To tell these performance parents ...

[pieceofpurplesky]

To shut the fuck up?
In A&E with DS waiting for X-ray results with two very vocal performing parents.
'Look Livvy the book has a chicken. What does a chicken say Livvy'
'Oh Livvy you are so clever'
'Livvy look at the nice nurse. What does a nurse do Livvy?'.
'Stop walking away Livvy, I am reading a story. You need to listen Livvy it's a good story'
And on and on and on

All poor Livvy wants to do is bash a toy car on a table and play with a teapot.

Not at all SharronNeedles, have you read the whole thread? There's a difference.

Oh god. So you get slated on here for engaging with your child now?

No.

You don’t sound like you can tolerate children well and them being patented, do you have children op?

@Farthingwood143657 that is hilarious. Yes I have children. I am also a secondary school teacher in a standard comp so believe me I can tolerate an awful lot from children. Performing parents not so much.
Which is what this thread is about (and obviously in the OP I state I am in hospital with my child - maybe read the thread and the Op?)

All of these people who feel the need to defend talking to their child in public. I also talk to my children in public. That's not what the OP is about at all. Maybe you are just lucky that you've never come across performance parenting.

Wow. I’ve never heard this term before but I now know that I am in fact a performance parent.

I constantly engage with my boys when out, mainly educational stuff and when they do something right they get a silly amount of praise.

“Ok DS now count to ten”

counts to ten in 2 year Old language

“That’s it well done you’re such a clever boy I love you so much my little genius!”

Even when he farts and says “BUM!” I’m all hysterical with praise and love. I’m no different when out to what I am with my children at home. I don’t look around for attention though, that’s the only part that doesn’t resonate with my life.

I was ignored as a child, I used to run up to my mum with what I’d learnt and physically be pushed aside whilst she sat smoking and talking with her friends, and it was the same with my many step dads. I grew up with no praise and was often mocked for enjoying School and even to this day when I so much as mention my studies towards my PHD I get eye rolls.

Don’t assume performance parenting is for your benefit. Some of us are overcompensating for crappy childhoods and have a genuine fear of not praising and pushing our children educationally.

Took my daughter to an interview at a top London Girls' Independent school (second stage of admissions process). We were waiting in one of the libraries and the father of another interviewee had his daughter on his knee and was reading the Financial Times aloud to her. Don't know if the kid got in. Mine did - she was reading Adrian Mole, the little pleb.

What happens when you have performance offspring?

"DS, shut up showing off your enormous vocabulary in Kwik Save!"

Had this in hospital waiting room the other day. (Routine check up).

Man with 3 ish year old. 'GOSH DARLING, LOOK AT THE SUNSHINE, TELL DADDY WHICH PLANET IS CLOSEST TO THE SUN DARLING. DARLING? TELL DADDY DARLING'. Poor kid looks at dad like she wants to kill him. 'THAT'S RIGHT DARLING, IT'S MERCURY, WHAT A CLEVER GIRL!'.

I shit you not. Woman sitting next to me nearly pissed herself laughing, I couldn't look at her as I knew I'd lose it completely.

Perendinate ok well in your eyes I’m not a performance parent, phew. Well unless I look up which I don’t believe I do but I don’t analyse every one of my head movements and until now I didn’t think strangers would be analysing them either.

However when searching this term on mumsnet you come across other views such as “she was in the toilet performance parenting”.

I’m lost, unless McJudgypants was also in the toilet with this “performance parent” then where was the audience?

It’s just another form of judgement and who actually really cares what other parents are doing. Especially whilst in A&E with their own child

It’s utterly insufferable and ultimately detrimental to lavish so much over the top praise on children for the simplest of things, IMHO.

This is why we have generations of needy, spoiled, entitled CFers!

@lils888 I completely agree, I don't get why the outrage really. I just mind my own DDs when out and about. I've read books to them in the GP surgery/A&E, sung nursery rhymes /jingle bells on the way to school. I've never even wondered whether passers by have thought I was showing off.

Parenting in public is hard enough without worrying about whether random members of the public think we're 'performance parenting'. Speaking for myself, I've never had the energy to worry about impressing strangers in a cafe/museum. But obviously I can't speak for other parents.

Head - desk.

Then you’re NOT PERFOMANCE PARENTING!!!

How is this so hard to grasp?!

I would get right on your tits then because this is me! All the time!

I had no idea it's called 'performance parenting', I call it 'parenting'!

As in the kind of parenting that involves engaging with your children at every opportunity rather than playing on your phone. Enjoying interacting with your children. Taking pleasure from teaching your children new things.

Op you should like a bitchy schoolgirl

I should what like a bitchy schoolgirl @Rainbowsandflowers78 ?
Perhaps read the thread and see what PP actually is. It's not just interacting with your children.

I understand exactly what it is. But you have no way of knowing what their intentions were. They are stuck in a and e with their child and just desperately trying to entertain her.
Grow up a bit.

@Rainbowsandflowers78 I really don't need to grow up thanks. These were parents showing of to a captured audience. The child had a hurt finger. You were not there. I was. The child wanted to play with the other children but kept getting dragged back to allow her parents to educate her and us about how marvellously clever she was.

Off obviously

I don’t let my child go off to play with other kids in a and e because I don’t want her to catch their germs! It’s a hospital not a playgroup. Maybe that’s what they were thinking, actually.

You poor kid rainbow.

Eh? Poor kid for protecting them from norovirus, flu, Rsv, chicken pox, meningitis, gastro - people don’t usually just go to a and e with colds you know.
You obviously haven’t spent much time in hospitals!
You’ll see what I mean perhaps when in 1-2 weeks time your kid comes down with the shits or a nasty virus.

Actually @Rainbowsandflowers78 I have spent a lot of time in hospital with my child. A good percentage of that in intensive care as he nearly died. You know germs travel right? Airborne/touch/on floor or furniture?
In a small room with 12 chairs the kid was going to get any germs. As it is in the hospital I was in the 'injured' and the 'ill' are separated.

Plus my child is more likely to pick something up from school where hygiene and hand washing is hardly a priority