Is this accepted now? Young children and electronics on public transport.

[AnneGrommit]

The last few times I've been on a train (not in quiet coach) and quite often on the bus I've had my peace disturbed by toddlers with phones/tablets either playing noisy games on them or watching programmes. When I've asked parents to rein them in I've been invariably met with either passive aggressive remarks about not liking children (I have three myself) or outright hostility and a statement along the lines of "it keeps them quiet". No, it doesn't. It stops them from pestering you but it's far from quiet. AIBU or is this an accepted "thing" now? Because it's fucking annoying.

And as unfortunate as it is that one awful tutter/eyeroller/commenter can ruin a family day out, one lovely person (like someone who doesn't mind their cardigan being stroked!) can make a day a whole lot smoother.

I think the problem is you're not teaching your kids how to sit in a restaurant/waiting room/train journey without needing entertainment.

Long journeys yes, the kids will get bored and might need some entertainment to get them through a journey. But a waiting room? Whatever happened to just staring into space and people watching? Do people not do that anymore?

Spikeyball I hope you don't meet too many judgemental people as most reasonable people will understand that you are doing what you need to do. Thank God the days of kids with additional needs being locked up so as not to offend the Great British public are long gone.

I am in my 7th decade and can remember being in hospital as a child, there was an "unused" ward upstairs and one student nurse let me go up there with her one day, we were all dying to know what the nurses did up there. There was a poor little boy with terrible deformities, his parents had abandoned him at the hospital as a baby and he was about 3 at this time. He spent his life alone in that ward with nurses popping up when they could spare the time. The nurse said the hospital couldn't even find a home that would take him. I have tears in my eyes just remembering. I was the oldest on the ward at the time, she said if I could go up and stroke his hands sometimes it would be nice as it relaxed him. As well as his deformities he was blind and deaf, he never had a visitor.

all very interesting - but nothing to do with the thread.

Yes some people do (10 year old dd2 could sit staring out of a window for hours), some don't but could manage with a book/some drawing etc (my 75 year old mum has drawing, a book, some crochet...and still talks to every person on the bus whether they want her to or not....honestly an iPad would be preferable), and some would struggle with an environment without something to help zone them out (7 year old ds has additional needs and the iPad, along with putty, a bag of ribbons and 'twiddles', means we are able to go on long journeys, sit in a restaurant etc)

Thanks for that post, Lucydogz, you know that some threads become more generally discursive, like any conversation

Yanbu, I have a toddler and on a recent journey four hours long I was praised by several people for keeping her amused by singing and playing games and not resorting to electronics, I think people are tolerant of child noise, just not tinny sounds for half heard tv

Ah a toddler. Bless.

Oh my god oh my god this thread is a gold mine.

spirited 8 month old

Lovely story, granny. Entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand, of course.

Phones as they are now/iPads have only been about the past 10/15 years. What did people do before them? Don't get me wrong, I'm not against electronics nor am I against them on certain boring journeys. But it's when a child is plonked with a phone or iPad in front of them because the parents think they can't possibly sit and wait for more than 5 minutes without the need for electronic entertainment.

You can't be essentialist about these things. Not being bothered to put some effort in to entertain a child on any journey, and not caring what effect you have on the people around you is obviously wrong, and a general rule

Whoops, of being quiet makes sense. But there are always exceptions.

Long journeys yes, the kids will get bored and might need some entertainment to get them through a journey. But a waiting room? Whatever happened to just staring into space and people watching? Do people not do that anymore?

I'm in my 40s and I find it almost unbearable to just sit and stare into space, so I don't expect my five year old to be able to manage it. I've been trying to do it my whole life and I've still never learnt how. Is there a secret that I don't know?

Where I live it is totally acceptable to walk along quiet, leafy trails in national parks whilst playing tinny loud, horrendous music from phones or transistor radios with bad interference. Barking mad.

No, I don't buy that. I have an NT child, as I believe you do, therefore I certainly can state that on my watch a screen without headphones will not happen. Just as, on my watch, cycling without a helmet won't happen, no exceptions.

Most children are happy with videos or games without any sound!! It's only parents/other adults that think they need the sound on to enjoy it.

They can't read a book but they are happy to just sit and look at the pictures for hours on end!!

I'm a nanny and my almost 4 year old charge will happily watch videos with the sound off or very low with me, with their parents they need the sound on. Thankfully will use head phones. But then tends to shout questions at them!!

one lovely person (like someone who doesn't mind their cardigan being stroked!) can make a day a whole lot smoother

I really hope so

Dad tried to stop him once or twice and I wondered if I was doing the wrong thing by overriding him and saying "actually, I really don't mind". Either way dad got a bit of a break and all the "tutters" had to stop tutting

There's a thread at the moment about a woman reading to her child in a cafe and how annoying it is.

Not just 'reading' to her child Basket - performing the flipping story at the top of her voice with voices and pauses and the whole lot. That's totally different to reading quietly with your child to keep them entertained

So what? The point is that everyone on here who is saying they never use a tablet, just read or chat to their kids are also probably pissing someone off. Me included.

Lovely story, granny A child with severe deformities, blind and deaf, abandoned to spend most of his time alone in an otherwise empty ward a lovely story? Truly the most bizarre response I have ever seen to a post.

The relevance is the nasty comments there have been on here about "all these disabled children" "so many disabled children on MN" etc and looking at the otherside of the picture i.e. 50 years ago that was that child's life but no one had to look at him or hear his screams so no one had to be tolerant. What a wonderful world.

Yanbu, I have a toddler and on a recent journey four hours long I was praised by several people for keeping her amused by singing and playing games and not resorting to electronics, I think people are tolerant of child noise, just not tinny sounds for half heard tv And some people were probably fed up listening to you and started a thread about performance parenting. You can't please all of the people all of the time.

You can't please all of the people all of the time. I used to agree with you granny but since becoming acquainted with mumsnet I've realised that you can't please anyone.