Lady on holiday

[StarryBarry]

DS5 is only child and very keen to make friends wherever we go. He usually chats to anyone and makes friend with other kids at camps/clubs etc. We are on holiday and while watching entertainment in our resort he was running around with another child who seemed the same age. We were sat a few tables down from the other child and their family.

We sat watching him tonight chattering away to the child and the child’s mum for around 10 minutes inbetween them dancing and running around. They seemed happy enough and we didn’t see any silly behaviour.
He then returned to us and said his friend didn’t want to play

when we got home he said the friends mum said ‘they don’t want to be your friend, go away’

DH thinks they AIBU as who says this to a child. I wondered if the other kid got tired and the mum told DS she didn’t want to play anymore and maybe didn’t use those exact words

who is BU?

I think there is a difference between day and evening in this scenario.

My kids generally hook up with other kids on holiday - playing in the pool, football or whatever. During the day when kids are doing their thing, parents are lounging or reading, or whatever. In the evening though when families are eating or sitting watching entertainment is a different kettle of fish. A wee wave to the kids they've been playing with all day, then back to your own family.

We had a girl at a Eurocamp in France who had swam with my daughter a few times . One day my daughter came back from the pool with the friend in tow asking if she could have some lunch too. I said as long as her mum knows where she is. She told us her mum and dad had gone into town for lunch and left her there as she was having fun in the pool. She was 11 so older but had been left with no water, money or key to her house. They didn’t come back til late afternoon.

He is such a talker though he’d talk at them endlessly with little encouragement

I've got a child like this. Even people we lass in the street. I'm very conscious that he is intruding though and will call/fetch him back.

Playing together with both sets of parents being able to enjoy the show/have a drink and adult chat is fine

Your child inserting themselves into adult time is not fine.

I have an only who makes friends easily too, so I appreciate that it's hard those first few times to strike the balance.
If my dd ends up drifting to the other mums sun lounger with new friend I always make a point of walking over and saying 'come on dd, this nice lady is trying to relax' why don't you and Sarah play xyz /in the splash pad/with your barbies'.

I've been on the receiving end of having the other mum/parents just abandon all responsibility and it is super annoying. I always try to speak nicely as in 'I think your mum probably wants you back now' and 'Ella is getting tired now, head back to your mum/dad please'but it is very rare that a 5 year old picks up on that, and I end up saying 'you have to go now because we are tired'

‘Well X is feeling quite tired and we want to watch the show so off you go back to your mum and dad now’

(keeps chatting and running about)

‘why don’t you pop back to your Mum and Dads table, we’re all quite tired, maybe we will see you tomorrow’

(keeps chatting)

’I think your mum and dad are calling for you - why don’t you go and see what they want?’

(keeps chatting)

’look, Y doesn’t want to play, go away’

(finally buggers off back to overindulgent parents who were happy for him to ruin our family evening)

Playing with random kids at the park, at the pool, at the playground fair enough, but you don’t let your kids run about and disrupt some other families evening out.

Yes. We had the same situation as we have a big age gap between our two so DS1 was an only for almost 8 years. I always got up and made sure the other family knew I was around and I always checked that they were ok with mine playing with theirs and returned the favour. When he was 6 we were on a caravan site in France and there were 2 other families nearby with boys the same age. Parents took it in turns to supervise swimming and playing on the climbing frame etc. None of us just watched while our DC stayed near another family - I would have been annoyed after a while if I didn’t know whose child this was. You need to get up and check with them and share the supervision.
I wouldn’t have been rude to another child but after a while I would have asked them where their parents were and taken them back.

From the other side of the coin. I have 4 dc and if a child latches onto us because they’re an only and bored I suddenly gain a 5th child I know nothing about. I’m afraid I am one of those who would shoo the child away if my DCs were showing signs of having had enough. It’s my holiday too and I’m not a childminder.

This shows why letting your child run around unattended to random strangers isn’t ok. You don’t know what she said, she may have been rude, she may not have. He may have misunderstood.

If she was rude maybe she was having a bad day, maybe she hoped her child would bugger off for five minutes but ended up with an extra instead.

Enjoy your holiday and stop focusing on it.

The harm is I want to enjoy the entertainment and time with my family not have some random child chatter away and annoy me.

There's a huge difference between children playing together in the pool or park, and a random child latching on to you while you're trying to watch a show or eat your dinner.

I'm wondering if people who are so keen on family time like this, are those families who work very long hours normally.

Simply put, they get so little time together in a normal week that all their anxieties around this ("making memories") become focused on these few hours.

This is definitely a modern thing. Kids playing with other random kids was half the fun of holidays and trips to the park at one time. Vast packs of kids would form and the games began!

Now kids are mandated to stay in their family groups because the parent are acutely aware that they haven't had a chance to talk to their kids in weeks.

Dons flame proof suit

Maybe she was stressed because they were running around between tables, and needed her child to sit down. If there was a singer on and you found it too awkward to get up, it sounds like people were actually watching the show, why on earth are you letting your child run around?

Only on mumsnet are people so precious about ‘my little family’ that they would find a small child approaching their table irritating.

I am always charmed by children confident enough to chat to a group and provided they are polite, I welcome that interaction for me and my family,

OP don’t discourage your lovely boy from being social but maybe don’t let him approach that lady again - she must be a ‘my little family mumsnetter’ 😁

Speaking only for myself, the words making memories have never passed my lips, I talk to my children plenty every day, have no issue with them playing with other children but just don't want someone else's child at my family table of an evening especially one that doesn't shut up

@QuertyGirl I think you're missing the point. Nobody minds their children playing with others, but if the child no longer wants to play the other child needs to understand that.

People don't want other children lingering around their table.

The OP said she didn't get up because there was a singer performing. Maybe the other parents wanted to enjoy the performance too, not have a child constantly at their table who was talking to them that their child no longer wanted to interact with.

It's not about the mother not wanting the child to play. It's about her helping her child enforce boundaries that OP's child was ignoring.

I agree.

It's social education and it's important.

This completely. We did French campsites so when the kids were small they could hang out with other kids and have lots of fun.

However, we tend to have most holidays ‘just us’ as we like some catch up time.

A quick chat yes but 10 mins repeatedly going back there, no. I'd have thought you were too lazy to parent.

Kids playing with other random kids was half the fun of holidays and trips to the park at one time. Vast packs of kids would form and the games began!

But this wasn't groups of children playing games together in the pool or on the grass.

This was a family trying to enjoy a show at a hotel and being interrupted by a random child who kept bothering them. OP even said she felt awkward getting up because of the singer, but seemed to think it was okay for her child to be up and bothering other people.

They're hardly the same scenario.

Mine is very sociable but there is a time and place. And during entertainment or a family meal that is absolutely not the time and place. I have to watch mine as she loves joining in and making friends and chatting but doesn’t yet understand that sometimes families want some time together and it’s not always appropriate to chat away. It is lovely to have sociable, extrovert children but you have to guide them so they don’t become annoying and not everyone will think they are delightful.

My daughter will make friends in a park in seconds and be very creative with her play but she does need help to dial it down. What we’re working on at the moment is not interrupting adults speaking and thinking before she speaks.

There's a huge difference between children playing together in the pool or park, and a random child latching on to you while you're trying to watch a show or eat your dinner.

^ absolutely this

You make it sound like they were watching Olivier doing Hamlet, not family entertainment at a resort.

Aww that is so mean! Whenever I've been away, people are usually happy as hell that their children are making friends and therefore, entertaining themselves. I'd say it's their problem not yours but, after seeing some of these comments, it's making me rethink!

Yep she would have said that because lots of people don't want other peoples kids hanging around with theM it can be annoying.

I've had another child latch onto mine/us while trying to enjoy a family meal. It was a relentless flow of verbal diarrhoea which completely derailed the (rare) evening out we were trying to have with our children. The parents were sat at the next table benignly smiling while their horrible boastful child hogged our evening, it looked like we were all having a lovely time at a casual glance... However, I made several comments that to all but the thickest skins would have been clear I wanted them to take him away. I wanted to tell him/them to take their child back very clearly, but also didn't want to have to get blunt/address an issue as it would have spoiled the atmosphere and robbed things anyway - it was a lose-lose situation for me, and my kids were happy enough (they hadn't come out with an idea of what evening they wanted, they were just living in the moment), it was my evening that was ruined. I was having a really tough time generally at the time and having come out for a pleasant treat just didn't trust myself to handle it well without showing more emotion than was warranted.

So yes, allowing your child to encroach like that without checking they were happy with it was leaving him open to a blunt rejection. Not nice, maybe the mum could have said it more kindly, but on you and some kids don't take a hint, so maybe she did try nicely first.