Policing other people’s children ?

[1AngelicFruitCake]

More and more I despair at the lack of responsibility many parents take towards their children. In the moment I’ve started stepping in and saying something directly to the child /parent but I’ve started to wonder if I’m interfering/should mind my own business?

1. Queue of children at an activity. Older boys stands in front of younger child, pushing in even though there’s a queue. I say ‘No you need to join the queue’. Child he pushed in front of wasn’t mine.
2. Two children throwing food in McDonald’s. Looked about 8 and 10. Giggling, mum giggling, mum looked at me smiling I looked at her with a glare (didn’t mean to but I was disgusted that the man cleaning nearby was watching this knowing he’d be cleaning it).
3. Outdoor play area. Large group of children 7-10 roughly. One child was being pushed over in the group, others laughing. After a few times I asked them to stop.
4. In a cafe my children were walking in front of me (I had tray of food) parent ( her children in the queue) pushed past mine to take the last table. I said to the mum ‘as you can see we were just about to sit there’ she looked a bit surprised to be spoken to and after watching us stand with a tray of hot food, got up and gave us the table.
5. Group of children at a library run activity. Pencil crayons in the middle, one girl took approximately 10 out of the 20 provided for 8 children. Librarian said nothing so I told her to share.

My own children find me embarrassing. AIBU?

I think some of these are reasonable and some aren’t. Fine to call the adult out on taking your table so long as you were prepared polite, and the kids pushing someone over, and the child pushing in given he was doing this to another child. Don’t think it was necessary to call out the child taking the crayons as presumably someone could just have asked her for some of hers whilst undertaking the activity and he reaction would be more important and she may just have not thought about it and just picked up what she wanted (common in relatively young children).

I would intervene if a child was going to be at risk of harm and if they were doing something blatantly unfair and there wasn’t another adult responsible for that child there to say something.

Yesterday I went into a park and a little girl was going to walk out of the gate we had opened, she was about 5 so I asked her if her parent knew she was going out, she said she was meeting her mum by the gate so I said she should wait inside the gate until her mum was there. I don’t like addressing other people’s children without need but I wasn’t going to be responsible for letting a small child out of a park.

However, a two year old also sort of head butted my two year old’s back out of nowhere. He didn’t do it hard and there was no obvious reason, he didn’t say anything. In that situation I just reassured my daughter and kept an eye on him, given his age. If he had hurt her or kept doing it I would have tried to say something to his parent.

Yes, I think behaviour has gone downhill a lot, because of lockdowns, cost of living putting families under pressure and underfunding in schools/youth groups/NHS services such as CAMHS.

It's called being "the village" what you do. Good on you.

It is not 'policing' it is pointing out and trying to enforce social norms. I think that we should all do this more often. Of course, the best solution would be for the parents to do it/ have already taught their kids to behave appropriately, but the parents are not always present.
If we want to live in a civilized society, with certain rules about what is and is not acceptable we all have to be engaged.
Keep it up, kids have to learn what is ok and what isn't and this is never going to happen unless people tell them.

Do think you have to pick and choose. I wouldn't challenge a group of feral hoodies however I did speak to a couple of 7/8 year olds a few days ago about joining a queue in the supermarket.

How old are your children?

I am forever speaking to other people's children about their behaviour. I was a teacher so it happens automatically and I don't think about it until it is out of my mouth.
Over the Easter holidays we had:

1. On a bounce pillow thing with my toddler and a group of older children were lobbing handfuls of bark chippings onto it while their parents watched. "no thank you. No throwing bark."

Parents at least had the decency to look shamefaced.

1. Walking back to the car and a group of boys was chasing one boy and hitting him with foam swords. They ignored him when he asked them to stop. "He said he didn't link that, didn't he? Stop!"

1. Toddler hitting mine at soft play while his mum sat 5 feet away scrolling through her phone. "no hitting, gentle hands"

I don't think I was unreasonable in any of those cases. The children were poorly supervised and doing the wrong thing. The way that I spoke to them was proportional and age appropriate.
I would fully expect someone else to say the same things to my kids if they were being buggers and I hadn't seen or wasn't dealing with it.

You sound like my mil but she is a teacher so she can't help trying to boss everybody around

It's a shame she lets her own mother treat her like crap and won't dare say a word though

I’m the same as you. In all of those scenarios I’d have said something except for perhaps the large group of children as I would admit I wouldn’t know the dynamics.

Kids pushing into queues is like my kryptonite! If they are old enough to queue by themselves then they are old enough to abide by the ‘rules’

I think you did right. I’m also a teacher and I automatically say stuff to children like WithRoses does’, it often feels to me that people are nervous to say anything, but I think it’s necessary sometimes.

I have done stuff like this plenty of times. The way some kids are allowed to behave is shocking(and I am far from a strict parent myself).
I have tacked groups of teens behaving badly in the past but I try not to do that now knowing how that can turn out.

I used to say something in situations like these and parents would generally then take the cue and step in, but the last couple of times I’ve said something (appropriate, firm but not unkind), the parents have told me off for daring to speak to their child.

When I was out with of my friends recently, she intervened and grabbed a child who’d run into the road and returned him to his parents, who screamed at her for “laying a hand on him”.

I’ve given up trying to be part of a village now. I do think kids’ behaviour has gone downhill but so has the parents’ so it’s no great surprise!