to think parents should make room for adults by getting their kids to sit on their laps.

[Bouttimeforwine]

I have always done this, in waiting rooms, on buses, anywhere really. Even till they were too big really to be sitting on laps. Even now I will get them to sit on the floor at friends houses so that adults get the chairs. It's polite and the way I was brought up.

I often see children taking up a space, when it would be easy just to pop them on your knee for a short period of time. I know for a fact that some of these parents have no physical reason not to do this. They just think that their child has as much right as an adult to have that seat. True but it's not good manners is it?

AIBU?

Woozle - totally agree about ridiculousness of the "rights/entitlements" thing.

Hear hear, Woozle and ClockWatching.

oh great, I thought that now my kids are too old for the double buggy I might be able to take them on the bus in peace. But no. We're just not welcome on the bus are we?

yes woozle excellent post

and clock

Both boys do, MrsMorton. And DS1's motor planning is very poor, so he finds it hard to steady himself. He can't even cope with escalators.

But anyone looking would probably assume that there's an able bodied pre-teen being selfish and taking up a seat.

I'd always give ds.

Drivers don't always allow small children to stand anyway

A lot of people saying children are less entitled to a seat, but no one giving a valid reason why..
Why are children less entitled, I don't acc let a lower bus fare as a reason, after all they don't have jobs so can't pay their own way yet, hardly seems fair.
They are human beings just the same as adults, in fact they are smaller, weaker and more likely to get tired. I would say they are equally entitled to a seat just the same as any physically for adult.
Of course, if a pregnant lady or unstable elderly person needed a seat I may sit my child on my knee, I might also offer my own seat.. Depends on the situation.

It surely can't have anything to do with the fare though can it? Children may pay less but then so do the elderly (who often travel free) and I think everyone would agree a healthy adult should give up a seat to a frail 85 year old? For me it depends on circumstance including distance travelling - I would be very much more reluctant to have a child on my lap for a five hour train journey than five minutes on the bus. In houses then I think it is good manners for children to sit on the floor.

In general, I think children will manage better when seated on buses. In other places, and particularly where they may be a number of children, I don't think it's unreasonable that children could share a seat on sit on a parent's knee.

I travel on London Overground frequently and am sick of seeingarents allowing four or five children to take up a seat each whilst old people are left standing. It's embarrassing to witness and it's an embarrassing sense of over-entitlement.

Ouryve, no one is saying your child (who clearly needs a seat) shouldn't have one. But if more people with perfectly able-bodied children (especially if they are old enough to stand, so say over 6/7) taught them some manners then it would be less of an issue.

And this is why I always try to avoid buses at school chucking out time as the manners, in general, are bloody awful. I have only once seen one of these teens offer a seat to a person who needed it more.

It's a simple case of teaching children respect for adults, isn't it? Manners and all that?

Like calling an adult neighbour, parent of a friend or, for example, shopkeeper Mr/Ms/Mrs/Miss Smith until you're invited to call them by their first name.

Call me old fashioned but that's the courteous thing to do. Actually, yeah, do call me old fashioned if you like. I'd rather be old fashioned than entitled and manner-less.

Bollocks to that. I remember having to sit on Mum's knee on packed buses. Mum was a tiny, bird like woman....I was a healthy, chunk of a child, it would have made more sense the other way round. I've never subjected my own DCs to this and if I've paid for a bus/train ticket for them they're entitled to a seat if they got one first.

How big are your buses where a child sitting on your lap doesn't have their knees by their ears. I have to sit diagonally ergo defeating object.

When they are bigger and able to stand and not likely to be squashed between two six foot students or sent flying across the bus because they aren't strong enough to hold on during sudden stops then they will have a seat thank u and I will stand instead

A lot of people saying children are less entitled to a seat, but no one giving a valid reason why.

Because they are children and need to be taught manners. I can't believe that you don't get that.

You may not see lower fares as a reason but travel companies do, as does the rest of the human race (apart from a few flakes on mumsnet).

the main time this happens to us is travelling back from a day at my mum's when we get entangled with the rush hour. It's a long journey but DD is generally pretty perky, unlike most of the zombies collapsing into seats and falling asleep almost immediately. She has never fallen asleep on the tube like that, whereas I remember regularly doing so.

Children do not have such demanding lives, physically or mentally. They do not have all the worries, concerns and responsibilities that adults do, and rightly so. But that does mean that, in the main, they can give up their seat more readily.

We've given up seats and people have been gratfeful. People have offered their seats to us and we have been grateful (though unless it's a very long journey I generally decline).

What goes around comes around.

IMHO it depends on the age of the child and the situation of the person needing a seat.

If you have a small child who can easily sit on your lap then I think you should give up the seat.

If it's a much older child eg 10-15 then I think it depends on who needs the seat. If someone elderly/pregnant/on crutches for example needed it, then I'd give up a seat and share with my kids (take in turns or perch a bit uncomfortably on the same seat if poss).

However if was a perfectly heathy adult, then no, I wouldn't move.

I appreciate some Heath issues are not obvious so if someone apparently healthily asked for a seat with good reason then I would also give it up in that instance also.

On the tube, I would expect one child (smallest) to move from their seat on to my knee if there were no seats left and someone got on. I would not expect the other child to stand up - she's only just over 1m tall and can't possibly strap hang, gets punted in the face by rucksacks (idiots who don't take them off) and generally gets moved about by the crowd. I'd offer my seat and try and strap hang while holding the smallest if someone who obviously needed the seat got on, but I would hope not to have to as it's very hard work.

Such a mean-spirited, narrow, self-centred way of approaching things, to start off by thinking 'what am I/my children' entitled to, rather than 'what can I do that's nice and considerate that will benefit someone else and do no harm to me?'

Isn't it just as entitled and mean spirited to be standing there on a bus getting irate at the fact there is a child sitting in a seat you want?

Clock, I see where you're coming from, but I prefer to lead by example, and if I was expecting my child to stand for someone else's comfort then I think I should be prepared to do the same myself. As someone who doesn't use public transport with my dc very often, if I'm knackered enough to want to sit down, then they are too. That's tough luck if someone needs as seat more than us, but when there is equal need/want for a seat then I don't see why children have to come last in the pecking order just because of their age.

There are plenty of other ways of teaching children how nice it is to be helpful and considerate without making them do something that I don't want to do myself.

I can see both sides of this. I would almost always take my children onto my knee, however I have hip problems and doing so even for a short time causes me agonising pain. But standing is also painful for me, so if I see someone who looks to be struggling I would always offer, as if they are standing in pain they are more likely to fall and be hurt than I am likely to fall off a seat.

I am also mostly pleased that children are not expected to automatically give way to adults. Those complaining that children have less entitlement to a seat as they pay less would presumably not demand the seat of a pensioner who had used their free bus pass, just because that person had not paid full fare?

Equally though, I don't think they should be entitled to have seats and space at the expense of every other age group. I was at a soft play last week, there were no tables apart from one covered with rubbish. When I sat down at it, I was informed by a woman st the next table that it was for her children to have lunch at, and I could not sit there. When I said there were no other tables and sat down anyway, I was shouted and sworn at by her and her friend, and they then pushed the table violently into me until I was forced to get up and stand. They thought themselves completely in the right as I shouldn't steal 'their' table, amd felt themselves entitled to two tables even if it meant other families couldn't have one at all.

If their children grow up to be as entitled as them there are going to be a large number of hideous people in the world.

I have never understood this, children are people too so they are entitled to a space as is everyone else.

If the bus is packed then yes I will grab my 8 year old and tell him to sit on my knee but if its not then no he gets a seat same at home, I won't kick him off a seat unless its genuinely needed.

My mum was brought up with this rule and had to stand on a bus to let others sit, she was holding on but the bus had to brake. She has now had 18 operations to repair the broken nose and jaw she ended up with when she smashed face first into the steel leg support.

"because they are children and need to be taught manners"

I know plenty of adults with worse manners than my children, perhaps they should be made to stand to teach them some manners.

As I said my elder boys will stand and I will have littlest one on my knee but ds4 will sit and on the train I pay and book seats for them.

As ouvrye shows you don't know why a child is sitting they may need the seat. My own ds3 and myself experienced this last year, gobby adults having a go because he was sitting, ds3 looked fine but needed to sit down, he was at risk of going blind but no he was just s rude child.

"I've never subjected my own DCs to this and if I've paid for a bus/train ticket for them they're entitled to a seat if they got one first."

Subjected, sillystring?

Subjected? Are you sure?! hmm]

You'd be asking your (presumably healthy, capable) child to stand for a short period of time, not to be beaten with a cat o' nine tails!

well, I must say that, unlike previous threads on this topic, the majority on this one are saying that yes, they teach/expect their DC to sit on laps or stand, which bodes well .