To think you don’t let your children behave like this in public?

[IfIHadAHeart]

Saturday afternoon, Tesco. It’s a bit manic, lots of last minute Mother’s Day shoppers plus the usual. People dragging kids round who are obviously completely bored, the parents look flustered and have my sympathy. It’s loud. No issues, I just decide to get in and out as quickly as possible.,

I get to the cereal aisle. There is what appears to be a mum, grandma and three girls under 5. The kids are building a fort out of boxes of weetabix, one of them is climbing up the shelving as if it were Everest. Lots of giggling. The weetabix castle has expanded out into the aisle, some boxes are being used as chairs. Mum and grandma completely ignoring them. Mum disappears round the corner, grandma says she needs juice. The girls start shrieking that they want to stay in their castle and so grandma says they can “as long as you don’t get in anyone’s way”.

Grandma then catches my eye. I have one of those faces that shows exactly what I was thinking, which in this instance was definitely disapproval! She asks if I have a problem, to which I reply that I’m just thankful I didn’t want to buy any weetabix. She gives me a mouthful of abuse, tells me the girls aren’t harming anyone and it’s none of my business. Off she trots to the juice aisle leaving the little darlings to carry on climbing and building.

AIBU to think this is a ridiculous way to carry on? My kids are teens now but I’d never dream of allowing them to behave like this. Not that it’s the kids fault obviously. Do people genuinely not care about other people around them?

Our Tesco has security guards. I have twice had to alert them to feral behaviour by children (one was sliding down the aisle on packets of toilet paper in skeleton racing fashion) and judging by the noise that ensued I believe they were removed from the shop. I wouldn’t expect a retail assistant to do much but I felt it was reasonable for a man with a stab vest and a body camera to intervene. It’s ridiculous behaviour and the more it’s tolerated the more it’ll carry on.

Tesco have a big bloke on security near the door. Well they do in mine anyway.
I would have stalked off to inform him straight away.

On a side note: AIBU to now have a craving for triple weetabix with ice cold milk? 🤔

😳 I would never allow my son to behave in this way!

I hope a member of staff saw it and made them pay for the damaged boxes.

Some people are very self centred and entitled and it seems the mum and grandma are in that category!

Nope. Some people really don't give a shit about those around them.

^ 👏🏻

Some parents are entitled beyond belief.

I was about to say something like “well you know kids can be utter arses sometimes, I’ve had my share of….” And then I read your OP.

Honestly this is the kind of parenting that leads to those children being a pain in someone’s ass some day.

You need the ladies that run our Sainsburys - I swear that they are one and all ex headmistresses…

one once told my (35 year old) friend off because her knickers were too small (she had bent over/down to tell off her child and didn’t realise her skirt had ridden up!)

They absolutely would not put up with this carry on.

The wasted boxes of weetabix alone would make me cross. Nobody will want to buy damaged boxes and someone will have to clear it up.

I was in Asda a few weeks ago and walking down the toilet roll aisle. Suddenly a load of toilet rolls come flying out of the shelves and two young lads emerge from behind them shouting “what year is it”. Toilet rolls all over the place. The parents turned, saw what they’d done and told them they were heading to the self check outs. No mention of clearing the mess up.

Yes, this is appalling parenting. Like a PP I thought I would read this and think 'there but for the grace of God...' (and my toddler ran off in the supermarket yesterday, so it is true that I am not winning any parenting awards) but this isn't failing to control, this is wilfully encouraging them to behave in an antisocial way...

Makes you wonder what kind of lives these kids actually have. It can't be much fun.

Rough grandmas = double the abuse as they have twice as much skin in the game; their bad daughter and their even worse granddaughters. Yanbu.

I once spotted some kids hiding behind the toilet rolls and giggling loudly. It made me laugh, though.

I recently came away from Lidl without buying the flour I needed.
Two women with 5 children were in the aisle and 3 of the children ( probably aged 4-7) were sitting on the packets of flour on the shelf like they were a bench.
One of the women was busy on her phone and the other walked away. Neither paid much attention to the children.
The children looked quite comfy, and weren’t being unruly
It put me off buying paper wrapped flour though.

Of course YANBU and I agree with the comments so far.

But this is what I really do not get: why were both mum and granny taking 3 young children shopping? Why were the dad in the football story and his DC even in the shop to raise their own merry hell?

Shopping is boring for young children. When two adults are available, why do they
both take the kids shopping???? Why doesn’t one of them mind the kids while the other shops? I am very glad we did it differently.

Oh God, I would have been. I would have put my parent helping voice back in and taken the boxes off them and put them back on the shelves. I would have loved to have had a discussion with grandma.

What a world when a supermarket needs security guards and even more so, ones that have to wear stab vests.

What has the UK become? 😒

I know it is unruly, terrible behavior, but the toilet paper/what year is it was funny!

Entitled parenting

It needs people to intervene when it’s safe to do so. I’m not going to confront a gang of adults, but I have no problem telling three young kids to get off cereal boxes and engaging in a frank discussion with their grandma about their behaviour.

My God, talk about go where you like, do what you like and fuck everyone else. No wonder this country is on its knees. No discipline. No boundaries. Just people raising children who will grow up with zero respect for anyone or anything

This made me laugh. Only because I wasn’t there though!

I am glad I wasn’t just being a misery, being annoyed with it all. It’s so inconsiderate of the staff and other customers. I know people disagree these days but I do think there was an element of good in “children should be seen and not heard” as my grandma believed.

They got rid of the security guards a couple of years ago, but speaking to staff apparently shoplifting went through the roof, they had fights over alcohol, someone rode a moped through the store on a Friday night and they were forever calling the police. So security got reinstated within six months. Children messing with loo roll was the least of it!

This is an ordinary Tesco in what would generally be regarded as quite a nice area.

There was a kid in Sainsbury this morning, pratting about with the SmartScan handset, and his dumbass ineffectual dad trying to get him to stop. He got the evil eye from my DP and a "teacher voice" reprimand from me ("will you go back to your dad, please, other people are trying to shop here"). Dad looked like he was about to say something, but clearly thought better of it.

Kids have to learn that boring stuff like shopping happens.
Maybe Mum and Grandma both needed things and were on their way out/home or only one drives.

But @IfIHadAHeart YANBU. That behaviour is awful. I would have told a member of staff.