'm going to be helpful for other people." And like I said, if a child then spoke to me like yours did I would have been astounded.

However, I would not have shouted/snapped at the child. I would though be glaring at the mother and would fully expect to be apologised to and see the child chastised for having said what he did. I wouldn't have stormedmputmthemchemistmthough, I'd probably have started a full loan row with you after having been shouted at! I can understand why she scarpered though, how utterly humiliating for her.

So, in my opinion, YANBU for being shocked and unhappy that the woman snapped at your son and I don't think you were BU for letting his push the button, there's no harm in it if he can't hurt himself and the shop doesn't have a problem with it. However, I do think the way you dealt with it was wrong, but it was probably your knee jerk reaction at wanting to protect your son, which I can understand.

We all mistakes though, I'm sure you have spoken to your son now and hopefully you will never have to be in this situation again

Maybe she just thought it was an automatic door, or thought that an unsupervised child pressing a button was hardly a grandiose act of altruism that demanded her gratitude and respect.

She was rude but so was your DS. If she hasn't said anything, would you have pulled him up on his manners? Probably not... so he would have probably done it again! He's learnt something, nobody got hurt.

I am gobsmacked that some of you think the OPs son was rude!
Regardless of your age or circumstances, not thanking someone for opening a door for you is rude.

TBH if I'd opened the door for someone and they didn't say thankyou, I'd want to call them out on it too, but being an adult I don't because I know rude people will generally react aggressively.
OPs DS didn't know that, so he said what all of us would think out loud! Hardly rude.

You lot only consider it "rude" behaviour because us grown-ups can't do it ourselves for fear of reprisal from actual rude people, so we make ourselves feel better by saying that we don't do it because it's not polite.

I don't think either of you came out of it particularly well tbh. If I'd missed your DS and he'd said that I'd have probably said "oj sorry, thank you" and if I'd have been you I'd have said "I'n sorry, we always say that to him, funny what they repeat isn't it?" with a nice (not PA or anything) smile.

(Also, why are so many of you using precocious as an insult? He doesn't sound particularly precocious anyway, he sounds abour rhe same as four year olds I know with the copying what's said and wanting to be grown up and helpful).

There is a shocking attitude to older people on here.
I am out and about a lot. I open doors for people, step aside to let people go past,pick up things they have dropped etc etc.
Ime the same level of rudeness is spread across the ages.

I just walked home from dropping DD at school. I stepped aside to let mums and their DC go past about five times and got one thank you. One woman with two small children glared at me.

Do I assume all mums of primary age children are fucking rude? No, because that would make me a twat looking to secure my own prejudices by only noticing that which would support it.

Most of those on this thread will be over 50 one day. I hope you rue the way you add to the way women in this group are treated with casual contempt all the bloody time.

I wouldn't have let him play with the door in the first place, either. She shouldn't have shouted at him, but I can totally see why she'd be annoyed at a 4 year old telling her about her manners, and if she was of an irritable disposition, having a bad day, or just not in the mood, I can see why she'd snap.

Had it been me, I think I'd have said 'riiiight' -if I'd not said 'thank you' to humour him, which would be the reason to say it, not out of gratitude. He was a child messing with a button, not standing there opening the door politely.

She was a bit unreasonable to shout, and I would probably not have ordered him to say sorry - the only defence is 'sorry, he's only little and he didn't mean to be rude'. So she was a bit unreasonable, but I think you were more unreasonable to let him mess with the door, and he was being annoying.

Look. 4 year olds should not be correcting the manners of total strangers. I just can't imagine why anyone would think this was even remotely OK.

I don't think anyone comes out if this particularly well. And the ageist comments are depressing but par for the course. Mumsnetters are particularly unpleasant about older women.

"There is the generational issue here. Whether we like it or not people of a certain age were raised at a time when people were respected just because of their age and children didn't comment on the manners of grown ups"

Er- I think the OP said she was in her 50s. So brought up in that era of respect and deference we call "the 60s"!!!!!

Miaow I love your post!

Do people rally think the four year old was being rude? That is just assuming his "thank you, nice to see you today" had a sarcastic tone to it because the lady didnt say thank you.

I'm sure at 4 children do not have the same thinking process surrounding things like this as adults do. My dd at 7 would not have the sophisticated adult thought process to come out with some thing like this. a four year old certainly wouldn't be thinking and responding in this way. He was playing a game and mimicking what would normally be a polite exchange between people, only the lady didnt say thank you, he still played his role in the process.

He was not rude one bit OP

Jeeez.
I am in my 50s.
I'd have been a bit taken aback if a kid had said that to me, and I'd been thinking about something else as I came into the chemist, and not realised he'd had something to do with an automatic door opening.
I think it's miscommunication all round.
Astonishing ageism on here though. Why is it wrong to pass comment on someone's weight (which may have some element of personal control) but being eye-wateringly rude about age is fine? That appears to be the rule on Mumsnet.

He wasn't rude, because he was just playing, but he was being annoying, and now is the time to explain that you don't tell adults their manners!

I think people are looking at this from an adult perspective rather than a four year old role playing perspective. Him saying thank you...was not telling adults their manners it was his game unfolding.

Anyway why can't children remind adults of their manners?

I frequently employ the passive/aggressive "you're welcome!" when people don't thank me for holding the door open. YANBU and neither was your son, manners don't require much effort, I feel pretty crap most of the time, but I'm still polite.

Should a 4 year old be showing signs of passive aggression though?

Speaking as a bitter old woman, I don't particularly want someone else's child either opening doors for me OR pertly reproving me when I have something else on my mind.

I think people on this thread are both showing ageism and a complete lack of respect for children (ie she is old, no need to show her manners but also he is a child, he is not allowed to say anything or anything goes wrong it has to be his fault, should have been standing next to mum, be under control etc...)

Lovely...