The way some people let toddlers behave......

[Purpleturtle46]

I have own 3 kids in primary and secondly so still completely remember what the toddler stage was like but recently I have noticed on several occasions that people just let their toddlers run wild. Yesterday for example I was at a farm park with my youngest who has just turned 8 and the following are examples from just one day.

-DD in big sandpit quite focussed on building something and toddlers allowed on several occasions to come over and knock it down, no intervention from parents.

-huge slide from top of 3 story fort thing with big queue of kids at top, none can go down as toddler standing at bottom. Mum comes and removes toddler after a while and process repeats itself several more times.

-lots of sunken trampolines in ground, one child per trampoline. DD waits patiently to have a go, toddler then gets on with her. Parents seem to find this cute, DD gives up and just gets off.

-a throw a hoop over the witches hat game. Toddler running in-between the hats so DD has to wait until toddler is removed after some half hearted attempts to shout across from the picnic bench Dad is sitting at.

-older baby crawling around the middle of the floor in a cafe, waiter carrying 2 huge plates of food nearly trips over them.

And that's just one day. Obviously it's not the fault of the toddlers but when my kids (3 under 4 so not easy) were that age I constantly had to talk to them about turn taking etc. Yeah of course it's hard work but that's how they they learn. Just getting fed up of older children being expected to tolerate this behaviour and parents finding it funny and cute! I suspect my DD is probably mildly autistic and although she coped ok with all this I could tell it was frustrating her as she always waits her turn, I'm sure that would be annoying for any child. I am always torn between showing my kids a balance of being tolerant but also standing up for yourself and not being a people pleaser which I probably am guilty of.

The worst one I saw recently was at 2 of my kids' trampolining club award afternoon where the coach was making a speech and a toddler was being allowed to run around between the kids and not sitting with parents in spectator area. The kids found it funny so were giggling while the poor coach was trying to make a nice speech about the kids, she was clearly pissed off, fair enough! Again all attention on this toddler with the parents doing nothing to stop it and looking on at the toddler all gooey eyed!

Has anyone else noticed this trend?

It's not just toddlers! It makes me so cross. How are children meant to learn what is right from wrong, acceptable behavior, how to behave etc if they are never told/taught!

Some of those children are now young (and not so young) adults and they still don't know how to behave. It's different from choosing to behave badly and is a real social disability, in my humble opinion.

Agree with the not just toddlers. Witnessed a girl about 6/7 repeatedly hit her mother in a shop for not buying her something. This lady was at the check-out and the girl was fully smacking and punching her.

I have a toddler myself and absolutely would none of what you have said be allowed, at any point.

YANBU (and the same type of people also don't train their dogs properly and watch on indulgently whilst their annoying fur babies bother other people)

I can't stop myself giving the parents some advice in these situations "You might want to move him away from there or he will get knocked over....come on dd you can go down the slide now, his parents are going to move him" or "Oh you'd better move him of there or he's going to get ejected when dd starts bouncing, dd just give his parents a minute to remove him" etc.

Yep. Went out for lunch yesterday and there were numerous small children running around and yelling. One was given a box of crayons to try and distract her, which she proceeded to use to draw on the walls! Parents just watched her do it.

My friend I was with did that, I will need to try to pluck up the courage next time! 🤣

Yep. Then the half-shrug with a ‘what can I do, she’s sassy LOL’.

Raising monsters

You are a classic example of forgetting and I mean "really" forgetting what the toddler stage is truly like. Toddlers act that way because that is the stage they are at developmentally, they just need to grow out of it. Usually asking a toddler not to do something results in screams and tantrums. For the people saying I would never let my toddler act a certain way, or my toddler was an angel, they are talking bullshit nonsense. Stopping being so smug that stage is behind you, and try showing some understanding and compassion.

Whole other thread but they wonder why school staff have had enough!

Agreed! Too many kids doing exactly what they want and when they want. I work in a secondary school and it's the same problem. A 'me me me' society where children can't behave properly or appropriately in the classroom. Shouting out. Talking nonsense instead of giving rational, thought out answers to questions.
I would not allow my 4 year old to behave like this.

Really? We should be compassionate and understanding of this?

-older baby crawling around the middle of the floor in a cafe, waiter carrying 2 huge plates of food nearly trips over them.

the only thing this deserves is contempt. This is not parenting

I agree that at every stage there is some shocking parenting, always has been and always will be.

But you sound a bit smug, so be careful!

You will reap this attitude later on when your kids are so awful that no one wants to be friends with them.

So you think the toddlers should just be allowed to put themselves in harms way as well as spoiling the experience of slightly older children with no intervention?

You don't think toddlers and young children should be taught be turn take and hope it will just magically change as they get older?

Of course it's a developmental stage but they don't "just grow out of it". You have to parent them through it.

My son is 3 so you can't accuse me of forgetting what it's like. There's not a chance in hell I'd ever, ever, let my son behave in any of the ways described in the OP. At times he may have gone to do some of these things, because yes he's a bumbling toddler. But did I ever let him?

Fuck. No.

Then let them scream and tantrum? Why should everyone else’s experience be ruined to save an uncomfortable 5-10 minutes with your toddler?

The odd offence of not noticing that they are stood in front of the slide is forgivable but if it’s repeated then yeah that’s shit parenting.
You probably should have told the toddlers parents to get off the trampoline though so your daughter didn’t miss out.

YANBU. In fairness I don't see much of it round here, and it's not just toddlers.

One particularly bad day was the day of the queen's funeral (I think... Maybe the coronation? One of the big royal things). It had been wet all morning and then cleared just as the main bit of the service etc ended so everyone headed out at that stage and the playground was packed and all the children feral after being cooped up all morning.

Twin little girls climbing up the best slide even with a queue at the top, repeatedly. Mother standing chatting to a friend on the other side of the playground even though it kept happening. Tweens sitting chatting inside the tunnel slide so no one could go down. My blood pressure has never been so high in a playground.

In general though I'm not shy about giving out to other people's children if it's been a few minutes and the parents won't do it. Especially if it's something like blocking the slide or being unsafe on the trampoline.

I am one of the vocal ones too, but I do it more from a safety point of view as I just don't want them to get hurt. Some children would just go straight down that slide and wipe out toddler, which I couldn't watch.

I put in a lot of effort when my kids were toddlers to reinforce how they should behave. Yes there were tantrums and tears and it was reallllly hard work but surely that's just want you do, for their own benefit as well as others and so when they are older they can form friendships. If that makes me sound smug then so be it.

In 2 out of 4 of your examples the parents move the toddler. And both of those are in toddler approved play places.

What do you want parents to do? Leave a 2/3yo strapped in a pushchair in a play park? Toddlers always got to the bottom of slides, and get moved or knocked down. Usually they've seen bigger kids 6-9yo climbing up them and are trying to copy.

It amazes me that people are still so ignorant of child development, after all the research and information that is readily available out there. People that are offended by a small child's "behaviour" really need to take a long hard look at themselves and I am talking about the 2-4 year old bracket. Why expect the behaviour of an older child? when every piece of literature out there tells us it is not developmentally possible in the toddler years. Someone with an 8 year old child should not be annoyed at a child that is just emerging from babyhood, it is very wrong.

I'm not generally a "back in the day" kind of person. But honestly, "back in the day" kids would have been unsupervised on the streets and in playgrounds together, and if a 3 year old got booted at the bottom of a slide they soon learnt not to be at the bottom of the slide.

Well, yes, toddlers do act that way because of their developmental stage, and yes they will scream and tantrum. But that doesn't mean they should run wild and do whatever they want at a cost to everyone else!

Lots of us didn't/don't let our toddlers do this, and worked through the tantrums. That's what parenting is.

So when you had 3 little ones in a park and 1 ran to the bottom of the slide, 1 onto a trampoline and another in front of a swing what did you do? You can't be on them all the time or you're accused of being a helicopter parent.
Or were your kids perfect from tiny? Never stepped out of line as soon as they could walk? Or those perfect 2yos who were told something once and never said it again?