Reach your kids some fucking consideration! [ranty]

[someonestolemynick]

This has been inspired by the mummy who let her two charming kids scoot around Tesco. But it also goes out to the geniuses who keep their little darlings watch Peppa Pig on the bus or the pub. The parent who doesn't think it necessary to teach their kids that the appropriate response to bumping into another human is to apologise.
I have noticed this more and more: children (being children) act loud, entitled or aggressive and the accompanying adult smiles indulgently rather than correcting behaviour that infringes on others.

Ianbu

Our girl uses a Kaye walker - a frame on wheels. I actively encourage her to whizz about, especially in supermarkets and airports. She will lift her legs and glide down the aisle. I do the same with the trolley 😊

She knows the rules of when she can and can't do it, she has never run at or near anyone and it's one of the few times she can do so without fear of a raised slab or pothole. As a result the kids who usually gawp and stare, look in awe and think her frame is really cool and really want one. For that reason alone, anyone who has a problem with it can fuck off.

She is the kind of child who will give me in to trouble if my phone is too loud in public so I've no concern as to what kind of adult she will turn out to be.

If other people's children's behaviour effects you when you are out, perhaps you should stay home

Thats the most ridiculous thing I have heard in a long time!

Everyone else should stay home so the unparented brats can rule the roost? Pull the other one.

Maybe if people taught their kids to behave in public this thread wouldnt be necessary.

But I am damm sure I am not staying in the house just because some parent decides their brat can scoot around a supermarket banging into other people with no comeback. (They would if it was me!)

if more people spoke up and told these kids and their parents to behave in cafes and supermarkets the parents might get the hint?

Maybe if supermarkets and cafes clamped down on kids running amok people might learn that the world doesnt revolve around them. Staff should be able to tell kids to sit down before an accident happens and if parents complain they should be kicked out. Its patently obvious when a child is going to get a straw, going to the toilet etc or just running around screaming willy nilly.

Why should the rest of the customers be sitting on tenterhooks waiting for a child to bang into someone with a hot drink and be scalded while the parent sits oblivious on their phone/chatting?

Thankfully I have never seen a child on a scooter at our local museum, the kids there seem to be all capable of behaving in public. (excited at the exhibits, chatty, etc as you would expect but not running riot)

Cracks me up that people think we can actually control children's behaviour
Well seems like I have been doing this parenting malarky all wrong. I thought it was the parents job to teach kids how to behave when out in public and respect other peoples right to NOT be disturbed, ran over, bumped into or have hot drinks spilled over them.

Obviously if a child does bump into you, doesn't apologise, is rude, causes you to spill your coffee etc, then you have every right to be annoyed, but if they haven't actually done anything to you then you can't get cross on the offchance that they might - they have as much right to play

I dont believe anyone actually thinks this is ok!
if some kid rams into you and you spill you scalding hot coffee all over yourself or someone else 'its ok by you to get annoyed' fucking right I would be. Does that go for pensioners getting knocked over to? Is it ok for them to be annoyed when they are lying there with a broken hip?

playgrounds, gardens, parks, woodland, fields are for play.
Supermarkets, cafes, restaraunts, shopping centres, airports, etc are not.

Maybe, just maybe teaching them its not ok to run around in cafes, not ok to scoot around supermarkets then the whole experience would be much more pleasant for everyone?

Excited You're certainly right that ipads are new... but your first post had literally nothing to do with technology! You were generalizing about how parents 'these days' don't say 'no' enough, so basically lumping everyone together and criticising! That's what I find unpleasant.

I've never seen a child playing a tablet without headphones. I've seen adults playing stuff on their phone without headphones quite often though.

Some of these posts are really intolerant of children. Yes, they have to learn to behave in public but learning is a long process. Kids don't watch where they're going consistently, they have less spatial awareness, their mind wanders. Because they're kids. I'm constantly telling my DS to watch where he's going, he tries most of the time but he forgets pretty easily. Drives me crazy, but how else is he going to learn if he's never out in public? Kids have as much right to public space as adults.

What I sometimes find on threads like this is that if you make vaguely balanced, fair analysis of the issue (which, I flatter myself, I have done), people generally ignore you because they just want to rant about bratty children and feckless parents.

I made the point a while back that society has changed, and kids who would have been tearing round in the fields/empty streets are now corralled into Tesco with their parents. Their behaviour is scrutinised like never before.

My husband says he and his friends would go off all day to the local pool, unsupervised, from about the age of ten. Now, we have a mother berated for not watching her 14 year old constantly in the pool (another thread).

Mothers would stay at home with their children in the past (generally speaking). Now, the world is apparently child and mother-friendly. But, quelle surprise, we don't like the ways mothers (and it usually is mothers) are parenting in public.

Kids used to be kept in line with a clip round the ear and a fairly prevalent culture of fear. We do things differently now! Saying 'no' isn't a magic cure-all for all misbehaviour.

Kids have always been kids. Some parents have always been lazy. And the older generation has always despaired of the younger...

Sandsnake ive seen a young child watching peppa pig with no head phones in a hospital waiting room.

And did you call the police, Niki ?!

Ffs. Kid may have been, you know, sick.

It wasnt. Waiting with mum and grandma.

Grandma allowed her to watch it full blast volume in an adult clinic with sick and elderly people.

YABU - I don't mean to be rude but what other parents allow their children to do is really none of our business, and me personally I don't care

Including the little shit who decided kicking my walking stick was fun. Do fuck off dear, we live in a society.

I was once leaving a large petrol station when a child of about 10 came running out of the shop at full pelt straight onto the forecourt full of moving vehicles. Absolutely old enough to know better.

Thankfully I was able to stop and not run her over, but it was a hot day, my windows were down and she heard some extremely choice (involuntary) words in the course of this.

Her mum then pulled up to me at the nearby traffic lights and had a go at me for swearing in the vicinity of her PFB who apparently had every right to express herself in the way she had and of course it was acceptable for her to run out into the path of moving cars.

It wasn't. It Ok then.

Remember before headphones for tv were even a thing? They used to just have a tv on in the hospital ward, and it was a bit of a free for all as far as channel and volume went. Imagine! The horror!

I was browsing an aisle and stepped back, only to nearly (as in I didn't actually make contact) step on a child that was wandering around. Clearly being behind me I couldn't see him. The parent decided to loudly parent "stupid bitch, she ran you over, you can always tell the people who don't have children" she went on and on ranting at me

I went outside and cried because I probably won't ever have children. But if I had done that as a child my dad would have been "tut, honestly get out from people's feet"

And then we get the lovely mum with her teen dd and two younger kids on the train yesterday. Every time the little boy got a bit over excited and louder (really not, just louder conversation) she was shushing him and apologising for him. Their conversation was peppered with please, may I and thank you. He asked to borrow dsis phone to play a game, mum said dsis says you can have it between X and y station, then little sis y and z. No winge, no complaint, back to activity book.
A little politeness and consideration for others from everyone makes the world a nicer place to be.

As I predicted, my thoughts about changes in society have been largely ignored in favour of random snapshots of kids knocking over adults in public...

As a quick aside, I can't help feeling that the whole Peppa Pig thing is a bit of a red herring. I don't think it's the noise (how loud can it be?? Louder than a toddler whining, louder than your normal conversation?). I think it's a sort of quasi-moral outrage that a child is doing this, and that it involves new-fangled technology. The noise thing is a convenient way of being outraged.

As I mentioned, there used to ve TVs, with sound, in hospitals and various places. Without a PA system (or headphones), you just have to rely on subtitles in a busy public place.

Disclaimer: my kids don't watch devices in public.

Ffs. Kid may have been, you know, sick And? So would all of the people around them that they were annoying that were also, you know, sick.

I had a child repeatedly kicking the back of my seat on the bus the other week. Now with my dd who's 6 when she has done that I tell her to stop, if she doesn't I tell her that if she doesn't stop because it will be annoying the person in front I will make her stand up for the journey. She's always stopped so she's never had to stand up yet but I would follow through with it if she carried on. Anyway this woman's child was about the same age as my daughter and he was kicking my seat for about 10 mins. I turned my head and said really politely can you not do that please. The look the mother gave me was unreal if looks could kill I'd be dead

Remember before headphones for tv were even a thing? They used to just have a tv on in the hospital ward, and it was a bit of a free for all as far as channel and volume went. Imagine! The horror! Oh it brings back horror to me, I was in hospital with concussion Torvil and Dean were winning everything with Bolero. The nurses switched the TV on at 6 am and it was on till about 10 or 11 pm. I swear the sound of Bolero still makes me feel ill.

My brother was in hospital for a couple of weeks a few years ago. Most of the televisions were being used without headphones and were on all day with usually 3 different channels going at the same time.

When ds has hospital appointments we do whatever it takes to prevent a meltdown with aggressive behaviour and so he often has vtech type toys that make a noise. We would rather he had somewhere suitable to wait so he wouldn't need that to cope but the hospital expects him to wait in the main waiting area.

At least scooting children move.

I've spent too much time this school holiday being annoyed at ADULTS who walk through doors or down pathways etc and then STOP en made for a great debate on their next move!

Get out of the way people - some of us aren't that indecisive

Gromance Well, I imagine most old, ill people are hardly going to notice the minimal amount of noise coming from a Peppa Pig episode, or will probably have far more important things to worry about. A hospital waiting room is a pretty horrifying experience for everyone. No one goes there to enjoy themselves/soak up the peace and quiet!

Anyway, as I've said, the Peppa Pig thing is a massive red herring. Have you heard the noise coffee machines make??

As a society, we just hate kids. We hate their patents too (especially mothers) and we're constantly looking for complaints about their behaviour, their 'entitlement', their noise, their use of screens, their 'performance parenting', their lack of parenting. The list is endless.

Those who reminisce about those golden, peaceful years are forgetting that the reason you didn't see so many kids misbehaving in public decades ago was that kids were elsewhere. They ran free! People didn't do all the eating out and family trips we do now. As I've said, our society seems to be geared up for children, but many people are just seething below the surface as they don't want yo encounter other people's kids!

Threads like these just glory in the worst snapshots of modern behaviour. People are essentially no different, but the way we live is more frantic, fast-paced and conducive to these encounters. It's just unfair to imply parents are 'worse'.

YANBU!! You are brave for posting this but I completely agree!

Brave ? For posting a generalised criticism of parenting styles on MN? Really ?? That sort of thing is the lifeblood of this place!

I agree, Merchant - but also I can't be the only person who read your post and thought 'interesting - that pretty much sums it up and I therefore have nothing to add.'

Although, I was in the supermarket and etc etc etc...