To think these kids were out of order?

[snowtippedmountain]

Hi! Looking for opinions as my big sis thinks I'm out of order and a grump!! Maybe I am... Don't get out much!!
I'm staying in a hotel for a couple of days as a birthday treat. It'd or posh, a Best Western chain hotel but mostly quiet.
Until last night, around 9.30-10.30 pm we were having drinks in the lounge area when 3 kids appeared. Aged I'd guess between 8 and 12.
They were lively, running about, doing handstands/cartwheels etc, fine, a bit annoying but fine, can't expect them to sit quietly all the time.
Then the parents (who'd been finishing a meal) came to join them and handed each of them a nerf gun.
That was it... Full of laser quest style play with screaming, shooting and ducking under/behind chairs and tables. Parents snapping pictures and laughing.
There were a few other groups trying to have a drink and most moved to the smallish bar area to avoid them.

I was really annoyed and thought they should have found more suitable games for their little dears to play.

Big sis, thinks it's their holiday too, none of our business.... Stop being a grump.

I am a grump, I've come to get away from kid noise as I'm a teacher of young kids and have young kids too so...

An ok thing to do and op is a gouch?
Or not something you'd be ok with?

Thanks?

[Atenco]

I'm not usually one for threads complaining about kids being out at night, but even I think nerf guns is taking the piss

Unbelievably bad parenting and I'm usually a children's rights advocate.

[simonisnotme]

who the fuck thinks its ok to let kids play with nerf guns in a hotel its not a bloody playground

[corythatwas]

Same as Atenco.

[I8toys]

It wasn't one of those feral families was it - if so - they can do whatever they like!!

[Ttbb]

YANBU. I wouldn't even permit children that age to carry on shouting and doing cart wheels etc let alone give them nerf guns.

[Liadain]

Incredibly bad behaviour and shame on those parents for enabling it. Kids can get hyper, but they need to be reined in.

As a teacher, I have to bite hard on my lip whenever I see this kind of thing going on - the school urge to tell them off is overwhelming!

[RMC123]

Bloody awful behaviour. And I see what people are saying about the kids should know better at their age. HOWEVER given the behaviour of their parents it seems probable they have never been taught any other way to behave. So on this occasion my finger of blame is pointing squarely at the parents. I would like to bet that these parents are the sort every teacher dreads. Nothing their child does is ever unacceptable .

[BackforGood]

Of course YANBU. I'd have spoken to them at the cartwheels etc - completely inappropriate.

[Thingvellir]

YANBU at all. I would have said something. Completely entitled of the parents to allow their children to play loud games in a bar with other people in it. It smacks of feeling they are the only people that matter.

Also, my DC aged 7 and 9 would ask me if I’d lost my mind if I handed them nerf guns to play with in a bar - they know very well already that it’s not an indoors game!

[RMC123]

Thingvellir they know that because you have taught them as a good parent. Honestly you would be amazed at what some children view ‘as normal’ because of what they see at home.

[Maelstrop]

Atrocious behaviour, I would have had words with the staff immediately. It's a hotel, not a ruddy play park!

[thatdearoctopus]

But at those ages they will also have been taught it at school, so I maintain my argument that they knew darn well that they were behaving badly and pissing off all the adults in the room.

[DianaPrincessOfThemyscira]

I am very laid back.

But I would not have been happy with that. I probably would have said something under my breath and then complained to management.

[ThePlatypusAlwaysTriumphs]

Wow nerf guns???? Why didn't they just give them super-soakers and be done with it!

DNBU! Am pretty shocked the staff didn't say something. Child friendly to me = suitable places for children to play, not children running around the bar

[RMC123]

They will have been taught in schools but I go back to my original point that the parents very probably have zero respect for teachers and ‘rules’. I teach and believe me everything we do can be undone by parents in a heart beat. Don’t get me wrong I am sure these children are little horrors but they are very much a product of their upbringing.

[Mittens1969]

I agree, YADNBU, OP. Selfish behaviour from both children and parents. I can’t believe the hotel staff didn’t intervene tbh.

[Ethylred]

Best Western?

Serves you right for not bringing your own nerf guns.

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

I disagree that they will have known to move what they know to do at school to the wider world.
One rule for school, which they may or may not follow, but if their parents do not follow through on that in the wider world, then how are they supposed to know that they don't behave like that OUTSIDE of school??

They don't all have the logical processing that says "if I shouldn't do this at school then I shouldn't do it anywhere else either".

[thatdearoctopus]

Thumb, you said earlier words to the effect of we shouldn't blame the kids and it wasn't their fault. I say that's bollocks. They're perfectly well old enough to know their behaviour was wrong. End of story.

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

You can say "end of story" as much as you like, but it does not stop the fact that the children are behaving the way their parents allow them to. They are not necessarily old enough to be able to deduce, therefore, that their behaviour is wrong in a setting that is not-school. So your opinion is not the end of the story, just an opinion.

It's still the parents' fault.

[thatdearoctopus]

The parents are to blame. So are the children.

[Crumbs1]

Dreadful behaviour from both parents and children. Hotel should have intervened.
I would write and complain and ask for a free night in a hotel of your choice from the chain.

[Mittens1969]

Obviously they haven’t been brought up very well, and the parents are of course to blame for giving them the nerf guns in the first place. Why argue the toss about who’s more to blame??

[EggysMom]

To me, it depends where this happened - you get Best Western hotels in all kinds of areas! If the hotel was in a holiday resort, full of children, obviously on half term break ... then I'd expect some play to intrude into public areas in this way. If the hotel was a romantic, secluded, designed primarily for adults to have refined breaks ... then the parents of these children were BU in not insisting on appropriate behaviour.

[milliemolliemou]

Eggsy if I've read this correctly, the 3 kids were running around doing handstands between 2130-2230 and then, later, were handed Nerf guns. Estimated age 8-12,

Even at halfterm, in a child-friendly hotel, that's not good behaviour. The child-friendly hotel should actively warn people that that's what they tolerate - some families with children wouldn't like it either.

If the parents felt the kids needed a bit more of a run around, they should have done it earlier.

OP I would take it up with the hotel. Say it wasn't appropriate, that it annoyed you, and that they need to warn people on their website or via booking sites if they think it tolerable - or they need to train their staff to intervene.