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.)

Also just tell off the other children or say ‘ no jumping on the sofa. No wheeling cars up the Walls, and , get a lock for your bedroom door.

if the parents don’t like you doing it they won’t come back. I always found children on their own much easier as then could be quite strict.

the most annoying thing is how my kids would stoop to the feral kids level. Very annoying

My son has got marks on the wall (from playing and being messy- not on purpose because he wanted to cause damage) and I think its fairly typical for children to interrupt adults when talking at age 3/4/5. They don't necessarily have the social skills or awareness to wait for thier turn to speak at this age imo...... However the thing about a child refusing to drink water is quite sad and if my son was doing something that could damage someone's home I would immediately tell him to stop. I also think its ok to tell visiting children that they have to take shoes off and let them know that they aren't allowed to go in your bedroom etc.. maybe next time all meet up at a park instead.

My scaley brats had a voice thank you very much.

This isn’t normal.

Where on earth are you?!

A bit of it I think is probably partially driven by covid and degree to which people let things slide and the limited amount of practice of some behaviour (the asking for snacks, getting up from table and interrupting). I do know taking to staff at the kids school they’ve noticed how the kids are behind on social skills. It isn’t overly surprising when many of them spent 6 months over the course of 1.5 years more or less locked in their homes and a fair chunk of the rest of the time not going out further than the local beach/park while parents attempted to work full time without childcare. We did our best but undoubtedly let a lot of behaviour go over that period because it was blummin miserable for them and I was verging on the edge of a nervous breakdown juggling everything. Anyway my 8 year old was an immaculately behaved 5 year old for her age and would never have done any of those things. She now both interrupts all the bloody time and she’s become very sullen when she doesn’t get her own way and whines about not getting sweets. Whining has never got her what she wants so no clue where it’s come from. The interruptions is definitely associated with covid and us trying to do too much at once and more or less telling them to go away so the whole guilt of what a shit time they had is always on my mind and makes me more tolerant of it that I might otherwise be. I sometimes feel like all I do is tell them both to stop doing things and why they can’t. It can feel really awful and negative and I have sympathy with people who are letting more go. All that said the jumping on sofas, destroying the wall and stealing food mine would be in significant trouble for. With the sofa they’d get a talking to and a warning and with the others I’d just apologise for them and take them home. Some of the rest I think isn’t horrendous really. Also in a middle class area and in our case with kids of working professionals who mainly have at least one parent working part time

OP the attitude that can help keep a lid on other peoples kids is

“in our house we…”

dont jump on the sofa
only eat at the table
only drink water and milk
dont scratch the walls
dont take other peoples toys home

it helps keep control without actively criticising the dc or the parenting. So you make your statement and then help them down off the sofa, take the toy away and usher them back to the table. You can also ask the parent, ‘at our house we dont squish food into the carpet, could you get little xyz to sit back at the table to eat and I will find a cloth so you can clean up the mess she made’

also, put away any precious stuff and organize playdates for just an hour until you know the family well enough!

I have a 4 year old and an 18 month old. Tbh a lot of what you are describing - whining for snacks, struggling to sit through a full meal, interrupting adults - is absolutely standard for my 4 year old, who is NT, bright and usually lovely. Of course I don’t tolerate this stuff and would try to put a stop to it whether at home or out but it is hard.

The trashing the house/jumping on stuff/raiding the fridge however is totally out of order and I wouldn’t expect that at home and especially not at someone else’s house. I would say though that it hasn’t been that long since the pandemic ended and many of these children may not have had many opportunities to visit other people’s houses over the last couple of years. I’d still blame the parents though!

Not normal in my circle! My 4 year old is really good and the worst he has done in a play date is forgotten a please or thank you or perhaps occasionally got out a few too many toys. If he misbehaves he gets a warning and on the third warning we go straight home and he knows I'll always follow through with this. We also host play dates and most other kids are the same.

So common. A lot of parents are constantly on their phones ignoring their dc who want their attention. That's why they kick off and parents don't seem to be bothered correcting behavior. I see lots of parents walking along the pavement looking at their phones while the poor dc trail behind them. This is a very nice area but parents seem addicted to their phones and cba with their dc.

Yes most of that is pretty annoying /
not good behaviour
BUT
come back to us in 7 years when you have 1 or 2 more and have been through a few years of parenting and tell us how it’s going 🤣
I bet you at least one person says something similar about one of your kids (although right now you will be saying my child will NEVER behave like this)

I’ve had similar thoughts @PlutoCritter. We’ve not had many people with older kids round to our house, (other than cousins kids who are very wild) but have seen how a lot of the 5-7 year olds in our fairly affluent bit of London behave in soft plays, play cafes, family friendly restaurants and playgrounds and feral / un-parented does seem to be the word.

Makes me feel a bit worried for my 16 month old sometimes as he’s a very good walker and likes to play freely in age-appropriate playgrounds and soft plays. He often seems to be surrounded by older kids tearing around, knocking the toddlers flat, screaming and climbing all over the baby play equipment / doing cartwheels through the under threes bit of the soft play with nothing but the occasional “be careful darling” or “watch out for the babies” from their lovely parents, when what they need to do is intervene and tell the kids to calm down or go play in their own bit of the playground.

Perhaps I’m looking back with rose tinted glasses, but I can’t remember kids being allowed to behave like that when I was younger

Not normal but I've had my share of play dates where afterwards I been ......

I find it shocking that parents don't pull their children up on bad behaviour and even more so when it's someone else's house. Worse still when they deny their child's name written all over the wall/ sofa cushions is their child because their child denied it. Apparently it was my ds (who couldn't even write at that point) because their child said so.

What I learnt very quickly too was these families were the ones who rarely hosted themselves if at all which left me wondering if their children were like it at home which they were trying to cover up because the excuse always was they were just excited at being at someone else's. (Like that was a good reason).

Agree with previous poster who said observe in public spaces and make choices about who you invite back based on that. I learnt that one over the years!

I have seen this behaviour in children from “modern thinking, child-centred” parents. Basically, allow little Johnny to express themselves at all costs.

I like good old fashioned clear rules, boundaries and consequences.

In your shoes I think I would never invite those people back to your home. I’d also laugh to myself as when those children hit 14 or so the chickens really will come home to roost for those parents.

In my 11 years of nannying and 23 years of parenthood I’ve come across very little of the behaviour you describe and it wasn’t tolerated by me in my own home. If you don’t like my rules, go home and we’ll agree to meet elsewhere in future. It was the same with some houses where it wasn’t clean, I’d arrange to meet out or at mine.

I never had a confrontation just subtly changed the place (or time) of a meet up.

There was one occasion when I was nanny and I did tell another that we weren’t going to meet up if the older children were there as I didn’t want that influence (and language) to affect my charges. The parents of my charges were more than happy I’d taken a stand and the other nanny and I worked round the issue. If she hadn’t we wouldn’t have met up and such is life.

I don’t like everybody so I can’t expect everybody to like me. People get too hung up on being liked by random people.

Also, I will add that I have no qualms about telling other peoples kids off if they are doing something not on like taking food from the fridge / destroying something or about to throw something at me or anyone etc.
I just tell them sternly not to do it.
Never had a kid carry on.
They may not like me much for it but if it’s in my house I just wouldn’t tolerate it.

Out of curiosity, how do these children behave in their home or elsewhere?
Maybe just invite to your home children you´ve seen behave in separate settings.

I found this too. I thought I'd be a pretty liberal parent, in the scheme of things, but I found I was at the stricter end just because I thought it was OK to say "no, you don't snatch stuff, give it back" or "no, this is someone else's house we don't look in their cupboards" and remove child/object they'd grabbed if necessary. A lot of the nice middle-class mums I mixed with (not all to be fair, but plenty) NEVER did that at all, and some actively banned words like "no" and "naughty". I just don't get it - how are kids supposed to learn how to behave as an adult if you don't tell them? I'm not talking about being cruel or violent or anything, just teaching what is and isn't OK and to respect other people's stuff.

I've had some jaw-dropping moments, being deliberately hit in the face with a toy by a friend's child, same child threw sand in my child's eyes, both times mum apologised but said nothing to child. Another boy whirled a piece of barbed wire he'd found around his head near other kids' faces, parents saw but did nothing, I had to step in and grab it off him before someone got an eye out. Friend of DS's when they were about 7 stole large number of his toys and took them home in her bag - parents unconcerned, I went and fetched them all back and (calmly) told her they belonged to my DS and she shouldn't have taken them, parents looked like rabbits in the headlights. One boy threw a wooden toy at my DP's head, DP said no to him, and got told off by his mum for being negative!!!

However now my kids are older and most of their friends are not terribly behaved now, I guess because they do generally learn from school and peers that some behaviours will make you pretty unpopular.

Just wait until you have a toddler

Generally they are feral!

Yes, indeed, my child might behave like this.

The difference will be that if they do, and I am not capable of managing their behaviour better than jumping on other people's furniture and ransacking their houses, then I will at least not inflict them on other people. Or expect other people to tolerate them as 'this is just what kids do'.

Obviously it isn't. Most of us as children would not have dreamed of behaving like this.

I didn't read it as military families but more the use of the word military to explain the type of parenting.

It's not so much that small children can be wild and badly behaved - most can - just that some parents do nothing and don't care. I found this especially hard when there were things that were definitely not allowed in our house, but other parents let their kids do it - like snatching all the biscuits or climbing the furniture.

I think this sums it up perfectly.

It's threads like this that put me off having children! It'd be a nightmare to have to put up with that..

I'm a teacher of young children. None of that behaviour surprises me because they act the same in school. Nice kid, but absolutely no manners, respect or care for anything. Toys are trashed, cushions pulled apart, things thrown around. Books stood on and torn. They get toys out then just leave them to go onto the next thing.

It's astonishing, I would never have dreamed of treating someone else's property like that as a child!

The original quote literally said military family.