Why do some people let their children behave so badly?

[Hikingqueen]

Examples I have seen or see on a regular basis.

Children pushing in queues and the parents standing by doing nothing. Such as queuing for the slide at the swimming pool and people allowing their children to barge to the front of the queue.

Parents have been asked by school repeatedly not to let their children scoot or ride bikes in the school playground. Yet every day there are children zooming around nearly crashing into people.

Parents letting their kids run in the road and meekly saying "watch the road" when the kids have already run into the road.

Recently at a sports club my child attends, some young who should have been supervised children badly and deliberately vandalised property.

Letting children run around in car parks even though this is dangerous with cars moving around.

A child at my dcs school has been really badly behaved two days in a row where they've been called to speak to the teacher. Think hitting, swearing at the teacher, walking out of class, swearing at other children, throwing in class. Saw the mum treating the child to an ice cream after school 🤷‍♀️

Letting children run riot in supermarkets running up and down the aisles with trolleys bumping into people.

I've had to step in on more than one occasion over the years where a child has pushed in front my child or seen a child doing something very dangerous and have had a mouthful of abuse to thank for it.

Oh I have a relative whose parents took the approach of ‘I wouldn’t ever embarrass my child by telling them off for their truly awful and entitled behaviour in front ofothers’. He is now is narcissistic twat that nobody likes. Except his parents.

DS wouldn't act like that in school, he would mask all day, meltdown at home, so not been in that exact situation. But somebody might see me buying him an ice lolly or ice cream after what looks like bad behaviour because icy cold things help him regulate - if we're at home he'll have a bowl of ice cubes.

On the other hand you'd never have seen me as the parent helplessly watching as their child ran riot. It was commented on in the toddler group I took DS to, that I hardly sat down as I was always chasing after him, making sure he took turns nicely, didn't hit other children or knock them over while running laps of the hall etc. chasing after him when we were eating out as he'd just suddenly make a run for it.

I probably looked like I had an uncontrollable child though. Turns out he's ND. Fortunately I'm oblivious judgey looks.

YANBU! Small children require far more supervision than what is typically given, and those parents who do hover next to their child get jeered at as helicopter parents. I was the mum who followed DD closely whenever we're out, partly to check she didn't get hurt but also to make sure she didn't do anything to annoy or disturb others. I can't count the number of times when I was literally the only parent following a pack of kids. It's boring and strenuous because I have to half keep an eye out for the other children as well. I've stopped a 2 year old from walking directly into a hot BBQ once because the parents are notorious "sit down relaxers" who only focus on adult conversation when with friends.

My friend is like this with her two year old. The other day he got the local swimming pool evacuated by swinging on and opening an alarmed fire door. They posted about it on Facebook as in “haha my son is such a legend” and regularly post pictures of him behaving badly in public with captions such as “living his best life”, “he’s a born adventurer” etc. It’s like they think he’s so wonderful that all bad behaviour is excused.

Yes this.

People who come on this thread saying "boo hoo you don't know what it's like" "you're judgy"

I've been on a campsite and had to help a toddler who'd been smashed in the face with a swing and parents nowhere to be found.

Yes I will judge you for leaving your young child completely unsupervised you bloody idiot.

Decent parents trying their best won’t criticise you for being judgey op. It’s the ones for whom it touches a nerve that kick off. Easier to blame everyone else than parent your kid innit?

Because they're lazy bastards with no standards.

I managed to bring 3 kids up to adulthood all who now have good jobs etc despite being a lazy bastard.

You have NO IDEA what's going on in their life.

Certainly not any form of knowing what is acceptable behaviour, that's for sure.

Yes sometimes I feel the ‘you don’t know what people are going through’ has been massively stretched far beyond its original intention

I wonder about parents who neglect their children's social development to such an extent that the children become a problem and ultimately antisocial.
Do they think the sun shines outta little Johnny's a* when he's kicking a stranger in the shins?!
And when someone corrects them or their child, they get so butthurt and bent out of shape at the mere inkling that their child and -by extension - themselves might be wrong in some way 🙄

Quite, no one had any idea what I was going through on the day I encountered the swinging child 🙄

I really don’t give a shit, we’re all going through something, just be respectful of other people and teach your children to do the same.

I don’t know if I’m missing context, but you seem to be taking this personally.

And FWIW, having a good job isn’t the measure of whether someone is a nice human at all

Maybe their trying to get rid of them. 🙈 only reason to let your child run around a carpark is because you don't want them anymore and don't care if they die?
What other reason could there be?
How many times were children run over before they started putting in sensors and cameras so you could see behind the bumper.
Before anyone says maybe they have sen, it is still the parents responsibility to keep the child safe.

We have a few autistic children in the family and some are non verbal. Their kept safe by not being allowed to run off, even when they have had violent episodes due to being non verbal and can't communicate why their in pain etc its heartbreaking but the parents still manage to keep them safe.

I was looking for advice when I came across this . Today my DD ran off from me in a car park and was heading towards a road (not busy but still) and I shouted and ran to get her and she stopped as I fell over in the process but the noise stopped her and also alerted someone in a car I was there and my DD. My DD has run off in a car park too. She is almost 2.5 but we have spoken about it and thought it had stopped it wasn’t until today that I realised how serious it was. I was definitely not letting her run around the car park or anywhere else.

We have spoken about what happened since.