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?

Depends on the child my DD and DS have always loved shopping. But they did used to go with school some children with autism struggle in supermarkets. I recall one time my son picking up a melon and carrying it around the Tesco with a big smile on his face. It became a routine every time he was shopping with me we got a melon and he behaved knowing he would have some melon when we got home. DD likes to choose some fish for tea.

Clearly written by a 'parent' similar to the wastes of space in the original post. When goods are destroyed by feral scrotes there is a financial loss, they can hardly sell damaged items and such financial losses are passed on to the customer, however large the organisation.

That's probably why teachers don't want to teach these days!

Safeguarding laws changed this.
It's no longer deemed acceptable for random adults to address children in case it's misconstrued.

I used to work in a secondary school (but not as a teacher) and we were told that it was not acceptable to tell off misbehaving children as it destroys their confidence. Let's see how that works when these children become adults and enter the workplace and wider society. I despair. 🙄

Yanbu, but I did laugh

Unfortunately some of the 'inspiration' for these pranks is available for viewing on Facebook 🙄😞

Oh that’s interesting. But surely there are times when it’s safeguarding (and duty of care) to address a child’s behaviour - for example, harm to themselves or someone else.

I am that adult that will certainly step in and say something if the parent is nowhere to be seen. Especially if it’s disrupting another child’s right to safe play, or could potentially put someone else in harms way. I think ‘deemed appropriate’ is quite a loose term anyway, appropriate to who? As you say, it will be interesting to see how that one plays out.

You might think it's defeatist, but it's realistic.

The shop owner can ask them to stop and get a mouthful of abuse as well, and what do you do when they say no? When they say they're not leaving? Physically remove them? Put yourself at risk of being hurt and also of prosecution yourself for laying hands on someone?

And don't say phone the police because they don't have the time to deal with more serious crimes due to lack of resources, or things like shop lifting and even if they do attend, it's not very likely there'll be many, if any concequences.

I've watched a couple of episodes of a police programme recently where assaults on officers are 'punished' with fines of £150-200, if not dropped all together, so if the justice system doesn't take assaults on police officers seriously, who most people are concerned about the concequences of crossing, why is abuse of a shop worker going to be any different?

This is a societal problem and it shows in places where society gathers like shops and pubs, it's really unfair to place the policing and prevention of that behaviour on people who aren't employed to do that, and are also some of the least respected in society, and then blame them for being ineffective.

They may be representing the business, but it's also not the job of the business to police people's behaviour, their business is selling goods in return for money, not making sure people behave themselves appropriately in public. They employ staff to facilitate that business, they also have to now employ more staff and training and equipment to deal with the behaviour - at extra cost which is passed on to the consumer.
Someone mentioned up thread that shop staff are being trained in conflict resolution, and a fair few places now have body cams on their staff - are they spending that money because of a defeatist attitude or because they're recognising that there's an issue and because they have a duty of care towards their staff, they are taking steps to address it?

The issue is lack of concequences for this type of behaviour, and worse right through society.

And having been the subject of a social media witch hunt that named and shamed me (mistaken identity as it happens, I wasn't even on shift at the time) on local social media, it's not just about a Google review of Sainsbury's not getting ready by many people, it can be absolutely devastating for the person on the recieving end.

It's not about shops or their staff 'allowing' anything, it's about not being able to prevent or stop it because there aren't the, back up, tools or resources to do so.

People need to stop placing the onus and responsibility on stopping and preventing this behaviour on the people it's directed at and start placing the onus on the people doing it.

Oh it’s less funny now

When i was a kid i remember seeing signs in shops saying "Breakages must be paid for" What happened to those. Havent seen any for years

Typical scruff family.

I'm just back from Tesco. Woman yelling hideously and absolutely ineffectively at her 2 kids (one Y6 - she was wearing the 24 leavers' hoodie - and a boy of about 4 or 5), who were charging around the aisles, shouting and creating havoc.

I was embarrassed for her, which is just as well as she clearly had not a trace of embarrassment.

So many people are just arseholes nowadays!

Yes! Took my 2 to the supermarket earlier and they were looking at the toys whilst I looked for a card. Turned around and one of them was hitting the other with the wrapping paper! I did swiftly put a stop to it though and it was quickly put back before any damage was done.

Kids get bored and they act up but good parenting is dealing with it. My kids aren't angels, I'm not a perfect parent, I struggle to know how to deal with their behaviour but I will always tell them off for misbehaving and if I need to give them a consequence like no TV then that's what happens.

There has always been bad parents who let their kids run wild though and who won't think anything or hurling abuse. Unfortunately those kids grow up and often end up repeating the same parenting style and so the cycle continues.

Judge j, that's alot of hatred and anger in there. I just try my best not to sweat the small stuff and bring on an early coronary! 🤷‍♀️

I just imagine you've had some bad experience at the hands of feral peeps to feel that pissed.

If the behaviour in the OP’s post really happened then obviously that is completely unacceptable and nuts. I’ve never seen kids behave like this in a shop. I’ve certainly seen kids being noisy and running about sometimes. Not ideal but it happens because they’re children, not small adults. I’ve also been the parent trying to contain my toddlers in the trolley / quieten down a tantrum. My experience is that most of the time parents / carers are doing their best and are feeling the judgement from others around them.

What is really depressing about this thread is how much child-hating there is. Referring to children as ‘it’ ‘brats’ ‘feral’ is horrible. Also disgusting comments about the social status of others.

To the posters who are misty-eyed about the good old days of smacking children, children being seen and not heard and random adults ‘stepping in’ to tell children off, THANK GOD the world is a different place now. Those things are directly abusive or contributed to a world where adults could abuse children without detection.

The level of hatred and anger towards kids on here is really sad ( yes I know some are a pain in the ass and act feral at times ) but they're just kids. The level of venom from certain posters wanting to even Facebook shame over something like this is why I'm glad adults don't have a free reign anymore to ' discipline ' strangers' kids.

For many,with the level of anger this post has stirred, I think it would end up bordering on verbal abuse. They certainly weren't good old days when abusive adults went so unchecked as to impose their issues on children.

If the behaviour in the OP’s post really happened then obviously that is completely unacceptable and nuts. I’ve never seen kids behave like this in a shop. I’ve certainly seen kids being noisy and running about sometimes.

I’ve also never seen kids behave like that either. I would have done a double take and then kept shopping. I’m curious where posters live that they see such things all the time. I shop at Aldi, Sainsbury, Tesco, M&S, Co-op and yet to run into such behaviour. I hear and see more parents loudly telling off their children tbh.

"Not ideal parenting" ???

Your bar is low. It is tragic parenting.

Of course it's a terrible way to behave... but you seem surprised! Have you had a good look around lately? It's a complete shit show out there.

If she is so incapable then she should have him on a leash. I know it looks ugly, but that is why they are made for. Without a doubt, there are people in this world who should be infertile and there would be no harm in that.

To kill their confidence in misbehave? Whoever put the law together is crazy. I still tell a child off if they throw rubbish and even an adult. And I'm seriously thinking whether I want my child to live and go to school in UK.

I think it’s an idea pinched from a couple of US TV shows. And I’ve seen a ‘content creator’ do this in one of the big walmart’s

Completely with you OP. Also when was it acceptable to just open stuff up and eat it in the shop now? Can no one wait?