To think this rules to apply to "our little darling"

[NootNoot]

Hard hat on & fire extinguisher ready

Went to Kew Gardens over the weekend- gorgeous day, place was packed, lots of families. Plenty of youngsters running about, shouting, having a great old time.

Walking past the Orangery there is a lovely display of small blue flowers which have cropped up on the grass- not bluebells but tiny little meadow flower type things. Signs every 5-10m saying "these are part of our meadow collection, please stay off the grass". Small child aged about 3, running up & down through the flowers, stamping on them, picking them etc. Parents looking on indulgently, taking photographs etc.

Middle aged man with a rather fancy camera (looked like a realy Kew enthusiast) lost his shit with the parents- pointed out the child was destroying the flowers, clearly states keep off grass etc etc. Parents just smile benignly & said "oh but she's having so much fun"..

I appreciate toddlers can be tricky/wilful etc but for the love of god that surely isn't an excuse to trash the place? There's tonnes of "plain" grass areas to run about/pick daisies etc. FWIW we crossed paths with them later on & the father was watching the child pulling petals off the magnolia trees!!

Yanbu they were twats.

I was told "oh yes, but we don't believe in boundaries, Rufus is a free range child".*

That can't be true, surely twats like that are made up for DailyMail type articles designed to give people the rage?!
If you're for real if you kept a straight face you're great. I'd have got an attack of the giggles. Free range. FFS

As a student I worked Saturdays in a big clothing chain shop, which had windows which opened off the shop floor. One day a little girl kept going in the window, and I said, nicely, that she shouldn't play in there because she might get hurt. Her mum said she was fine and liked to "pose with the ladies". The mother and daughter were less fine when one of "the ladies" got knocked and came crashing down, losing her lower arm in the process. Thankfully the child was fine, and the mannequin wasn't broken - they cost a bomb - but the mother didn't even apologise.

But may one cross reference this thread with another currently running about 5 year olds being sent home for hitting other children and teachers, where it's all down to being two years ahead of his peers, or having SN. It don't care which it is, but I don't wish to engage with that child. Please instil some idea of how to behave in public, even if it means said child is not expressing his inner id. Or AIBU?

OP, this would simmer my wee too. Milennials aren't the Special Snowflake generation. The under 8s are!!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kew_Constabulary

Use them. It's not like they are drowning in murders anyway.

Cheese - I was just trying to process what they said, thinking did they really just call their child "free range".....

It was such a bizarre response I was just gobsmacked!

Obviously about 5 mins afterwards I thought of a whole set of witty responses...

This happened to me in my own garden this weekend! Sitting in the front room on Mothering Sunday and a little boy about 7 goes past on his bike, stops, then gets off and makes for the daffs in our front garden (we are right on a corner next to a playground and there are no walls on the front planting in our road - it's just right next to the pavement). Little horror then starts picking our flowers! I opened the window and yelled "Hey! Would you please leave our flowers alone!" and he did at least have the good grace to stop and look embarrassed. But his mum then came along the pavement after him (had clearly seen what he was doing and had said nothing) and he presented her with the picked flowers and then they both walked off cool as cucumbers!

I was fuming My 3 y o DD knows never to pick flowers and was gobsmacked watching this spectacle ("MUMMY THAT'S NOT ALLOWED!!" etc.)

(To be fair I should say I do allow picking of a small amount of daisies and clovers on public grass, which I think no-one can really mind about; but even at a very young age in the local parks and botanical gardens, DD was perfectly capable of distinguishing between most flowers that mustn't be picked; and daisies on the grass which can be picked in moderation.)

About to cause utter havoc & showing my age.

Mine would told once, then a second, then a skelped backside.

Free range or just feral. That's the "nice" sescription for abandoned/ unsocialised pets isn't it?

We live in an area where thankfully the vast majority of parents are very normal and sensible and generally only get subjected to this type of behaviour when we venture south.

I did loose my shit with a child sat on the top of a slide eating an ice cream and refusing to mo e or go down the slide while both my kids stood behind him waiting, especially as my one year old was pulling at my arm trying to dive over the side. Having asked him nicely to move I simply said get down now in a milder tone then I would use with my own kids. He looked gobsmacked but did get straight down.

The best bit was my three yr old adding at the bottom ... don't go up again if you are going to ruin it for every one else.... in a voice to match!

I remember DS1 picking a tulip in our garden when he was about 18m. He was told sternly that it was the tulip's only chance to flower in the year, and that it can't be fixed.

Daisies, buttercups and dandelions are fair game as they are abundant and will put out flowers all summer, but flowers that are planted are not there for picking/ touching.

The DCs seem to be grasping it OK

I don't want free range children, they'll turn into free range teenagers!

There are some entitled twonks around these days.

Am horrified by the story about the chick. That's awful. I'd have called the police on the parents. I know the child is well below the age of criminal responsibility but the parents aren't, and could do with a fright if nothing else.

Don't have children myself but lots of friends do, and I love the wee ones to bits. However, I've thought for years that if any of them hurt any of my animals deliberately I'm pretty sure my instinct would be to slap the child and worry about the consequences after. Not that it's likely to happen as none of my friends are raising entitled or cruel offspring.

Took my 3 year old to Kew a few weekends ago. YANBU
My dd is an absolute nightmare for running off but even then absolutely no need to go on the flower areas. Talk about ruin it for everyone else. Shame though as there were quite a few children when I went and I didn't see anything like it.

I was at Hampton Court yesterday, so not far from Kew, and deep in SW London aka 'Home of Ridiculously Entitled Parent' (so true). It was full of the usual transgressions of behaviour but the worse sight was of an adult man who was a tourist and had picked some of the daffodils to give to his girlfriend. Perhaps he was a product of ridiculously entitled parents in his youth!

I remember going to into a NT house, on a rainy summer day, with an exhibition of Constables amongst other REALLY priceless artworks. 'Spirited' ( love that euphemism) DS ,18 months, escaped buggy and raced away only for me to see him climb onto a portable heater( off) and reach out to touch one of these said artworks. I remember sprinting across the room and literally diving though the air to scoop him away before he put his sticky little paw onto it. I still shudder at the memory and he's 15 now!
I did not say that darling little nakedscientist was just having fun!

A parent once described her dc a free range to me. I'm pretty good at saying the right thing but my face was screaming "WTF?!" Her dc was called Lollipop which I'd assumed was a cutesy nickname. Nope it was her real name.

'Free range' is just middle class for 'feral'.

May I nominate the oblivious mummy in Victoria station at the weekend allowing her toddler son to climb very slowly down the main steps to the underground, smiling indulgently. Would have been fine at a quiet time but Charing Cross and Waterloo East were closed so the station was absolutely packed and we all had to pile up behind them - just have some common sense and pick him up, woman! What a place to choose to practise stair climbing.

Kew constabulary I love that! I can just imagine the series on Sunday nights. This week in Kew Cops-Murder in the Palm House.

I was at Kew a few weeks ago and the 'Glory Of The Snow' flowers were beautiful. Here is my snap of them before they were wrecked.

I am realising that these parents everywhere. Even one I thought was quite strict with her children looked on smiling as one of them stamped on every bug (mostly beetles) my boy found and and tried to show me. Even when I told the child not to and said to his mother what he was doing she just smiled and he carries on. Poor bugs.

Wigbert - that photo is absolutely beautiful.

I am blessed with an extremely loud voice. If I see behaviour like this (at which my older DD, being a bit of a rule follower, is absolutely appalled), I adopt a terribly passive aggressive strategy of explaining - very loudly - to her and her sister exactly why the behaviour they have witnessed is terribly rude and why parents (in general, of course - I'm not talking about anyone specific, am I?) shouldn't allow it and why only terribly badly behaved children would do such a thing. I do so very earnestly and with no hint of irony.

I was in my sitting room, one lunchtime last week, having a quiet Mumsnet, and I heard voices outside my house. I went to the bay window and looked outside and a middle aged woman was holding a toddler on reins while she messed with the flowers in pots either side of my front door.

So I went out and opened the front door and the woman was a complete stranger. And she was all smiles, "Oh yes she's looking at the flowers, just looking at the lady's flowers aren't you lovey?" She then wandered back down my drive, letting the child smear her hands down my son's car as she went.

I mean seriously, who does that? Is it okay to just wander up someone's drive because your kid fancies a nose around?