To think a train is not a playground

[lastqueenofscotland]

Travelling home for Christmas woes!
Booked a train well in advance, two women with 6 children between them get on. Firstly they haven’t reserved seats (long haul train) and are quite shitty when people aren’t willing to give up their seats for them.

Then th kids spend most of the journey running riot with the mums just chatting to each other the whole time.
This is literally running up and down the carriage the whole time, including when the refreshment cart was coming down. Playing a game which involved seeing which one could scream the loudest.
Eventually one of them ran into a man and fell over, cue crying, cue mum having a go at him telling him to look where he was going. Man snapped and said maybe if they had bothered to parent their children it wouldn’t have happened.
Mum stops kids running riot but gives man daggers for the rest of the journey.

Why are people this bloody selfish?!

I hate parents like this.

I asked the dentist receptionist when they opened the creche. .
Poor dh was waiting to have teeth out, extremely anxious and 3 dc charging around madly while dps just sat laughing!
She just smiled. Get them chucked out imo!!

We had this last week, in a pottery cafe- 4 children running around, throwing things at staff, trying to pull pottery off the shelves.

Mine do this / I have no idea how to stop them (and yes I do try). We hardly go out because of it - hideous.

YANBU, it’s so rude. I love that someone told them off

Really annoys me how everywhere seems to be used as a playground these days, and not just by small children, but children who are old enough to know better, and big enough to do some damage if they barge into someone. Busy supermarket, crowded pavement, cafe, library, railway station platform.... I once encountered two girls, who weren't toddlers, playing hide and seek among the bras in M&S, barging past me when I was trying to look at the display.

It's scary sometimes. I saw an idiot woman let her small child run up and down the aisle of a bus while it was lurching round bends. No doubt it would have been the driver's fault if he had fallen and hit his head

I also hate it when those of us with children with difficulties who are genuinely difficult to manage but we are doing our best get lumped in with parents who sit back and don't give a shit

We went to Norway this summer. The trains we travelled on had family carriages WITH built in playgrounds.

Nobody had to get annoyed about anyone.

I hate kids with scooters in supermarkets.

I'd like to applaud the chap in you post OP. Well done him for saying something and not being apologetic.

@thewinkingprawn

I wish more people with DC like this would go out less.

Well done to the bloke in the OP.

there is so much "everywhere is a playground" - it's crazy.

I read another post somewhere with a woman moaning about how there were kids sitting quietly in her carriage glued to screens and when did kids stop playing etc. Can't win really.

That was my thinking thisone however, I don’t fall in to either camp. My kids still colour in on the train or in restaurants.

YANBU. Recently I've experienced the phenomenon of scooters in supermarkets. It's become very common of late and I see at least one almost every time I go to a supermarket now. It's beyond irresponsible and dangerous. Yes, it may keep Little Johnny occupied whilst you do the shopping but I fear for Little Johnny scooting into a trolley or a shelf full of glass jars or bottles.
But my personal most WTF was witnessing a family playing football in a supermarket. Seriously. Not just the kids, no this was dad and the kids having a kick about in the aisles whilst mum shopped. Talk about a serious accident waiting to happen as said football crashes into a gazilion jars or bottles on shelves. I did not hang around to witness it.
Anything seems to go nowadays with absolutely no regard for either personal safety or other people just trying to go about their business in a quiet, civilised manner (see also: behaviour in cinemas and theatres).

I was at a ‘ stately home’ type place, in the gardens with my daughter and husband. We went into the maze. I had a problem with my arm and my arm was in a sling. If I moved my elbow or touched it at all it was agony, so I had it strapped up and immobilised. DD was leading the way in the maze , me in the middle, DH bringing up the rear. A lad, of about 14 HURTLED round a corner, laughing and screaming, and looking over his shoulder. He bashed into DD who went flying INTO the hedge of the maze and then cannoned into me. I smacked him with my handbag ( didn’t it was just pure reaction) , he simply tried to carry on and shoved me out of the way and tried to get past DH. BIG mistake. The lad wh9 was chasing him had come round the corner, worked out pretty sharpish what had happened and turned and ran . I by now was desperately trying to pull DD out of hedge, her dress was ripped and her face was scratched to bits. I has floods of tears pouring down my face and hat bit my lip until it was bleeding with the pain of my arm.
DH had this scumbag kid - who now had the mouth of a well travelled sailor- in an arm lock and he marched him out and found the security manager to hand him over. Manager took the kid and put him in an office with someone while they found his parents.
It utterly ruined our day - I was in too much pain to do anything but leave and poor DD was in a bit of shock with her scratched arms and face. It had cost us about £100 when you factor in parking, entrance fee, fuel etc.
People shouldn’t take their kids out if they can’t control them.
AND we need to be braver in calling out these irresponsible parents whose kids spoil things for many people.

I hope you made up for her looks by beaming at him!

@thewinkingprawn

A system of consistent rewards and consequences, tailored so that the children actually care about them. Do they behave themselves appropriately on school trips?

Of course there's a middle ground between running riot and being tech zombies

Ha ha Orchard cross post!

Or there are board games, card games, paper games, I-Spy games.

@thewinkingprawn What ages are they?

It does get easier.

I was in the queue in a very busy cafe in my very naice town this morning. There was a dad with a toddler in a buggy and a slightly older one who he was letting repeatedly shove the buggy into the lady behind them. He didn't tell them off, move the buggy or acknowledge the lady, even when she gave up and left. She made it very clear why she was leaving and even then he didn't stop them.

Then I had to move a hot drink away from the kid as he was grabbing at stuff on the counter. Dad didn't move. Kid screamed for chocolate and got it and then Dad sat on his phone and ignored them.

FFS, why don't people parent their kids? I'm with you OP!

In this situation, the way these kids were behaving is the way they have been dragged up. Certainly doesn’t sound like they have been parented correctly.

Fair play to the chappy on the train for speaking up.

Fenella awful experience for you both

that 14 year old should be personally liable for costs.

I know someone who fell and broke bones really badly because of a teen on a bike, but she didn't feel the need to go after him for anything. I thought that was a shame. She said "ah well, he called an ambulance and stayed till it came" - not fucking good enough. That's my generation's attitude to parenting sadly - she thinks he's just a kid who made a bad call.