To be irritated with parents forcing children to sit and eat at soft play

[SrAssumpta]

I spent the morning in a play centre with a few other mums and our 3-4 year olds, met at half 9 and stayed about two hours.
The children weren't even playing five minutes when the other parents were calling them back over "Simon, would you like a yogurt? Come down and have some grapes", "Lucy have some crisps", "Oh darling I've gotten you a slush puppy come down and have it before it melts"
I just don't get it? We met up to let them play, why couldn't they eat at home, it's an expensive play centre why can't they make the most of it? Then a huge platter of nuggets and chips was ordered and they were made sit and eat all the greasy food on their plate and coaxed with "Go on just two more nuggets then you can go back and play"

I find it so irritating, we could have just met up for breakfast or lunch but why take children somewhere they're supposed to have fun and force them to sit down and eat?

Oh my god is one more person with a child that actually has a specific special need, that means they need to eat constantly going to come on here and say they are offended that its being put out there that most people can and should be able to go out of the house for 2 hours, without tupperware in there bag, and we are instilling a compulsion to eat without hunger and fear of hunger into our children by not letting them ever feel hungry at all. Jesus if medical staff at a specialized camp need extra instructions I think we can safely say its not that common and shouldn't effect habits learned by dc without a blood sugar condition.

Oooooo great, an opportunity to judge other parents for getting it wrong whilst feeling superior about my own relaxed and effortlessly competent parenting. Don't get enough of those on here...

Ah the professionally offended have arrived. I explained that was not what I meant at all! I also said their are lots of people whose children do not have specialised conditions that need constant food and helicopter parenting.
And I also know that every parent that has commented on here does not know that blood sugar is leading to poor behaviour. That's what's bollocks.

wanna so, just to be clear, what you mean is:
"Excluding children with pretty rare additional needs (who wouldn't be treating them with nuggets and chips, one assumes) and those who have skipped breakfast and who are about to sink into the black hole that is a hunger tantrum, you don't understand why all the other children constantly need to eat?" So that's probs over 90%. AND you are suggesting that the constant eating for children in that 90% is Not A Good Thing?

Bloody hell OP, that sounds entirely reasonable....

Well I'm glad this thread has sorted out the issues then!

Constant snacking in children is mostly very necessary for Very Important Reasons.

Any one who thinks its a modern day epidemic are rude busybodies and who should stop observing and "judging" others for offering snacks all day.

Constant snacking usually involves fruit anyway - no one on MN offers junk food snacks. MN'ers obviously don't go to the playgrounds where I live which are full of processed/fatty/sugary snack wrappers.

Children wanting constant snacks isn't a Pavlov's dog scenario, no way. It has noting to do with snacks being pushed on them when they are perhaps bored, tired, angry, emotional, etc but reflects a genuine need in children to eat rubbish food all day. It has nothing to do with many processed foods being quite addictive.

Children eating snacks all day has nothing to do with the obesity crisis at all and and it is rude etc to even suggest such a thing, let alone attempt to discuss it.

Any why the fuck would anyone care about what other children eat? The public obesity crisis we are experiencing, all the overweight children we see at primary school, are in no way at all connected to the food we consumed. Public health crisis are no one's business at all. Parents must not be judged or questioned for the poor diets they inflict upon their children. Why would anyone other than the parents care about a childs heath anyway?

whatever!

How many more times are posters going to have to specify that they're not talking about children who have specific medical issues, before the professionally offended give it a miss.

Seriously, over and over on threads, you have people charging on trying to make out that anyone making any kind of criticism of a child or parent is some kind of cruella de ville with no empathy for anyone because it never ever occurs to them that a child might have a special need. It gets really boring and annoying and means every single post has to come with a qualification.

Nursery I couldn't agree more - I thought it was just me.

I get that it is relevant in threads such as "I saw a parent/child do something really weird yesterday, they xxxxxxx. I wonder what that was?" and a response being given saying "I think they may have x condition". Totally fine.

posts such as "why do so many people do xx?" and answers such as "maybe all these multiple random people all have X condition which is very rare and now I am mortally offended and you are terrible for mentioning it" ...not so much.

Where it is clear in the OP that they are talking about something more societal than occasion (where there may be an explanation of a special need) is really a different thing.

I actually think it's counter productive because I often find myself thinking 'oh here we go again' when someone comes onto a thread positing special needs as an explanation, instead of stopping and thinking 'hmm maybe'.

If you over do something and keep ramming it down people's throats, it loses its force as an argument. There are threads where it's perfectly reasonable and appropriate to suggest special needs as an explanation. But there are also threads where it's just randomly thrown around even though the OP is talking about a whole group of children and a general societal problem, or a child that they know doesn't have special needs.

I do understand that having a child with special needs must open up a whole new world of awareness to a parent and it can be helpful and important that they try to raise general awareness of the issue. But seeing SN in every and any situation, and shouting and heckling people who don't always agree with you doesn't really help to gain understanding and awareness.

Yes I agree too Nursery.
It is one of the real negatives of MN - gets on my tits.

You can't make a comment about growing trends as the OP has done here, which has led to suggestions of a link between growing snack culture and childhood obesity, without the professionally offended jumping in to be mortified at the attack on themselves as parents and their child who has a medical condition that requires eating every 2 hours.

Not the same thing.

I think that the western world has become obsessed with feeding children constantly and snacking generally- and the corollation with obesity is not a coincidence.

Every time you give something to eat to a child who is whingy, crying, upset, cross but not actually hungry- you are teaching them to comfort eat, they are learning to soothe themselves and feel better from eating.

Now I know that the op's experience was more about general eating when playing but it's still eating for the sake of it rather than when hungry which is something that many adults struggle not to do- so why on earth is it being taught, as a skill, to children?

There are a small amount of children/people who do need more constant food supplies but it's very minimal, rather than the majority of toddlers who appear to be fed constantly through the day.

People generally bring up special needs because they recognise the behaviour. People don't usually say that child must have special needs, just that it is a possibility. It generally only turns into a bunfight when a few people start making ignorant comments.

That's not true zazzie. It really isn't. I have seen many occasions where very tenuous links were made between a child's behaviour and SNs. I have also seen many posts about a general issue with children was turned around into a discussion exclusively about children with SNs.

Of course it's important to discuss special needs and how they affect children's behaviour. But it's also important to discuss general issues such as childhood obesity, parents allowing their children to disturb others in public places etc, without having the whole conversation turned around to one that focuses exclusively on children with special needs.

I've not read the whole thread (sorry) but I also hate relentless snacking. My son does get quite mood-swingy when he's hungry (straight after school, for example) but I find once he starts snacking he won't stop. If I had a pound for every time I said: "You're not hungry, you're just bored..." Sometimes he'll ask for a snack while dinner is cooking, and like other posters have said, I often say "good" when he says he's hungry and he's horrified. He doesn't seem to understand that being hungry is fine, especially at dinner time!

He does eat like a horse, but I don't think he needs to eat constantly and I worry he's lost the ability to tell when he is actually hungry. He also won't drink so half the time I think he's thirsty instead.

It's a bloody minefield I tell you.

Every morning after school drop off I pass a group of parents all chatting and smoking while their buggy strapped young children are eating chocolate bars or crisps.

They are 5 meters from a playground. I guess the kids couldn't breathe in all that ciggie smoke and eat chocolate if they were playing in the fully fenced safe playground.

Oh yes, I judge. I bet you would too.

WTF is "SoftPlay" and It is totally crazy to take your kids to a playground/area/corral/cage/zoo whatever and then make them sit and eat between breakfast and lunch, are they afraid that other mums will think they don't feed little heftyjonny enough as it is? I would have a drink (cold water) for them and a snack (banana or apple) So what if junior chooses to sulk and be a little shit instead of playing with the other monsters kids? if he is kicking your chair slap push his leg away, if he wants to chuck a major wobbly, well you are in the right place get down on the floor and join him, This is the thing , I used to go to places like that and spend half my time talking to the other mums and the other half making sure my kids were not killing themselves, mine were always at the head of the running screaming daredevil bunch. Food is not required for all child / parent interactions, Our kids are NOT going to Starve to death if they are not fed a constant stream of emotional damping garbage, junior cries and gets hot chips shoved in his mouth, little miss gets frustrated and gets a handful of sweet biscuits to munch on, lil eddie can't have what he wants instantly so he gets a sugar laden unnecessary snack to assuage him, when I was a kid , we got , breakfast, lunch and dinner and dessert on sundays, we were not given food to deal with our emotions, we learned to deal with them and if we did not behave properly in public we did not go out, stop filling your kids with junk food they don't need you don't need to prevent hunger you will not be sent on a roller coaster to hell if junior does not eat for a few hours on end. The best thing you can teach your kids is the meaning of the word NO.

Daisywellies I disagree. Bunfights usually stem from someone being goady or ignorant or both. I have seen a few people being overly offended but it is more the other way.

I was at a zoo last year and the snack to toddler ratio was ridiculous most of the kids I saw had something in their hand and little boxes i dont get it why the need to shove food in their mouths every 5 minutes

I have seen the snacking rise ive worked at the same place for 8 years when i started they had lunch played and left they now have lunch play/drink/snack and then leave

It's also fair to say that parenting an sn child doesn't automatically mean you are above making the same mistakes any parent with an nt child can make. I'm not dismissing at all that sometimes the exhaustion, the difficulty, having more to worry about don't acceptably explain some 'mistakes'. But in real life I've heard it trotted out as an irreproachable excuse on occasion for things, and only in cases where the sn is relatively mild in the scheme of sn. Eg my 5yr old is hurting yours because of x, therefore I am absolved of any responsibility to prevent or stop it and you are unreasonable to suggest I should. When in actual fact my 5yr old did that and I'm not about to bollock her/him because of x, and I didn't stop it sooner cos I'm mentally and physically fucked. The first scenario is purely parenting 'mistake' and not related to the sn.

Ok. I will accept the title of Professionally Offended. Professional means I get paid for it, right - I guess I've only been an amateur up to now. Can I finally get business cards?

What I was trying to say (and I made it clear that our situation is very unusual) is just because the overwhelming majority of children (and their parents, and parenting programs, and on up the chain) have been conditioned to believe that they will wither away if they don't eat hourly, and far too often it is processed, nutrient poor garbage - that is not the case for everyone. DD has been harshly judged for having to eat as frequently as she does, which has led to her being very self conscious about eating out of the house at all.

DD has another option - she can be attached to her feeding pump and backpack 24 hours a day and be fed via gastrostomy - that is how she remains stable overnight. Is that actually required so that she can avoid the judgemental stares of busybodies?

Do what you feel is appropriate with your own child. Leave mine the fuck alone.

Oh, and irritability is most definitely a sign of low blood sugar. However, it isn't the only sign, and parents who automatically assume a grumpy kid is a hungry kid and stuff garbage into their mouths are perpetuating the problem.

We'll have to agree to differ Zazzie. We've obviously had different experiences or perspectives on here.

I am not going to defend myself further, the anonymous Mumsnet mob mentality isn't ever going to change. I simply pointed out one situation where your blanket condemnation doesn't fit, and now I am being called professionally offended. I am truly sorry that presenting a different viewpoint and a suggestion that it is actually possible for a child to have a significant medical issue and still be allowed to mingle unidentifiably in the general population without wearing a sign that outs them and warns you knocks you so far off kilter that you (and all your other sandbox cronies) need to go on the attack.

If I were less mature I'd suggest you wind your neck in or go and play in the cool kids corner where no children are ill or disabled and poor parenting is to blame for everything. I wish that I was a perfect parent like you - can you please give me lessons?

Please note I wasn't even trying to excuse poor behaviour, just the necessity of something you have categorically condemned.

But sadly, I will never be a perfect parent, since I made a broken kid.

That's just the way I choose to play things though

Thank you.

But callme don't you think that it would be easier for you if other people weren't getting it so obviously wrong? Just like any disadvantage/ reason to divert from the 'norm' isn't helped by a load of people doing the same thing for absolutely the wrong reasons