To be quite rude to kids wanting to engage with me?

[Brieandcran]

I know - I sound like a really horrible person here and maybe I am, but I’m wondering about this.

It feels like nearly every time I take my very young children to a park or soft play someone else’s child or children latches onto us and it’s really irritating. Today I was at the playground in the morning and two little boys were there and would not stop trying to get my attention. I was saying to my eldest that a piece of equipment was for bigger children and these two kids were shouting across me that no it wasn’t, they went on it, watch, watch. I ignored at first but ended up saying something like ‘thank you but I need to focus on my own children.’ Then ‘where is your mummy or daddy?’ But they just carried on.

I also had it at soft play (with a different family) where someone actually had a go at ME for their misbehaviour and I had to quite sharply say they weren’t my kids!

I don’t want to be unpleasant about it but when they don’t listen to not now, go and find your mummy or whatever - what the hell do you do? I really want to be playing with my own children not someone else’s!

I would have called the police if I couldn't find the parents for children that young in the situation described.

@Conkersinautumn no one has once suggested that the children should have better social skills. What HAS been discussed is that parents, who do have the social experience and the ability to recognise that another adult wishes to disengage or is irritated by or trying to end the exchange with their child, are not intervening or keeping an eye on their kids.

If I see my DC speaking to another adult, I'll keep an eye out (I mean, you don't actually know the stranger they're talking to after all), and I'll intervene if it's clear the other parent is busy. To be honest, I wouldn't really allow my DC to talk to a stranger anymore than a quick chat because I don't want them to be a nuisance/the kind of child that is disliked, and it's important for them to learn they're not the centre of every adult's universe 😁

Oh God, they sound like a PITA. I’ve not read the full thread but where the hell were the parents? I wouldn’t let my kids pester adults like that. Look them in the eye and say something like, ‘Listen to me. Stop interfering. Stop poking your noses in. I don’t need your advice. Now go and find your parents and do not come back and talk to me again’ - in a menacing voice. Well, maybe tone it down a bit. 😊. I’d hate kids like this.

"to be quite rude" - literally 🤡🤡🤡

I always had other little kids latching on to me when I took my kids to the park and found it quite annoying/sad that they clearly wanted adult company and attention and weren't getting it from their own carers. When we tried to play basketball a little kid would always come up and try to join in, hogging the ball and making my kids sad - I didn't have the heart to tell them to go away. One kid asked if I was a childminder and not a mum and when I asked why he said 'Because you're playing with the kids!'

I love other kids talking to me, I think it shows my kids that it’s nice to make new friends and learn from others. You can just say ‘we’re going now/we need to play just the two of us now’ or something to shake them off if they get super annoying. I’ve been parenting a loooong time and it’s never been a problem.

Why are you so reluctant to say what part of the country you are in? I’m only interested from a sociological point of view, as I am from the chatty North my self but have very much fallen into less chatty Southern ways and quite like it that way. It takes me at least a week to acclimatise back to people’s random chat in supermarkets etc when I go to visit my family.

You’ve asked that twice @ChocChipHandbag , I don’t massively want to engage in a conversation about it! Sorry.

@Boomboxinmyattic so you were just responding to the title? Just checking I’ve understood!

Three times actually. Might have been nice to say earlier on that you weren’t intending to reply, I thought you might just have missed the question.

Very genuinely, isn’t this part of what we’re talking about - that if you ask a question three times and someone doesn’t answer, that they don’t want to?

My children are older now but I used to go to parks and playgroups with them to interact with other children . Sometimes other kids would try and pick them up , eat their snacks , they’re all young and learning. If I met you at a wedding or similar and started to chat to you , would you sharply send me away because you were there to enjoy time with just your immediate family? Parks and playgroups are sociable places , I can’t remember any parents not wanting to interact with other children at them.

When they are an annoying 8 year old in a soft play, yes.

But I am someone who has supported your position in this thread where you have been given a hard time. I mean, you literally started the conversation with us and I was just trying to help work out where the huge differences in opinion might have come from, speculating about geography.

Well, no - I appreciate that you’ve supported my position but it doesn’t oblige me to answer.

I never said it did, but if you want advice and support on here you might want to think about being a bit more courteous to adults in future, even though I agree you can be as rude as necessary to children! Have a good evening, wherever in the country you are.

What they see is an adult engaging with a kid. Their parents clearly aren't so they latch on to an adult that is. Just think of some conversation ending platitudes... "ok, well, we're going to get back to our game now", "hope you're having fun there" etc...

I haven't RTFT but OP I’m totally with you on this. You don’t want to be rude but equally it spoils your time with your child if someone else’s older child is butting in, interrupting your child talking, arguing against what you’ve just told your child they can or can’t do, etc. Most of these children just want attention I think. They see me giving my children attention, encouragement, praise etc and they want it too because they’re not getting it from their own parents. I just move away and don’t engage because, as OP said earlier, once you’ve engaged you can’t get rid of them.

@ChocChipHandbag i really haven’t been rude or discourteous to you in the slightest.

Whether intentionally or otherwise you have put me in the same awkward position as I have described in the OP. You asked me a question which I didn’t answer. You then demanded to know why I hadn’t answered, which I just didn’t answer as tbh I didn’t want to be rude to you. But you persisted in asking and then got annoyed when I said I’d prefer not to answer!

Despite the thread title I’ve no desire to be rude to anyone but there comes a point where it’s quite hard not to be because when you are polite it is ignored, so you end up in a bit of a lose lose situation where you either have to cede defeat and have a conversation you don’t want to have or be accused of ‘rudeness.’

@BlueAndGreen89 you’ve explained that well, I think.

You then demanded to know why I hadn’t answered, which I just didn’t answer as tbh I didn’t want to be rude to you.

I don’t follow. After you didn’t respond to my my first post in which I shared what I thought was an interesting observation about local cultures, I asked why you weren’t willing to share where you were. You could have replied “well, I don’t want to say anything that might identify me” Or “I think this might end up derailing into a North vs South debate, don’t want to go there” or, as you eventually did “I just don’t want to say, sorry”. In what way was simply not answering a way to AVOID being rude? It was the opposite..

To be fair, you backed up the OP and said she shouldn’t feel obligated to engage with kids and should be as rude as necessary towards them in order to get them to leave her alone, but you seem to be quite upset when you, an adult, are given the same treatment.

I always just smiled but never replied to annoying children that are not mine.
No response soon made them go away

Am I the only one here who loves it. I start playing dragon games with random kids all the time! The parents usually end up adopting my toddler while I entertain their kids. I find it fun and a bit of a challenge to entertain so many kids as well as my own.

Maybe it is a north Vs South thing ... At my last park visit a lady was entertaining my toddler as I breastfed my baby. She didn't mind and we ended up having a nice conversation whilst our kids played together.

No it's not unreasonable to expect people to parent their kids so you don't have to. They are no doubt drawn to you as you are good at meeting others needs (hence the already knackered part)... Some work on boundaries might help x

It's also not unreasonable to be fed up when someone pursues you for information you don't want to give. And acts entitled to an explanation because they "supported" you. Ugh.

Kids are people too. It's actually OK to talk to them and engage with them.

It’s not rude to ignore some posts on a thread. The thread has 450+ posts, an OP can’t respond to every single one.