To be shocked at how many of today's children behave?

[PlutoCritter]

Let me start by saying i'm in my early 30s and I definitely don't come from a "children are seen and not heard"/military-family type background where children weren't allowed to speak. my parents were quite laid back in some ways. however:

we've had our first child and this year i've started to make my first mum friends. (no dads, it's very traditional around here, all either SAHMs or part-time working mums as the primary carer, in a new fairly middle class area which we've only been living in for the last year or so, so don't have strong social networks yet.)

I've only really started to host "play dates" in the last few months and very often the baby's parents bring older DC along,which I thought was great!

So it's 2x babies plus (say) a 4 year old and a 5 year old. or a couple of 3 year olds plus a 7 year old. most recently, a 5 and a 6 year old with 2 babies visited.

and JESUS CHRIST, the average bahaviour is feral!

Most have been jumping on the sofa (to the point I thought it was going to break springs and had to tell them to calm it down myself eventually), one child going into our bedroom and looking through the wardrobe (!!) when going to the bathroom, one was repeatedly sneaking into the kitchen where i was making lunch and stealing stuff from the fridge 10 minutes before i was due to serve it, lunch just smashed up into a ball of mess and not eaten by older kids (5-7 years) regularly. Getting up halfway through a meal to run off and play with toys at age 8. Constant whining for snacks and sugar drinks. One refused to drink anything at all during a 2hr visit because we only had milk or water (i literally had no juice in the house to offer). Stealing food from other people's plates. Constantly interrupting adults having a chat - not while being ignored, just as the normal way of communicating. Ramming metal car toys into the wall so the wallpaper is scratched and the plaster has dents in it in the living room.

A few days ago, one little "darling" decided it would be funny to remove all the sofa cushions and drag them into the dining room so no one could sit down until it was all fixed as we helped the littler DC take shoes and coats off, then the %/6 (ish) child stood giggling while the adults just sorted it. if i'd done that as a kid as a guest my mum would have brought the wrath of god down on me there and then!

I genuinely don't believe a lot of this would have been accepted when I was a kid, and the first couple of play dates, i thought we'd just met a couple of bad apples, but it's now 5-6 visits with 3 different families. i'm not happy to accept further playdates at home if it's going to be like this and people think it's normal. DH is the same, he's been shocked at the state of the house when people have left and on the times he's been here, he's sick of people not telling their kids how to behave as a guest and feels similarly uncomfortable at e.g. having to intervene when a child has been doing something dangerous or damaing while the parent sits and ignores it.

please tell me this isn't normal????

(let me be clear, the kids seem perfectly NICE as children, and they play nicely, e.g. sharing toys, it's just the general disrespect for adults or breaking things that i am finding absolutely shocking.)

yours will be perfect, OP

😒if mine ever wrecks someone's home, i would offer to pay for the damage and leave, i would NEVER let them do what's recently happened without trying to fix it, and we'd not be returning. no way.

i realise i may be different in 5 years, and i may have parenting challenges, but this is so far beyond acceptable, i don't think i'm being unfair here..

I'd expect my DC's to behave better than that but yes I've had to put up with all of that from other people's little darlings.

Other People's Children is why soft play was invented!

It's really not about being perfect though, is it? Just about children learning good manners and what is/isn't appropriate. Basic socialisation.

See this isn’t fair.

there is a difference between unrealistic expectations and, actually, no - I will not tolerate that.

Would you let your child jump all over a friend’s sofa or take the cushions off and spread it around their house? I absolutely would not and never have.

Definitely not normal, don't know any who would do this and if they did their parents would intervene

My dc were not perfect when little, but bloody hell - if they’d treated someone else’s house like that I would have been livid. If they’d treated their own house like that, I’d have been livid. If someone questions why they’re not invited to your house again, I’d very casually say that you don’t want it to be trashed!
Have you been to their houses and do they treat their own homes like this?

I consider all of that shocking behaviour and I'd be asking them to leave. I'm wondering if this is some sort of over the top posh parent enclave where they don't believe in discipline?

No not normal.

You are not being unfair at all. I would expect a visitor to keep a dog under control and not to trash my house, so it goes without saying that I expect the same from a child.

Someone will be along shortly blaming it on Covid/lockdowns. But YANBU.

Some of what you have mentioned seems normal to me but a lot isn't.

For example, kids egg each other on and they get overexcited so the jumping on the sofa wouldn't surprise me and I'd just be very firm that it wasn't allowed. If they kept doing it repeatedly after being told not to, I'd be annoyed. Similarly, it's quite usual for young kids to want to explore and play hide and seek if allowed upstairs in a strange house and I've frequently had to pull 4/5 year olds out from our bedroom (3 year olds and younger stay downstairs where they can be supervised). I find you have to be really clear about rooms they're not allowed it as they don't have the social sense/boundaries to understand that going into adult bedrooms isn't really OK at that age. Equally the not eating food is quite normal, as is a certain amount of mess, but deliberately smushing it or dropping it isn't. I wouldn't expect older ones (3+) to scratch the walls, draw on things, be excessively rough with toys or deliberately break or throw things and I'd be expecting parents to supervise younger ones properly. Pulling out all toys from boxes and making a right mess is unfortunately normal, which is why we have tidy-up time at the end of the playdate.

This. It's the only way.

It might be normal today, but it certainly wasn't when I brought up my children in the seventies. There is a sad lack of discipline in many households today, where children are brought up to think that everything revolves around them. It doesn't do them any favours at all.

Brats, but through no fault of their own. All kids play up but it is down to the parents to nip it in the bud and give consequences. Mortified for parents who would stand back and do nothing and let you intervene.

I know what you mean. I have also been shocked by the behavior of so many children. If there is a difference, I'd say it has something to do with Thatcher and the end of the class system. In my childhood (late 70s), people were still very class conscious. They were frightened of being thought 'common' or 'vulgar' or 'lower class', so they drilled manners into their kids. If I went to play with another child, for example, I'd have to say "thankyou for having me." You can see how different things were if you watch Blue Peter from the early '80s. God, it looks so middle class and genteel! Or look at old sitcoms, like The Good Life and Steptoe and Hancock's Half Hour - all of them revolve around class and the class system.

That has all gone. Thatcher smashed the class system. She wasn't a conservative at all. On the contrary, she was a revolutionary. Now, everything is about money. People used to pass on certain codes of behavior. They don't do that any more (it would be considered pretentious and snobby). All that matters is that you are aggressive and ambitious.

Thatcher also freed up society so that anyone could make money. The abolsute worst kid in my primary school, a boy who really was feral (my earliest memory is of him headbutting a girl and breaking her nose) is now a millionaire and lives in the most exclusive part of town. God knows what his kids are like at parties.

I might be guilty of being one of these parents. I have a just turned 2 year old and I really struggle to control her 😓 id always tidy up mess she made tho. But jumping on sofas seems normal in my friendship circle. I’ve had friends bring their older kids over 3-5 and they all do it so I’ve never really thought to question it. I wouldn’t let her upstairs/ out of my sight tho.

she hasn’t really got the comprehension to understand rules and just has massive tantrums. Lucky my friends are all quite laid back/ similar and actually she’s not at all the worst!!

Unfortunately, there is a trend of permissive parenting masquerading as gentle parenting. Basically, some little darlings are allowed to do whatever they want because parents are allowing their ‘big feelings’ etc. It’s not normal, or acceptable. For the record, I am a huge fan of gentle parenting done properly. Boundaries and appropriate consequences are a must

Completely not normal. I wonder what's going on? Maybe you have an anything goes approach and tinkly laugh and visiting dc think that's the house vibe.

YANBU

I lived in the cotswolds for a while in a very posh village (for my husbands work) and my god the kids were feral. No respect for belongings and they had hardly any manners.

I kind of wondered while I was there if the richer you are the less you care if your children inconvenience to others… I've never seen parents be so blasé about bad behavior.

That said Ive known of some very cheeky and naughty kids turn out into lovely we’ll rounded adults so it’s hard to know who’s got it right!!

Okay, I know some people really hate Thatcher, but I'm not sure she can be blamed for badly behaved four-year-olds in 2022!

military-family type background where children weren't allowed to speak

...military families are also kind, loving places where children are allowed to speak.
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Screen time or parents spending to much time on social media 🤷🏻‍♀️

In addition I would have no second thoughts about telling the brats off if their mothers were ignoring, ie condoning and encouraging, their behaviour, they would be hearing words like No and Naughty maybe for the first time in their precious lives. If that upsets their parent, tough, you're losing nothing if they cut you off.

If it were my child I’d have left. However- I’ve had similar here. Friends DS basically threw everything, ornaments etc on the floor. Jumped up and down on the dining table, wanted to go in my wardrobes and he’s 6…. FFS 6!