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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that children pestering adults for food is bad manners?

237 replies

vladthedisorganised · 25/04/2015 23:47

Have posted about this on another thread but it is annoying me a bit.
DD and I walk home from school past a local park. It's a reasonable walk (we don't have a car) so when I go to collect her from school, I usually bring her something to eat on the way back.

There's a fair amount of children that come up to other parents asking for a snack, as well as their own. This gets awkward when we then see them again in the local park - many have been driven there while we've walked - and I'll be ambushed again by more children as we go past. The parents appear to bring something for their own children to eat, but this doesn't seem sufficient - particularly when other DCs are mooching the food in question.

What gets me is that I'm very firm with DD that she shouldn't be bugging other parents for food; but it is getting hard when she can see that no other parent seems to object to their DCs doing this. (Swapping is OK, though I'm considering curtailing this too) Other parents might possibly insist that their DC says thank you for the unreciprocated snack, but most tell their DCs to 'see if minivlad will share'.

AIBU to think that it's bad manners to pester for food? If I gave every child a snack that asked for one (or two or three or four) then I'd spend a bloody fortune - playdates are already really expensive with DCs demanding snacks all the time during the walk home!

OP posts:
Original poster
vladthedisorganised · 26/04/2015 00:15

DC are all around 5. The route past the park is right next to the play area, so DD will wave to the people she knows while in mid-raisin consumption.
The dad who brought chocolate biscuits to the park for his DCs was mobbed - the whole packet was gone in an instant.

I like your suggestion, Blu.

OP posts:
MakeItACider · 26/04/2015 00:16

(For us it's because there's a playground between the school and the car park which most parents stop at, so there's plenty of 'begging' time!)

steppemum · 26/04/2015 00:18

develop a simple one liner - go and ask your mummy for food, this is for my ds. I don;t have enough to share.

NeedABumChange · 26/04/2015 00:21

It's like you live on the set of Oliver. How odd, all the children sound like Trafalgar Square pigeons. All I can picture is some poor lady holding a box of raisins with twenty children flying at her head Grin

SilverBirch2015 · 26/04/2015 00:23

Why do you feed them on way home? It is more usual to wait until you get back surely. Do you enjoy them envying your DC maybe?

AgentZigzag · 26/04/2015 00:23

Awww, it's a bit more understandable if they're only little then, excusable if they're asking off their own backs (because they can see the littlies pack moving in for the kill as you enter the park and are going with the flow) and have parents who can't hear and would be mortified if they knew.

The parents who'd encourage the begging you'd hope would be the minority.

MakeItACider · 26/04/2015 00:25

Oh and Vlad, NEVER let your DD hold more than a small amount of the snack. That solved most of the problems for me.

DS1 used to like holding his bag of snacks, and then barely got any.

So I took to holding them and not giving them out.

There was one particular child who used to piss me off to no end. He was quite mean to DS at school, would scoff his snack down at a lightning speed, then sidle up and try to get some of his snack..... Every bloody day! I had absolutely no hesitation in saying no, and not letting DS hand any over.

MakeItACider · 26/04/2015 00:27

Why do you feed them on way home?

Because our 5 minute walk home usually takes us about 30 minutes after school due to playground loitering!

AgentZigzag · 26/04/2015 00:28

Huh? OP fostering envy in the local park Silver?? I can think of better ways to do that than giving out a box of shitty raisins.

A mile is a long way to walk for a 5 YO, they're nackered and hungry after school, why make it harder on yourself by making them wait until they get home?

It's OK to feed your DC if you're out in public and they're hungry.

Original poster
vladthedisorganised · 26/04/2015 00:32

Wow, Silverbirch, I'm mortified to think that might be an angle on it - I only feed DD on the way home because of the length of the walk (and to be honest, because other parents who drive also bring a snack with them for the walk to the car, and it speeds DD up a bit if she has something to eat on the way). I certainly don't enjoy the idea of other children being envious of DD's raisins, far from it! I genuinely hadn't looked at it that way before and am most embarrassed that it could be taken that way. Blush

I like the angle of holding the snack myself, Cider. As you say, it might solve a lot of the problems.

OP posts:
ScathingContempt · 26/04/2015 00:34

Just stick with a bright breezy 'no, sorry!' and repeat until the greedy little fuckers get the hint!

Dear god, if this is what toddlers are like these days, I'm going to be the grinch of the nursery in a couple of years. They will get very short shrift from me.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 26/04/2015 00:36

It's not an angle - can't imagine why anyone would have thought that or been so rude as to post it!

Honestly. A mile with a 5yo after school, a snack is an eminently sensible thing to bring. A friend of mine walks her 2 to school and back every day - it's probably around a mile - and always has snacks for them because they need something to get them home!

Non-shareable snack, hold the packet yourself, Just Say No - all good ideas. Soon the gannets will retreat and find other targets. :)

SilverBirch2015 · 26/04/2015 00:37

Seriously people give their DC snacks to eat on way home? When did this become a thing?

MakeItACider · 26/04/2015 00:38

Oh ignore Silverbirch - most people give their DC snacks on the way home, rather than waiting until they are home.

Small children are ferociously hungry after school.

steppemum · 26/04/2015 00:44

silver, when my ds was in reception, we had 15 minute walk through the wood home. He came out of school in ready- to -melt- down mode anyway, and he is horrendous when hungry. He would not have made it home without something going wrong.
I took a banana, he scoffed it, black hunger cloud lifted, he was fine.

I never had to with dd. She didn't get the same hunger low as ds did.

Actually he is 12 and there are still times when he is like a bear with a sore head, and I look at the clock and think hmm dinner is a bit late, lets get it on the table and get some food in.

SaucyJack · 26/04/2015 00:44

Yes, it's rude and very annoying when it happens.

The DDs have one single school friend who does it. She's now year 6 and she's progressed from the bare faced cheek of opening up my bag to look for sweets (!) to standing over us eating in the park, whining that "It's not fair that we have x,y or z." She's an Odd Child tho. I can never quite decide whether she's on the autistic spectrum or whether she needs taking out the back and being given a damn good hiding.

SilverBirch2015 · 26/04/2015 00:48

Ignore me if you wish. I really am a bit surprised, it's not something I personally have experienced in the schools around here, except perhaps an ice cream as a one off treat in very hot weather.

Jackieharris · 26/04/2015 00:51

Weird kids!

I'd be mortified if my dcs asked someone else for food.

TheatreClog · 26/04/2015 00:54

move house
erm
I give DS snacks after school straight away. I don't give any to others - I don't bring a bag of them with me, only enough for DS. I don't apologise or overthink it. I don't let DS ask others for food, though I think he has once pilfered a brioche from someone who had 8 and an ice cream from someone with a multipack. If someone offers then it's not bad manners for the child to accept, surely? Don't offer, don't feel bad about it, just say e.g. sorry I didn't bring any more.

FromSeaToShining · 26/04/2015 01:00

When I was young, it was considered bad manners to eat in front of others who were not eating. Now, I'm not sure that this is necessarily something I would agree with these days, and there is certainly a lot more snacking now than there used to be so perhaps it is a "rule" that no longer holds. But it is something I tend to be aware of in public.

Asking for a snack is also rude, and it seems very odd to me that other parents encourage their children to do so. Under the OP's circumstances, I would politely decline the children's requests.

Happy36 · 26/04/2015 01:06

This is shocking. To be honest we don't really do snacks and I've often wondered whether that's too mean of me but at least (to my knowledge) my kids aren't begging for food from their friends' parents.

I agree with the posters who've said to be firm about no sharing or swapping. I like the idea about taking an apple (or peach, plum, etc.) which can't be shared.

80sMum · 26/04/2015 01:15

Having snacks on the way home from school is a new one on me too. It never occurred to me to give DS anything to eat immediately upon coming out of school. Interesting, as I have noticed that my grandchildren are always being given snacks whenever they go out. They never seem to go more than an hour without eating something! So maybe this snacking thing is a modern trend?

SolidGoldBrass · 26/04/2015 02:12

I think the length of the journey home from school is a factor in whether or not a kid needs a snack. If you're just going to sit in the car for ten minutes then probably not - if it's a half-hour walk then a small child probably will need a bit of something to get him/her home at the end of an active day.

laughingcow13 · 26/04/2015 08:18

How bizarre I have been a parent for over twenty years - 4 children, and have never encountered this! In fact parents would be unhappy at people handing out snacks to their DC I think, I certainly would

kungfupannda · 26/04/2015 08:41

I get this at the park next to DS1's school. If we're going to the park we tend to stay for longer than most people as it's rammed for about half an hour and then empties out. So I take a snack for the DCs.

A couple of DS1's classmates aways come over and nag at me for food, or try to wheedle DS2 into handing his over. They get a straightforward 'No, I've only brought enough for DS1 and 2. Ask your own mum please.'

Unfortunately one of the mums in question is a bit wishy-washy generally and just watches the whole exchange with a faintly bemused look on her face, as though she can't possibly imagine why I haven't brought a picnic for her son.