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?

I once told a child off for playing basketball in the fruit and veg aisle woth the fruit! I have no idea where the parent was hiding, but he must have destroyed nearly £100 worth of items. Melons don't bounce, but peppers are good for scoring hoops!!

You should've alerted the security that customers are destroying the stock. Hope they get banned from the shop soon

This is infuriating; I had the same recently. Um...........parent your child? Teach it how to behave in public? To consider other people?

Agree about alerting security. Or the police suggesting that you are concerned for their safety if they are in a car with such neglectful parents.

Surely no one can think YABU OP!!?

if anyone does - why?!

I was in Southend on Saturday there were a lot of pigeons a father with a toddler kept on shrieking at them and running at them saying I don’t care it makes my boy laugh. Hate people teasing birds

Bloody hell ! I expected this to be a thread complaining about toddlers touching things or screaming/tantruming in the shop and rolled my eyes thinking not everyone’s perfect. I’m always at the shops with a baby and toddler and in trying my best then I read ur post !!!!

wow ! Wtaf ? Who does that ! A staff member should have told them off. That’s fucking ridiculous! And mum and grandma were there so they were team handed so should have had control of the kids !

The only good I see in this is fort building is an excellent activity for children….in an appropriate place with appropriate materials of course.

Kids should not be playing with products other people are going to want to purchase and consume. I'd be a bit disappointed to get a box full of Weetabix crumbs if been treated like that. I would have done the exact same as you, sadly there is a lot of entitled people in the world now who quite frankly don't give a s* about anyone other than themselves, I dread to think what it will be like in another 5 or ten years time.

I personally wouldn't dream of letting my child do this, they actually aren't allowed to touch the stuff on the shelves food wise unless it is something we are putting in our trolley to purchase ourselves.

Try being the kids teacher! If we have to speak to these parents about their precious little darlings behaviour, even we get a load of abuse! We then have to see these parents every day. I had one last week and her child can do no wrong blah blah blah she even works in the same school. These types of parents are everywhere, don’t be surprised! In denial, entitled and ignorant. Just to add there are some lovely parents out there but the rude outweigh the polite. My thick skin is growing thicker day by day lol

Mind you not sure how you have time to teach with having to negotiate out of school birthday party and social media dramas also out of school, maybe you can bring parents washing in for them?

anything happens to a child 'report to the school'

Yes this

I know it goes against the grain but in this instance I would have laughed and then told them to clean it up.

I think that shows creativity and good humour.

Reported it to a staff member so that security guards could eject them?

@ThePerfectDog

why would you have laughed?

I’d bet good money they’re on benefits and have few options for ‘fun’ and this is their day out; a Mother’s Day treat perhaps?

If I were you, I’d have taken my business elsewhere, Whole Foods is good. Very unlikely to find such behaviour there. Similarly, Waitrose. You may find it in a Sainsbury’s though.

I've never seen this kind of behaviour anywhere to be honest. I shop at Sainsbury's and Lidl.

That's a bit rude. I know there are three kids so it'd have to have happened earlier. But young parent/ grandparent does not = shit one. My aunt had her 1 child very young at 17. He didn't have his first until he was 28. She is a wonderful grandmother and he is a great father.

Brutal behavior thought and yes the kids in this situation will likely turn out the same. Or we might see one of those girls on here in 20 years asking is it normal to go low contact with your parent.

How this world went so wrong?
There is no respect anymore. We were taught to give chairs to elderly on the buses (or to those who need it more than us for some reasons), my toddler is 2 and if I'm taking him to a bus without a stroller lately, I always ask for a front seat if nobody bothers to get up.
As well we were raised to listen to teachers. If they complained about me, at home I will definitely hear it. I don't understand how this changed from 100 years back when our grandparents were so respectful, teaching our parents and then us, to where we are now... not even mentioning throwing rubbish everywhere...

I said it as a joke because I made my MIL a grandmother in her late thirties 😁. We were married (not me and the MIL!)

Work in senior management but in retail.

Few months back all managers got called to shop floor to locate a missing child. Turned out the child had already gone missing in the shop once, had been found then gone again. 10 minutes later child found and back with parent again.

Childs mum then proceeded to have a go because as a shop we don’t provide ‘tags’ to put in the child so she can keep track of them while shopping 🙈 did try to point out her child is her responsibility but it fell on deaf ears and I was the unreasonable one 🙄

Same with my just turned 7 year old. She was locked down from being just 3. She barely remembered going into shops and didn't know how to behave. At first we had to have a strict "No touching" rule. Now she's accustomed to shops again and can look carefully at the back of a box, for example and put it back. Her behaviour is in stark contrast to her 11 and 3 year old sisters, who both know how to behave in public. It isn't her fault that she missed a couple of years of socialisation. It is my responsibility to ensure that she catches up though.

I hope you said something to staff. That's just unacceptable.

Because I would have found that funny. Why do you normally laugh at things?

Note that I also said I would have told them to clean it up afterwards.

It does sound like Bluey, in the supermarket they made Bandit sit on toilet paper.

And the Bluey cinema episode really increases my blood pressure. And people think permissive parenting is good