Why do some parents do this?

[Biscuitbabe87]

I've noticed more often that whilst on public transport, parents with young children handing them tablets playing annoying repetitive music or tv shows(always without headphones)- this morning I've had to endure Dora the explorer for 3 hours! Why on earth do people think this is okay? Or am I being grumpy?

I’m the gobshite who asks parents to either get their kid to use headphones or turn the sound off. Got into a few altercations about it but give zero fucks. It’s rude, arrogant and unnecessary and I’ve reported to the guard on occasion.

Kids got train / plane journeys before screens and devices and managed. Parents had to address the squirming and screaming. I’ve said the same to people having phone calls on speakerphone too.

YADNBU OP.

It would be totally understandable, but ultimately giving the child a phone is putting your needs (not to be embarrassed) and the passenger’s needs (not to be disturbed) above the needs of your child (to learn that frustration will pass, that crying and wriggling doesn’t achieve anything, that it’s actually more pleasant for everyone to accept the boredom and look out the window instead). This lesson will take years for the child to learn, but in a world without screens most will have learnt it by 7 years old or so. Parents who them a screen every time will be tearing their hair 10 years down the line wondering why their 12 year old can’t sit still at a restaurant and seeking a diagnosis of ADHD.

I think most do go outside of wherever they are if this happens? I usually see that happen anyway. Nobody really has to do anything but it's just nice to, especially if next bus is there within 5 mins or so. Nicer for everybody, including the child, to just go outside and calm down for a moment then start again.

It was more her attitude towards it that shocked me though I think "I have to listen to it, so everybody else should too haha"
At first I did just take it as a normal thing, a child isn't happy it happens every day, but the response to it was something I hadn't seen before.

My eldest DC was a fucking nightmare for sitting still but I learned to deal with it. It would have been much easier to chuck on Octonauts on full volume but I didn't. Entertaining toddlers takes practise, effort and patients. The loud tablet is tempting but not acceptable. Don't be lazy.

It's not just parents and kids though is it?

I see more adults on the trains and tubes playing videos, loud speaker calls and whatever on their phones without headphones.

If they're under 5 they can only use child safe headphones which keeps the volume down and if they're lost/broken/forgotten what are you going to do.

Screens have their place. My DS is 3. Most of the time we don't use screens. But, if in a restaurant for example, he's a bit hangry I'll break my phone out. The issue he's having can't be fixed by anything other than waiting. In that circumstance I decide that a bit of bluey is preferable to me repeating that cooking food takes time and it will be here when it's ready over and over to a grumpy toddler. Headphones should have been used though.

(I'm not sold on that sentence that starts with but. My brain isn't allowing me to come up with a better phrasing so I'm afraid it stands.)

It’s because they are lazy parents and inconsiderate selfish human beings. YANBU.

Genuinely surprises me too. My son could def go for a long journey without a tablet. Has flown to Spain and we took books and he had a short nap and we chatted to him. I'm actually quite baffled by the way parents just shove a tablet in their child's face.

No, they don't. I very rarely see a small child with headphones, unfortunately.

I completely agree. I've 3 young kids and the tablet is the absolute last resort and at the very end of my bag of tricks. We used to get a long bus journey every morning and I would hand my kids then aged 2 and 4 a little notebook and a pen. They would scribble/mark-make for the entire journey. I had some books for when they got bored with that, but they rarely did.

As a family, we travel a lot and their bags are packed with pens, notebooks, toys, snacks, books, stickers, games etc and the very final prize is the tablet.

Now, in saying that, there are absolutely times when I need to use it, and that's normally when I am absolutely at the end of my tether. I don't know how strangers on a train are feeling on that given day, or if its a once off. I can't judge those moments.

I do, however, know some people who pull the device out at the first opportunity. For example, I don't believe in shoving kids in front of a screen when out at a restaurant without trying other means of keeping them occupied. My brother's girlfriend whips the phone out before we have even looked at the menu, then my kids want to watch too. It keeps them quiet but is antisocial and doesn't teach them how to behave. I prefer to give my kids my phone when they have chatted at the table and played with everything else I gave them, and I just need 5 minutes to finish my food.

3 hours screen time for a small child is far too much and having to listen to it is really unfair.
Yanbu

I think a tablet or a phone on a long journey is understandable. Allowing your kid to consume media on public transport without headphones is just rude though.

It's not only parents. People seem to think its totally normal to do this these days. Most journeys I get there are three or four sets of people blaring out clips on their phones without a second thought for the people around them.

Screentime definitely has its place where you really need a child to sit still.

But yes, headphones.

Nobody would be as sympathetic if an adult was playing music out loud, would they?

Yes, I'd probably be thought of as performance parenting when I'm actually just parenting and quite enjoying chatting etc to my DC, certainly don't make eye contact or expect any comments etc.

I don't understand comments like this. You're supposed to talk to your children, it's normal. If you think that's 'performance parenting' then you have got it so wrong. Do people like you think that no-one else talks to their children? You're not doing anything wonderful you know.

There seems to me to be more parents out there than ever before that just can't be bothered to discipline their children and just go for an easy option and have no regards for how their entertaining methods may impact on others. I was appalled recently with a group of 8 year old lads on the the train recently with their mothers - jumping everywhere and being a general nuisance - their parents hardly reprimanded them. You can't always be your children's friend !

It really isn't! Read quietly to your child, look out of the window and chat with them, give them a quiet toy to play with, give them a colouring or puzzle book and crayon. Or use headphones. Shocking to think that all children are deemed capable of these days is being hypnotised by loud screens or writhing and misbehaving.

Eh? I think you've picked me up wrong olive. I certainly don't think think I'm doing anything wonderful, that's actually my point. But people on MN regularly complain about this performance parenting which is v often just parenting. A pp above had said they'd been seen as similar, and I was responding to that.

Yes, but she does it at high volume so everyone can hear what a wonderful parent she is, and marvel 😄

And there we have it! I'm not PP but have been accused of it, without even being seen, amazing 👏

No I'm actually v quiet, but the woman I mentioned in my original post is not, and as I said seems to be crying out for company.

It's not up to other people to carry headphones with them in case they have to block out three hours of a kid playing on a tablet with the sound on. It's up to the parent to mitigate the effect of their choice on other passengers. So switch the damn sound down or off, or give your kid headphones for a three hour journey.

I once had to listen to 'Rain Rain Go Away' about fifty times from a kid's tablet on a train. Ugh.

What you described is not performance parenting. I've been on Mumsnet a long time and no, people don't say that talking to your child is performance parenting. On the other hand, on every single thread about performance parenting, there are countless people who don't understand what it actually is and confuse it with normal parenting.

Simply turning the volume down is incredibly selfish. There is nothing wrong with your child wearing headphones for one episode of Dora. That should be enough for the time being anyway, and then the child can interact with the adult for a while.

Ok, maybe I've picked it up wrong. As I say my OP was in response to another poster saying they'd be accused of PP for chatting etc, and I was saying the same. Another poster prior to that said the OP would complain about PP if there wasn't a tablet used. So there was a context to my post which maybe didn't come across. I don't know why you thought I thought I was wonderful 😕 certainly didn't mean it that way at all.

I talked to my kids too. But quietly. Because loud parenting chat is every bit as annoying as Dora! I don't know why some mothers (and it is usually mothers) need to talk to their kids in really carrying voices, when the child is right next to them.

I just think it's a bit odd to think talking to your child would make anyone think you were doing it for attention, that's what performance parenting is. We have to talk to our children, how else would they learn to communicate?