AIBU to think that this lady has lost her mind ...

[kavvLar]

South Kiosk at Martello Park Felixstowe out this status up on Facebook earlier today:

"Can we make ourselves perfectly clear to all parents who are too scared to disipline their children about tantrum screaming. We will give you five lenient minutes to ask the child to stop screaming and then we will ask the child ourselves. If that means you too having a tantrum about our having to speak to your child and hurling threats about not returning – that's really okay with us. We have a duty of care to the rest of our customers."

Cue hundreds of people flaming them on Facebook and 1* reviewing the business.

What on earth were they thinking?

What sort of toddler stops screaming when asked???

Glad they got flamed.

Idiots.

(Yes indeed, 'having a paddy' is a phrase that referred to the alleged inability of Irish people to control their tempers, since we are such ape-like and uncivilised creatures and prefer roaring and bawling to dialogue).

I'd always thought having a paddy was something to do with creating pandemonium - nothing to do with the Irish.
Are the Irish known for their tantrums?

Grabbing someone else's child in that context is definitely unacceptable. But surely we're not the only people who would bundle our DC out of a place if they kicked off? I can't count the number of wasted coffees and cakes as we had to beat a hasty retreat.

www.victoriana.com/history/images/mail6.jpg
Known for our paddies...

Oh my goodness what a silly woman, I dunno how she thought that was good idea to mouth off on Facebook.
What's the story about the two year old, did she say that or did somebody else as I'm confused what happened?

The FB page is now unavailable

I don't think the word meltdown will ever be restricted to children with special needs.

I am an adult with anxiety, which sometimes leads to panic attacks and meltdowns.

My friend works in IT and describes certain situations as total meltdown.

Can't see why parents can't sat asd meltdown if they want to be specific?

Say, not sat.

I'm also unconvinced that the etymology for paddy as tantrum relates to Irish people, anyone have any evidence?

looks like the fb has now been deleted. What a way to run a business. Hand it over to someone who actually wants to work with/near kids.

Well they messed up! What a foolish and ignorant thing to say.

The owner/ manager doesn't look like she knows much about the unwritten rules of social media. And the power of it to go horribly wrong.

I'm a not easily offended Irish person and I find the term "having a paddy" quite offensive. Have heard it more than once from my universally well educated upper/middle class colleagues too and had to say something (and I tolerate them constantly mispronouncing my name).

I can't believe this business owner thought this a sensible plan. Obviously she's mostly a takeaway service serving kids. You might all enjoy my DDs tantrums- occasionally she becomes so furious that she doesn't make a sound, but lies down on the ground like a rock and point blank refuses to stand up (silent all the time). If you pick her up she will hiss loudly "mammy, put me down now"!

Interesting, being Irish myself, I grew up hearing the expression "having a paddy" at home and never in a million would I have assumed that it meant that the Irish are particular prone to temper tantrums.

As for all the holier than thou people who so thoroughly disapprove the parents of a child having a tantrum, the situation only gets worse when the parents are also stressing about what people are thinking.

It doesn't mean the Irish are prone to temper tantrums. It means the Irish fight a lot, get angry easily. It is a Victorian stereotype. The Victorians were fond of stereotyping.

Havent read the thread but I was sitting having a quiet drink in a costa today.

Child who was old enough to be told to stop sitting shrieking ever fucking 30 seconds. Everytime he didnt get what he wanted he screamed. It was that ear splitting shrieking like nails down a chalk board.

He wanted to get down and he shrieked every time his mum put him back on a chair, he wanted his mums coffee, shrieked when she wouldnt let him hold it, etc etc etc. Then a screaming fit when he didnt want to go in the buggy.

In a coffee shop on a Sunday afternoon with mainly adults. If your child cannot behave dont take them somewhere like that

That's quite a goady post considering there are parents of SN children here.

I started to get outraged at one of the nicknames chosen by kids at DS's school for their running team - DH told me to calm down, the Fighting Irish is a proper team name

I always think they should call themselves 'The Reading and Writing Irish'...

That is an example of a derogatory nickname used defiantly as a badge of pride by the University of Notre Dame.

Another goady post, NowWhat.

one thing I will not tolerate is mine have a tantrum meltdown in public

Has this poster had a two-year-old yet?

Oh, the thread's moved on to tantrum terminology ... sorry.

Well if she's not lost her mind, she's very like lost her business

That woman is clearly a fucking genius. My 2 year old tantrums a lot. I have NEVER thought about asking her to stop, or telling her it's unacceptable behaviour - well, I did once consider it but then I thought, "no, I can't really be bothered". Then one day, some shop owner grabbed my kid mid-tantrum and said "stop screaming", and my 2 year old said "I've only been screaming for 5 minutes, can I not carry on for a bit?" and the shop owner said "no, think of the other customers, it's totally unacceptable behaviour". So my 2 year old shut the hell up and we all had a lovely day. Another parenting problem solved by the invaluable solutions of people without kids who clearly know how to parent better than parents do. Yay for judgey inappropriate interfering!