In what circs would you tell off someone else's child...

[Frege]

Particularly when the parent isn't there?

We were at school breakfast this morning. The boy ahead of us in the queue to be served was appallingly rude and dismissive to the dinner lady- barking orders, no pleases or thank yous etc. No particular thing that you could have pointed at as being actively wrong (he didn't swear at her, for example) but just a rude attitude. I'd be mortified if my kids behaved like that.

I've known this boy, vaguely, for years. He's now 10yo. His mother had dropped him off and gone to work so wasn't present.

WWYD?

As a parent I would keep out of it. Would be different if I was working there. In general I very rarely tell someone else's child off.

If the parent or carer isn’t with the child then I’ll tell them off. And if their carer is there but hasn’t noticed or is ignoring them and they are in danger or hurting/being cruel to another child then I’ll still tell them off. This attitude that a child should only behave if their parent is there is weird.

If you were very near then a surprised ‘Alfie!’ might be all that was needed.

I wouldn't tell them off as such, but if I knew them I would probably have said that isn't nice and asked what would their parent say if they heard them being so rude?

I'm often heard calling other children's names when they're doing something they shouldn't just so they know someone is watching! Works effectively for me.

In that situation it was up to the dinner lady not you but id the child was rude to you I would say something.

I'm more experienced with under 5s as im a nanny. I go to a lot of toddler groups and wouldnt think twice of correcting a childs behaviour if the parent wasn't near them. For example if Jack hits Emily I will tell jack we don't hit of if Emily snatches something from jack then I will tell Emily to give it back. I will usually tell the parent what's happened too.

I would have said "I think you meant to say please then didn't you (name)" and do a proper MN head tilt!

I would have said, "Have you no manners? We do not speak to each other in that way. Stop being so rude to the lady. Now apologise, and ask her again politely."

As I said, every circumstance.

I saw a child tormenting another child in the school playground while waiting for the 9am bell, so I told him to stop it and promptly forgot about it. A week later the boys class teacher had a quiet word with me saying the boy doing the tormenting had complained to his mum that I'd told him off and class teacher asked me not to tell off any more children but to let one of the teachers know of any bad behaviour.

No wonder adults don't want to intervene when it doesn't involve their dcs but it's society's loss.