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 loathe able-bodied people who take disabled spaces. I'm pretty sure that there's a special circle of Hell reserved for them.

Annoy? It's downright disgusting. Would you be happy having a box of Weetabix in your online order to find them crushed up because some "little darling" has been sitting on the box and making castles with them? Your online order is picked off the shelves in your local store.

I work in a supermarket, and believe me, this is not at all unusual.
Far too many people seem to treat a trip to the supermarket as time out from childcare, and just let their kids run wild.
I've seen a dad actually playing football (with a ball which was for sale, from a display) with his kids in one of the aisles. Kids rampaging about, bumping into customers and trolleys, knocking stuff over, breaking/damaging stock.
Parents either standing talking, or glued to their phone, with either no idea, or not a care, what their little darlings are doing.
Food packaging opened, food thrown on the floor, stuff spilled, kids climbing up shelving.
Twice l've had customers with little ones who had 'chosen' a toy from the shelves, and came to the checkout clutching it. When l was scanning their shopping l had to ask the parent if they were intending to pay for it. No, was the reply, but no attempt made to remove the thing from the child. So l had to.
Cue outraged screaming, but no explanation to the child from the parent as to why they can't keep it. Then of course, l'm the 'nasty lady' who wasn't going to let them walk out with a toy costing £20 without paying for it.
I've lost count of the number of times l've been handed an opened item of food (butter, cheese, chocolate spread, etc) with actual teethmarks/finger marks in it, and the casual comment "This is open/damaged - can we get another one?" while their small child sits in the trolley with said foodstuff all over it's face.
Empty banana skins handed to me "Oh, he's eaten this on the way round," while smiling at me. How am l meant to weigh that?
Kids who are allowed to come in shopping with parents on scooters/bikes/heelies. And l'm not talking about little ones. Mid teens, quite big lads, in some cases. It's not a playground, there's a time and a place, and Sainsbury/Tesco/Morrisons isn't it. It's dangerous.
Thank god l'm not there for much longer. We can't win. If we say something to the parents, we're being unreasonable. If we don't (for something we can't do anything about, we aren't in loco parentis!), we're judged by other customers. Some, anyway.

They always use the excuse “it’s none of your business” don’t they. It just shows them up for what they are. Complete and utter trash.

I know it's bad they didn't clear up but that's pretty funny 🤣

My kids are bloody feral when we go shopping. It's a nightmare. But nothing like this!

The breeders of these brats maybe?
Maybe they need a photo on Facebook or wherever to let the rest of the area know what they're like.

Kids who are allowed to come in shopping with parents on scooters/bikes/heelies.

A US supermarket was allegedly sued by a woman who has been knocked over by a boy skidding around on heelies. It was her own child.

Lots of snobbery here implying that the awful mum and grandma must be young /on benefitsn(ie working class) .

Personally I was once banned from a gentle parenting forum full of older and middle class parents when I suggested to someone who's child had just thrown a rack of shoes across a shop and spat at the shop assistant that perhaps she should have apologised and offered to help clean up.

She was being warmly congratulated in how she handled it by sitting down with the child to chat about 'big feelings'.
Ok maybe later on try to identify why they behaved like that but in the moment you should consider their impact on other people and deal with that. There was no concern for the feelings of the person the child had assaulted, their child's feelings were all that mattered.

We often go together as a family because we live rurally and so we tack it on after a day out ir on the way to see family.

Like fuck would my child behave like that. Seen and not heard, walks with the adults at all times, no magazine bribe. We worked bloody hard to instill good behaviour. Well behaved kids are entitled to be in public places but absolutely need firm parenting to learn acceptable behaviour and boundaries.

I can't stand parents like this!! They're literally feral and so are their children, and they will only breed more feral offspring!

I think I'd have asked to speak to the store manager here.

Absolutely this.

Lazy parenting.

I know exactly the type of manic 'giggling' @IfIHadAHeart means.

In Waitrose there was a woman with two manic children who were picking up tubs of ice cream and licking the lids, {they were aged over 9 at a guess}

I mentioned it to a member of staff {covid era} who just shrugged - I pity the person who bought those licked tubs - gross.

The mother was in a daze.

Gentle parenting, my hole!! Lack of parenting more like!

Well said, I agree. I was brought up the same way. Sadly we're not all in the same camp.

Indeed. Mid way through the pandemic my local Asda had staff handing out free face masks at the entrance to people who were not wearing them. The verbal abuse was horrible, people swore at them, spouted conspiracy theories and generally behaved like entitled monsters. It hasn't improved, there seems to be rudeness and hostility everywhere, the state of this country makes me sad at times

Not good, take them to a park

Oh yes, I have seen this too in my local Asda. Many years ago they had mini shopping trolleys that little ones could wheel round with their parents while they did their shopping. It was carnage, kids belting up and down the aisles with them, bashing them into people's ankles and blocking access to the shelves. Needless to say it didn't last long!

''Gentle parenting''... Behaving like an absolute wet blanket with kids.

I saw two parents pleading with their child {8/9} to go inside their house.

The child was growling and stamping about and saying ''NO!''

The Dad picked the child up and the child proceeded to box the father's ears and kick and scream.

This couple also had a dog that was equally unruly.

Children and dogs like firm boundaries.

They like to know who is in charge, and in control.

It makes them feel 'safe'.

In the pharmacy a child ''She has Dyspraxia ''

was climbing up the shelves and of course it gave way under her weight.

The mother did nothing, apart from witter on about 'Dyspraxia'.

The girl wasn't asked to help clear up the mess, or even apologise for the snapped shelf.

You'd have thought the mother would have stopped her unruly child {large and old enough to know better} from climbing the units - but it's like they give up, with some behavioural syndrome given as a carte blanche excuse to raise hell.

My local supermarket still has those. DD6 ignored me when I told her not to run with the trolley and she ended up falling over and scraping her knees pretty badly. I didn't realise how badly until after she got a massive telling off! I must have seemed quite heartless.

She doesn't run with them anymore though.

I thought this would be about a toddler having a meltdown and a flustered Mum not knowing what to do and was ready to tell you YABU. Then I read that 2 adults are watching 5 kids building a fort. Out of food. What? I'm shocked the supermarket didn't throw them out.

Definitely.
There was a 'problem family' where I stayed as a teenager, they revelled in their 'notoriety'. They lived on an estate but would come into town.

I thought of them recently and googled the surname..and surprise surprise... same surname causing trouble reported by local paper.

A friend lives in a lovely village, but there are generations of a ''problem family'' there, too - living in a row of council houses and the family had been there for generations, but not really improving.

Is it nature or nurture?

That's really horrible!
NO ONE deserves abuse for just doing their job.

I do think people have got fouler since 'Lockdown'.

I have seen some shocking shoplifting recently - the staff just let it pass because ''what can we do?''

Thieves know this as well.

Thievery just means we all have to pay extra as the supermarkets are going to keep upping their prices.

I think this is some kind of tik tok craze as I’ve witnessed it in Tesco too and my teenage daughter showed me a video of boys from her school who made a fort behind the stacks of toilet rolls and hid in it for ages and were chilling out with snacks like it was totally normal. They then filmed the security guard chasing them away when he found them alongside some very unpleasant racist language towards him.

That article makes for shocking reading.

Poor shop staff. It's just not fair that they have to be subjected to such abuse, and to have syringes and knives pulled on them, or to be spat at.

That's disgusting.

Police just don't seem to do anything any more

A friend had a work van stolen recently - all captured on ring doorbell... but police didn't do anything.

It's a seemingly lawless society now, don't know what the answers are.

They've obviously got an imagination but shouldn't be using it in that way. My two are grown up now but they have autism and ADHD. I would never let them behave like this they would never be out my sight to behave like that.

Hell is other people and, more specifically, other people's kids.

I was told by the staff to get my drunk friend out of a shopping trolley many years ago, having popped into Tesco for snacks after a boozy afternoon pub session, so if THAT'S not allowed (she could barely stand up) then kids building castles out of cereal packets shouldn't be allowed either. Tbf, when my friend shouted loudly: 'They let me do it in Waitrose', one of the staff called back: 'Fuck off to Waitrose then'! 😁