Give your child a screen and the rest of us peace

[OlympicsFanGirl]

Second long train journey this weekend and yet again a whole carriage having to put up with loud, noisy, whining kids.

It's grating and it's constant and there are hours to go.

Parents just don't seem bothered.

Rest of the carriage now sharing looks, rolling eyes and sighing.

Just give them tablets and headphones and the rest of us some peace and quiet.

Totally agree. Children should be seen and nor heard! How very dare they be childlike while travelling on public transport!

I bet you never got excited on a day trip, or raised your voice to be heard over your siblings while in public. And you will never have whined that <sibling> is looking at me>.

Well done for the parents not giving their children screens and headphones when out and about.

There is plenty of time for that when they are in their teens.

Suck it up OP and let children be children.

Meh. My beef on train journeys is people talking loudly on their phones (adults here, not kids/teens even, proper fully grown adults talking loudly about absolute crap that could definitely wait). I loath it, so I take head phones. Kids, I'm not bothered about because they're kids and kids are going to find it hard to be quiet and still for ages.

Get yourself some headphones and a tablet?

I agree with OP. If your children are being noisy and disturbing everyone around them, which is pretty normal behaviour for many kids, parents should engage the kids through snacks, books, games, drawing, films or whatever works. Letting the kids disturbe lots of people in a crowded setting is not great.

I may be somewhat scarred by a recent flight where a large family was letting their kids cause mayhem and made for a very uncomfortable 4hrs....

No harm in a good movie or a game on the iPad for a couple of hours

Nothing against well behaved children.

My issues are with the

• one who is currently jumping up and down in his chair and ramming the blind up and down

• One shouting mummy, mummy, mummy non stop for the last 2 hours

One sat behind me kicking my chair over and over again

But yes let 'children be children' 😳

I'd much rather parents parented and taught their children consideriation for others.

I'm personally more annoyed about adults with no volume control

Yep I suggest headphones for yourself. When mine were younger we played card games, hangman, read stories, told jokes etc with short periods of screens when they got ratty or squabbling. Now they're teens I might get a couple of games out if them but it's mostly silence. We constantly angst and complain about kids glued to screens. The longer you can put it off the better.

Lazy parenting only works for some.

I'm actually hard of hearing and have removed my hearing aids and have headphones on.

They are so loud I can still hear them.

And so can all the other people in carriage. They are spoiling the journey for everyone.

YANBU. It seems an increasingly noticeable proportion of idiots are raising antisocial little shits.

I partly agree if the parents are in the "it's good to be bored" camp. Research is showing that crosswords and word games are as beneficial to the brain as doing the equivalent on paper. Two if my DDs don't use paper in their workplace and work totally on screens. One only needs back up paperwork for some care plans/meds and a phone number book in case of outages. I read and research on my phone and my eldest GC does on her tablet. Screens don't equal bad. Headphones or silent is a must. But then parents paying cards and pissing about with stickers in restaurants are as annoying as a bit of background screen noise. But yes, other adults are more annoying.

Do I have the only child in the world who isn't interested in tv/cartoons? Granted if he was jumping on the seats or shouting loudly we'd be sitting in the vestibule to annoy as few people as possible, but not all kids will actually watch a screen even if you stick them in front of one!

Just give them tablets and headphones and the rest of us some peace and quiet

Whilst I don’t agree that children should be allowed to run riot and I wouldn’t allow that of mine, YABVU for this suggestion.

In fact, it’s shoving kids in front of screens that makes this sort of thing worse.

Using a screen can be a good tool, but I really dislike the suggestion that in public children should be in front of screens at all times, as some people seem to think.

What’s happening in the train is not good parenting, but shoving kids in front of screens to keep them quiet isn’t good parenting either.

Your answer to solve feral children is to stick a screen in front of them?

Yahno, there’s more than one way to skin a cat? Aka the parents parenting them?

Your op should have read

’AIBU to think that parents should parent their kids and not allowed to jump around and scream constantly?’

Maybe you could offer to play eye spy with the kids and see it as your community service done for the month.

Do you mean that children should always be silent? Or do you mean if they have screens they should be silent? I’m guessing the screens

On another note, I’d rather have noisy kids on a train than the idiots who play loud music, the drunks or the stuffed shirts talking loudly on their phones.

I try to engage my child on public transport and bring lots of options but tbh parents are judged for giving their child a screen, for 'performance parenting'/ engaging with their child and it also appears for having a child who repeatedly says 'mummy' (they do that a lot!)...

Children also need to move so expecting them to stay still for hours on end is unreasonable. I would stop mine kicking a seat or impacting on other passengers but i'm not going to expect them to sit perfectly still.

Turn around and tell the child who's kicking your chair to stop.

There are other solutions - not just sticking them in front of a screen.
Most of those issues would be sorted if parents parented their kids. No jumping on seats, mucking around with blinds or kicking chairs - that should be solved with being told no and offering something to occupy them, or heaven forbid, actually engaging with your children.
The one calling endlessly for its Mum should be given some attention!

My DCs used to love watching out of the window, talking about what they could see. They would listen to a story, draw or do stickers. We would play travel games or cards. We would also chat for ever - still do in their 20s!

Not everyone has a tablet or headphones. We certainly don't - too expensive!

Yes the parents should be engaging with them - we take a variety of activity books, books, colouring etc on long train journeys. And try not to book longer than two hours on any one train.

I wouldn't allow screaming, screeching etc. But we do talk and laugh (hopefully not raucously!).

Screens no, controlling kids yes.

Mine are screen free, but I would not let them bother other people on public transport. They have their toys, sticker books, coloring, snacks and whatever. Plus they know they get a reward when they get there if they behave.

I don’t agree with ‘just give them a screen’ - but I do agree that parents should be conscious of the impact of their kids in public spaces and teach their kids not to be anti social. You can pack games, toys, books if you don’t fancy a screen. Personally happy for my kids to use tablets but one of them doesn’t really like them so for that child would have to find other ways to occupy them. But it’s not unreasonable to expect parents to tell their children to keep the noise down etc. in the same way adults on their phone or playing music are also expected to be considerate of others.

I hate it when parents just sit back and let their children kick someone's seat, bothering to parent rather than screens is probably better though. General noise and playing is understandable, but it seems to be quite prevalent now to just let children do as they please with zero thought for anyone else; a balance is surely better.

Tell the parents to keep thier children quiet or move carriages. No point silently seething.

Hurrah 🙌

Result: they've actually done it. Tablets and headphones on.

Well for 2 of 3 anyway

Bliss.

I don't actually care what method they use. As long as it works.

Just the chair kicking child being annoying now.

Thanks for all the saintly and holier than thou posts - you've kept me entertained 🤣🤣😳

@Dotto totally agree.