About unruly teens and that mum at theatre

[DougJudysSisterTrudiesDog]

Name changed for this.

i took my DC and a friend to the theatre. The play is specifically geared for GCSE students, so basically everyone in the audience is 15/16, and every group must be accompanied by a parent.

The seat next to mine was empty. The next seat, and seats after that, had a group of teens that showed up with buckets of popcorn, pinched each other, playfought, talked and loudly munched non stop.

After 45 minutes, I couldn’t take it anymore. I leaned over the empty seat, gave the boy nearest to me a sharp tap on the shoulder (he was six feet tall so I’m guessing 16), and told him “Can you please stop talking? It’s really annoying”.

During the break, the mother came over to talk to me. I assumed she wanted to apologise. Wrong! She accused me of hitting her child, demanded I apologise, and said it was assault and if I ever did it again she would report me to the police. I said I did not hit her child, I tapped him on the shoulder, and she should have prevented her party from disrupting the performance long before I did so. I also told her it should be her boys apologising to me and others around us for ruining their evening. She kept repeating herself, so after a while, I said I thought the conversation was over.

Other parents also intervened: one dad said the boys hadn’t bothered him, and three other parents told the mother to drop it, that her children were very rude and that even if I hit the boy (I didn’t), that was justified by their behaviour and they would have done the same.

WIBU to tell the boy off? I don’t think I was. I think it’s possible my tap was sharper than I had wished, because he was leaning over the other side to chat to his friends, and I had to lean over the empty seat so it was a bit awkward. But I am 100% sure I did not hurt him, though I think I startled him. If I want to be charitable I would say the mum felt chastised about her parenting so she lashed out at me, and will give her head a wobble later. But as a regular theatre goer, I think I taught the boy a valuable life lesson.

AIBU?

In case this matters, I’ve never hit my DCs and I don’t agree with physical punishment or violence.

When I have had this in cinema, I have gone to a staff member. When some young teens were running around got them thrown out. Not paying good money to have my visit ruined.. My teens at the time were mortified though.

Also I tend to find going shhhh very loudly tends to work and embarrass them in these situations. I have done it a few times 😬🙈

And the tapée was causing a disturbance in a public place and interfering with the experience which other people had paid to witness.

The barbarians are inside the gates , as the poet Cafavy says.

People don’t tap on the shoulder when they could “use their words”. Running after someone to say they dropped their phone, but they’re deep in conversation and you can’t get ahead of them. Commuter fast asleep as train reaches final destination and not responding to words. Noisy crowd and you can’t make yourself heard. To take it to extremes - first aider if you’re not conscious and able to consent.

Retaliation has to be proportionate. Retaliating to a light touch on the shoulder by a punch in the face is not proportionate.

“Common assault or battery normally involves the unlawful touching of a person (where they have not ‘silently’ consented, i.e. if jolted during a concert) but does not require there to have been any injury.
By the letter of the law, common assault or battery is occasioned where there is more than merely transient or trifling contact. It is not necessary for the police or prosecution to prove injury. Normally – subject to some exceptions – the prosecution will choose not to prosecute a case in court if there are no injuries at all as it would not be in the interests of justice to do so.
In general, most minor assaults which have caused minor injuries or passing discomfort or pain will be prosecuted as common assault.”

from https://www.lawtonslaw.co.uk/resources/varying-degrees-of-assault/

Indeed.

@TiredHippo you should probably stay at home if you honestly think "you should never touch people".

All you people moaning that a tap on the shoulder to get someone's attention is unacceptable or "touching someone" or that under 18s shouldnt be pulled up for behaviour etc, YOU are whats wrong with younger generations today. YOU are the reason that so many of them think they can get away with anything then cry victimisation, assault, trauma, anxiety, being "triggered" when it happens, because YOU facilitate it!

This is exactly why her perfect cherub doesn't know at 16 how to behave in public.

You did nothing wrong. Personally, I would have spoken to an usher/theatre employee and asked to be moved. I bet it annoyed the cast as well.

Ignore OP. Her child and his mates are little gits and probably because he was embarrassed he ran to mummy.

More people should do what you did. I would have done the same.

In years gone by this 'child' would have received a clip around the ear from OP, and when they went crying to their mother they'd have had the other ear smacked by her for disturbing OP to the extent she whacked him one. Well, either that or this 6 foot 16 year old child would have been working there and been responsible for bringing home money to the family. No fan have corporal punishment in all seriousness, but all this "tapping someone on the shoulder is assault" stuff is far too far in the other direction.

Perhaps a little context of what a 'sharp tap' is might help. That to me would be more an aggressive jab rather than just gently touching my shoulder to get my attention.

I can lean just one seat over and say loud enough 'can you please stop talking' for him to hear me without the need for physical contact. Even if doing so I disrupt the performance myself, I am still drawing attention to him and letting other people know he was causing a problem by messing around. I don't need to touch people to make that point. How is my way what's wrong with society but OPs way which caused a confrontation right?

Oh wow. People often tap me on the shoulder to get my attention ( I can't hear them if they approach me from behind. I fear id be in prison by now if I punched everyone who wanted to get past, tell me id dropped something etc

How baffling, then, that Gypsy children are by far the most often suspended and permanently excluded in schools. They are also the worst attainders of all ethnic groups, at all education stages. You may describe your “walk of life” as “extremely loving and generous”, but I think loving your children also entails giving them the best chances of success in life. Don’t you agree?

https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/summaries/gypsy-roma-irish-traveller/

I have teens around the same age - if this had been my kids - well first of all it wouldn't because I would have reprimanded and removed them before allowing them to behave like this - I would have been offering sincere apologies and asking my kids to apologise too.

Protecting our offspring from any and all negative interaction, especially ones that are their fault is the worst thing we can do. Children need to learn how to act in a civilised society, and if they are never challenged on bad behaviour, they never DO learn that! This is how you get the multitudes of shit-stirring influencer-types playing 'pranks' or demanding free food, or simply behaving badly and never taking responsibility!

And those of you berating OP for tapping a teenager on the shoulder - seriously have a word with yourself. Any and all physical contact isn't illegal. And those of you that would punch someone in the face for being tapped in the shoulder are tapped in the fucking head.

I hate it when people quote "their culture" as an excuse for unethical, violent, abusive and criminal actions. Do better.

And you'd probably have had your head completely caved in in return by some of the most gentle, unassuming looking women I've known from my martial arts club over the decades. 😂

Why on earth would you think punching someone in the face is the appropriate response to being tapped on the shoulder?!

Still... live by the sword, and all that... 😂

You weren’t in the wrong - however, I would never touch another person, especially a child, in that situation as it can always be misinterpreted and physical contact of any sort is generally forbidden these days. Eg teachers are not allowed in many schools to touch children to apply sunscreen.

Going forward, I’d still intervene but a loud ‘excuse me’ or tapping the arm of the chair would suffice.

Oh so if a little old lady came up and tapped you on the shoulder to ask you something you'd punch her in the face?

You aren't punching anyone in the face, stop talking nonsense.

First of all I resent the fact that gypsies and Irish travellers are always lumped together in articles like this when we are completely different ethnicities.

Secondly, we don't value education. So what? Plenty of other ways to be successful in life. In fact, how do you define success?

If you had bothered to read the link, you would know that it doesn’t lump gypsies and Irish travellers together, in fact they have completely separate sets of statistics.

How do you explain the high rate of school suspensions and permanent exclusions in gypsy children (not Irish travellers), if the children are so well disciplined?

I’m not sure how I would define success, but education certainly would feature highly. Partly because it allows for a better understanding of the world, which is a reward in and of itself, and partly because it provides more opportunities.

If the objective of the shoulder tap was to get them to be quiet it was almost certainly going to exacerbate the problem. I’m not suggesting you did anything wrong either legally or morally but when people are confronted like that they generally get defensive especially when in a group as they won’t want to lose face. Asking super nicely is usually more effective ‘would you mind if …’

I am not suggesting the OP is guilty of this but sometimes people do confront with the hope that people will respond argumentatively or aggressively so they can adopt an aggrieved stance.

As for the poster proud of stealing sweets, seriously

In my opinion you were absolutely right to be annoyed and ask them to be quiet, but wrong to attract his attention in that way.

We had this at the theatre with a really unruly school group (play was a gcse text) many school groups there but this one were just awful.

We and many around us were so fed up with them talking throughout - we all spoke to the theatre manager at the interval and they had a word with the teachers. This included teachers from a different school who couldn’t believe how badly these kids were behaving and how they were not being challenged by their adults to stop.

Something obviously was said as the 2nd act they were a lot better

it’s so sad that they weren’t prepped and supervised as to how to behave in a theatre before they went as it was really disruptive and did spoil the 1st act so much.