To ask why so many children are feral these days?

[ChocBanana]

I have two DC, one (13) with ASD and hypersensitivity, so she wears ear defenders and ear plugs in noisy environments.
However, today, we have had to leave a museum because of the behaviour of other kids.
I know it’s the last week of the holidays but we tend to prefer quieter places, or quieter times of day. We tend to go to museums and parks, woodlands or if we are going somewhere busier generally we go in the afternoon.

We went to a museum today near us, not a particularly big one. After about ten minutes, a mum came in with three kids and basically said “Off you go” and let them run riot. They were climbing on the exhibits, trying to pull things off the wall, picking up the listening device things and swinging them against the wall and one of them scribbled all over an information panel.
A member of staff asked them to be careful. The mum titled and says “Come on kids, we’re obviously not welcome.” Then on the way out one of them kicked a wall, leaving a scuff mark. As they left, another family came in, the was a display thing where you can pretend to dig for fossils, the two kids were throwing the sand at each other, then a third family came in, one of them, a teenager sat next to where my teenager was trying to regulate herself. She stood up and he instantly out his feet up on her bag then kicked it to the floor and put his feet up on the sofa.
The mum was chatting away to her partner, the youngest child was hiding under a shelf, then started pulling out all the display drawers at once and slamming them shut.

We had to leave at this point, my daughter was in tears.

Now, I said, I get that it’s the last week of the summer holidays. I get that many people are desperate for free things to do, and I know many children have various reasons for acting in various ways. I’m not asking for special treatment or being naive, but SERIOUSLY, AIBU to expect a certain level of behaviour in a museum?
If I am BU, any suggestions on where the hell I am supposed to take a 13 year old who struggles with people at the best of times?

Feral parents equal feral kids. Although IME it’s the really MC ones that are the worst behaved whilst the parents just indulge them because they are “expressing themselves” or some other bullocks

I don't think you're being unreasonable, especially for a museum!
Some parents like to pretend they do gentle parenting when really they just let their kids do what they want with no consequences and others just don't give a 💩
Im all for kids being kids but they still need to respect other peoples belongings

The thing I’ve noticed is the screaming. When did this become so common among younger children? I don’t mean frightened or unhappy screaming, just screaming for no apparent reason. DS2 is also autistic and noise-sensitive - it sends him into complete meltdown.

'Gentle' parenting!

Some parents are just too lazy to parent their children they disguise their lazy behaviour for "gentle parenting" " kids being kids" bla bla...

Yup YANBU, that was basically my 3yr old the other week, her dad had her firmly in hand but the last ten minutes were touch and go. We left quickly before she did some expensive damage. Some people do have feral kids (looking at you DD) but you then remove them from situations immediately once it’s clear they aren’t able to behave appropriately

Too many parents refuse to discipline their kids and treat them like friends/mini-adults.

Parenting these days often just means handing them an iPad and leaving them to it.

Why on earth didn't these parents take these kids to the park or the woods or anywhere to let off that level of steam outdoors?! Completely inappropriate behaviour for an indoor venue, particularly a museum or gallery!😲

God, yes! I said the same at soft play on the weekend. Older kids (6/7+) proper full on screaming all the time, I nearly lost my rag with them. Parents didn’t even blink at it

It's not the kids fault it's the parents who bring the kids up this way. Not many seem to teach there know ds there's a time and place to run wild or be mor quiet etc. We have 4 and 3 under 3 and they already know when it's appropriate to go nuts and when it's not and it does my head in the amount of times we've been places and older kids yelling, screaming,climbing stuff they shouldn't

Waits for the posters saying that people hate children.

I'm guessing kids are louder now to compete with continual background noise.

It’s not just me, is it?? That’s definitely got worse in recent years? My DD said she doesn’t understand why suddenly everyone is screaming, and I didn’t really notice it until quite recently.

Lazy parenting. It's easier to let them because otherwise there'll be a meltdown. Parents take the easy way out, let their kids run riot and claim they're trying their best, and kids are hard work etc etc.

As a parent it’s my job to teach my son how to behave. So when we are out I feel like I’m constantly saying “watch out for the people” “no running here, it’s not safe” “we don’t touch” “let’s take turns/wait for our turn” etc. He’s 3 and relatively well behaved when we’re out as a result.

There are some parents who do not give a crap and their little darlings get to do whatever they want even if it causes damage. Even worse if they are just sitting on their phones.

That's exactly what I was going to say.

OMG tell me about it. Kids never used to scream anywhere near as much as they do now.

Or 90% of them have some form of ADHD, autism, or ND, which explains the behaviour, and therefore excuses it.

And no I'm NOT disregarding children who genuinely have SEN, but I do see an awful lot of kids labelled with these when actually it is simply down to bad parenting.

I'll go hide under the table now.

I follow gentle parenting but I honestly despair when gentle parenting is mistaken for having no boundaries, no respect, and no discipline.

Sometimes I also wonder if lockdown has done something funny to some kids, almost like a developmental delay?

I was hit today by a football in a local bargain shop. Child of about 9 bouncing the ball all over the shop, hitting displays and customers, while mother shopped blissfully unaware.
Cant really blame the child, he clearly doesn’t know any different as he thought it was fine to do. Eventually a member of staff asked him to stop, and the mother just looked at them.
Kids will be kids, it’s the parents who are to blame.

@Jifmicroliquid if a 9 year old thinks it's fine to do that, then something has gone badly wrong somewhere.

It’s definitely not just you. I remember when DS was at primary school ( 15 years ago!) he had one ‘screamer’ friend. We had to remind her over and over again when she came to parties etc that DS didn’t like it - but I also remember that she was very unusual. I didn’t know any other kids that did it. But today it’s everywhere.

Its the parents. They dont give a shit. Cba parenting.

I vote for this too.