To be annoyed when my friends children butt in on our conversations..........

[FLIER]

..........and for them not be told to wait while adults speak?.....so I get ignored....and we never seem to finish a conversation.....It happens all the time.
and its really pissing me off now.

Please tell me its not just me.

Wouldn't it be fairer to have something against the parents of the children who butt in who don't attempt to teach them manners?

Anyway my kids frequently have something more interesting to say than adults of my acquaintance

elsieanjoanne its not my ds who is the problem - he knows not to interrupt or to say excuse me.

well TC short of putting in a catchall phrase as my by-line regarding special needs. i think you could take anything i post out of context using Special needs.

so to clarify. i find butt in kids annoying, however, this isn't anything i would openly comment on to the mother i would just quietly thank the heavens my children didn't think they must be immediatley answered and that they had good manners taught by me and their dad. after all its hardly the childs fault. children need to be answered faily quickly but must realise that there are natural points at which they will be answered and therefore they can ( mine did) wait for the 30 secs it may take to finish your sentance - to whomever.

this of course excludes those mums who have special needs children who have different needs.

LOL Custardo!

But DD1 would definitley make you run screaming from the room after 5 seconds of being around her! How DO you teach a child with SN's not to interrupt, it's beyond me. Hope I'll have better luck with the other 2!

All children will naturally interrupt it's very much down to the parent to teach them manners.

I distinctlyy remember feeling like I was going to burst if I didn't get to speak to my mum while she stopped in the street to have one of her natters
It used to drive me crazy but I absoloutley knew not to interrupt.

But why do parents think it's OK to ignore a child for ages. Just because they don't interrupt doesn't mean they don't have something to say.

Ormirian - which parents are ignoring their children for ages? and think its OK to do so? Surely thats a whole different discussion?

I tell dd1 to say excuse me

which works now and again

but generally my convos go:

me: so, x said y
dh: oh, did y get cross?
dd1 I WANT AN ICE POP
me: yes and the project is delayed
dh: well serves her right
dd1 I WANT AN ICE POP
me: I hate working
dh: well tough
dd1 & dd2: CAN WE HAVE AN ICE POP????
me: soooooo, I may have to cover
dh: > shall we talk later?

My aunt used to, and proably still does, ignore my cousin who used to say "Mummy? Mummy? Mummy?" repeatedly while my aunt ignored her and then, after a considerable time my aunt would shout at her not to be so rude and interrupt

Would much prefer to let the child know that you know they are there and then wait until a suitable break in the conversation. But sometimes such a break must be engineered as it is not reasonable to expect a child to wait too long (how long is too long depends on the child).

yeah oliveoil My dh and I tend to properly talk after children are in bed. ie indepth conversations.

I hate those truncated conversations you get around kids and now see my friends without them if I want to have a decent talk. My 3 kids take turns to speak at meal times but younger ones often look to the eldest to finish their sentence/explain better so it doesn't always work. I particularly hate when they try to talk to me when I'm on the phone but have no answer other than locking myself in the bathroom.

LOL, mine goes like this

Me : it was a nice break for the girls but would never go to Centre Parcs again
DD1 : mummy, mummy, mummy, mummy, mummy, mummy
Me - wait a minute please, mummy's talking, .. I mean I'd rather camp in France'
DD1 'mummy mummy mummy, mummy toasst please, mummy toast, toast, toast, mummy toast
Me - wait a moment - it's a lot cheaper and a lot less hassle'
DD1 - mummy toast please mummy. toast, toast, toast, mummy toast.

and so on.

I think the only answer is to never see another grown up when your kids are awake! -

(was Centreparcs rubbish then? we went to Haven on a last minute jobby this weekend. I am still recovering from the polyester football shirt overload

I agree Thomcat, only see friends away from kids. Also to schedule phone calls for nap times. Is this just giving in tho?

flier - haven't you seen them though? The two mums standing yacking on the pavement with a child holding on to one hand looking bored and miserable? And then the kids gets yanked by the arm and told to shut up when they 'interrupt'. It's sad. Perhaps it's just round here then.

I fucking hate Centre Parcs. Don't do it.
I suppose I can see the appeal if a) your kids are old enough to go off on their own a bit, play tennis, rollerskate, etc etc etc, and b) you don't mind shit food and having all your decisions made for you c) don't worry about being wrapped up in cage, filled with trees, buit a cage and have no desire to explore the rest of the world!

Personnaly I'd rather discover palces for myself and not rush round like a blue arsed fly from one overpriced acticity tothe next!

I have no hesitation in telling the other mum's child "Wait a moment please, your mummy and I are talking to each other.", just as I would to my own child. But I always make sure that I turn to them after a minute or two and say "OK, thanks for waiting, what did you want to say?". I do it as soon as possible, even if it means the other adult and I have to take a brief break from our conversation.

Courtesy and manners go both ways.

sounds grim

bet nobody read the Sunday Sport there though [innocent]

dh said we are the only ones with a broadsheet

bloody ponce

I feel really irritated when my friends' dcs interrupt, assuming they're over about 3, but am a stickler for manners.

Must admit, though, once we had a houseful and we kept ignoring ds quietly muttering somehtin. After about 5 mins, I exasperatedly said, "WHAT?". He'd been trying to tell me there was a frog in the house....and there was.

OO - LOL! Didn't see a paper being read the whole time but did hear a mother screach 'if you don't shut up crying I'll give you something to cry about'! And no it wasn't me, surprisingly!

I havent read all the messages, but my thoughts are that there is no need to make a distintion between adults and children interupting - many adults interupt inappropriately.

If either a child or adult 'butts in' when i am talking i will ask them to wait a moment until i have finished speaking or if they ask in a way that is not 'butting in' or demanding, then i will listen. I would HATE to be ignored if something was really important to me/life threatening (like a lack of lemonade sparkle) but this is more about respecting others than about being 'heard'.

Oh gawd I remember standing silently for so long while my mum gossiped with other women. She was so strict I don't think I'd even have dared to interrupt to tell her her skirt was on fire!

With my dd I try to let her know that if people talk over the top of each other then nobody gets heard and she hates it when she's interrupted. That seems to work. But if I'm out for a day with her, a friend and their child then I'd expect my dd to join in and feel happy to be part of the conversation. If I wanted a totally uninterrupted adult conversation I'd do it without dd there. Partly because I don't like her listening to all the adult things I want to talk about and partly because now she's at school full-time I feel I see little enough of her as it is so I want her to be part of my company.

I don't think you are unreasonable - my 4yr old and 3 yr old understand well enough not to interrupt

I also agree that children get 'talked over' an awful lot of the time. My dd sometimes takes a small lifetime to explain something and dp is very bad at asking me a totally irrelevant question over the top of her. I find that very rude.