Behaviour of adults at Nativity play

[Lydiaatthebarre]

Headmistress stood up at start of play and asked that young children be brought outside if they became disruptive to the children on stage. She also said no videoing or photographing during the performance. A school video would be made and sold for £2 which would go towards play equipment, and parents could take a group photograph at the end of the play.

We still had toddlers running around and making noise, parents standing up and blocking people's views while they took photographs, not to mention the mother who answered her phone during the play.

Yes, I know it's not the RSC, but why can a bunch of adults not do as they're asked for 20-30 minutes?

Our school put on two performances one in the morning grandparents can attend ditto in the evening. Head says we can take photos but no to social media. They do film it to sell. I did try to take a photo, have a lovely one of a dads arm, he must have taken a gazillion pics. (rolls eyes) so I gave up. The toddlers and babies did behave, but the nativity was only about 20 minutes long.

I do not know which parents do not like social media for whatever reason so it is a no brainer really, you can always crop a picture if you particularly want to put your child up.

I was recently looking at some old photo's of my two children in the school nativity,, but they were taken in the 1970 era, and black and white photo's. So,no flashing camera phones or videos in those days.

I remember sitting on the chairs amongst all the other parents,who were quietly watching the performance,and maybe having a smile or a laugh at the sometimes funny things the children might do on stage. at times.

But you can't go anywhere these days, without somebody taking photo's of something or other. But I think that the school nativity main photo should suffice as the memento of the day.

Spare a thought for those of us who can't be there. I'm disabled and in absolute floods of tears right now because my pain is just too much today and DS' concert is happening right now as I type. I'm devastated. I spoke to the head an hour ago, who has OK'd it for DH to film DS' parts for me. I'm incredibly grateful as filming isn't allowed, but DH is also aware people will think he's being rude.

It's the seat saving that pisses me off. At my son's school there is a policy of 2 seats per child to watch plays etc yet some people still turn up with about 8 family members and save seats for them all. It's so selfish! Why does Great Aunt Doris/the next door neighbour/a second cousin twice removed need to see the play anyway?

I will never forget one year, the head did a little speech and then introduced a few of the year 6's. Basically, they were fed up with all school performances ruined by their disruptive adults who came to watch them. If they behaved the way their adults had they would be grounded. They are taught from early on to listen and pay attention to when others are talking, yet for some reason, the adults ignored this and did what they wanted. So please have respect, turn the phones off, and take out younger siblings when they start creating a noise.

Ten minutes in. The performance was paused and a number of adults told to leave.

Amazing after that. Everyone else behaved.

Or the ones who watch the whole thing through a tablet held aloft filming. Just watch the damn play!

One year our Deputy Head was in charge. She was very firm about no photography. No one dared! It was brilliant.

Otherwise, if it were me, I would stop the performance every time till they got the message.

Oh god the seat saving! Give my strength.

How rude.
It always irritates me when parents have to video absolutely everything, it's always the same ones, the pushy parents, the tiger mums, the pain in the arses.

I was at a school talk recently and two mums talked all the way through it. Literally all through it. It was SO rude.

I turned up 40 (40!) minutes early to DSs nativity- and only then because when I dropped him off the teacher told me to get there quick - I was planning to sit in the car for half an hour like a normal person!

I had to sit on a bench at the back of the hall like a naughty year six (with far too many adults crammed on) because literally every seat in the hall was sat on or being ‘saved’.

It’s a single form entry school wtf did everyone else bring 5 guests?

baffled.

The reason no photos or private videos should be taken is that in a typical school one or two kids may be subject to a safeguarding order eg foster kids - the school know to remove them from the end of play group shot and can blur their face from video. You won't know who they are because kept private for their sake. My friends adopted kids are in this situation due to the abuse they suffered and their natural father has been released from prison - extreme perhaps but you never know.

Thanks to the ‘adults’ who thought the rule about not posting any photos on social media didn’t apply to them, photos are now completely banned at our school’s Christmas shows.

I am grateful. It’s wonderful to be released from the obligation to capture everything on film, now I can just relax and enjoy the show.

Does consideration and respect for other people not come into it?

Not in the slightest.

Last nativity I went to, there was a very loud family who talked through the whole thing and only stayed as long as it took for "their" child to say their line, then got up and (noisily) left as the children struggled on and the rest of us looked on in disbelief.

Some people are totally self-absorbed. And fuckers.

Just giving you the teachers side of it:

Why don’t you just stop the play ... mostly the people filming, talking, answering phones etc do not give a fuck and ignore you. Or get angry and hurl abuse at you because you’ve embarrassed them which upsets the children terribly. On one occasion, when a phone went off TWICE with the ring tone “you fat bastard” blaring out and I asked that it be switched off immediately, I was dragged though a formal complaint procedure with the governors.

Because, you see, they are always filming or saving seats because of a disability - a relative who can’t come or they can’t stand or see from the back or whatever due to disability so you are a discriminatory arsehole if you intervene.
The screaming babies/toddlers always have special educational needs so you are discriminatory arsehole for asking them to go out until calm.

So no, you’ll find that staff don’t intervene.

At our school, two parents got chucked out for taking what they thought were sneaky photos. The head has a zero tolerance of it, especially since at the time there was a child involved in care.
The kids messing about annoys the shit out of me, I had one climbing over my lap repeatedly and used the Mumsnet standard to his ignorant mother 'do you mean to be so rude?" She was too busy playing Candy Crush to notice her poor son waving at her from the stage.

My son had the audacity to stand in front of another child at ours! Ssid mother huffed and gesticulated for my son to move out the way
The women in question has 'form' for this sort of thing!

I think parents seem to forget that their child is not the centre of everyone else's universe

It's called value consensus.
Not many people have it.

My son had the audacity to stand in front of another child at ours! Ssid mother huffed and gesticulated for my son to move out the way I had a parent like this who came to the first performance and threatened me that if 'that fat cow' (another Reception child) stood in front of her daughter again she was going to 'kick off' at the afternoon performance. I made sure the Deputy Head was sitting next to her and she kept quiet.

That sounds infuriating. Undermining to the head and confusing to the kids. How will children learn respect and to defer their immediate gratification if adults around them cannot.

Or schools could film the shows and release the footage, bypassing the need for an audience altogether.

We had this at ours too although we were allowed to video the head asked for photos to be taken beside the aisle so didn't block others views.
Lots stood up blocking and lots of toddlers mucking about and one was actually screeching gleefully for about 10 minutes. His mother did not say a single thing.

I’m genuinely glad our school isn’t this uptight. The not posting photos to social media or blocking other people’s view to film the whole damn thing is sensible. There are children in our school who aren’t allowed to be identified on social media and the school is very clear about that. But everyone is welcome to take photos for their own personal use and people are pretty respectful of that. But how sad to not be able to have any photos of your own child doing something special. You don’t have to be a dick. Just take a photo and stay out of everyone else’s way.

Similarly, younger siblings are of course welcome at ours and there were loads there and all well behaved. I bf my 10 month old through half of it. We wouldn’t be able to attend otherwise. I don’t have any family nearby (mine lives overseas) and I cannot imagine anyone else taking the day off work to come babysit so I could do to my dc’s school play. It’s at 2pm. Everyone I know (who wouldn’t already be there) certainly has much more pressing things to do with their time.

Thankfully though, no one at our school is an ass about it and it’s a lovely time without all the rules.

Bloody hell! WE didn't have anything like that - answering a phone call? We had toddlers making a little noise (mine are both older so I wasn't guilty but I never mind this as it's part of the school play experience) but any who were actually making a racket were taken out.

Because a surprising amount of people are self involved entitled cunts. Simple.