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?

Exactly. Not safe for the baby, not safe for anybody else either. In an environment full of hot food and liquids, babies should not be allowed to become crawling trip hazards.

What a load of rubbish. So everyone else has to have a crap time whenever a toddler is around? No chance. Parents just need to do what the OP is saying and grab them out the way. If they don'r? Well maybe they'll learn a life lesson when they get booted across the park by someone coming down the slide!

YANBU in those cases. It does sound like the toddlers weren’t being supervised/parented properly. It’s definitely not just toddlers though. In my experience the problem is almost always older children. My son is 15 months old and can never play anywhere when older children are around. 90% of the time they will take toys off him or push in front of him because they know he’s very little and can’t defend himself. Parents usually do nothing. I had to tell a little girl off in a soft play because she came into the baby area (for under 18 months, she was at least 5), decided my son wasn’t allowed to be there and tried to push him over. Parents were nowhere in sight. All children should be closely supervised in my opinion. Parents shouldn’t assume that their children are able to play nicely independently just because they’re a bit older, often that isn’t the case.

I too have seen children fully beat their parents.

The parents look actually powerless, like a rabbit in the headlights.

I have a 2.5 year old and I wouldn't let her do any of these things. If there's a tantrum and she won't calm down, we leave. It's simple.

That's how to parent. Consistent boundaries doesn't mean no treats, it just means they start to understand the word/action associated with a no response.

You physically move your kid away, picking them up and removing them. They can kick and scream away, have a full blown tantrum etc but they can do that in a place where they aren't obstructing other people. I have 3 kids and one is a toddler. I watch them closely and intervene if they are bothering someone. My 2 year old of course doesn't like me moving her from where she needs to go but I'm the adult and I decide when she moves away from the bottom of the slide/gives a toy back to someone/comes off the swing/stops running around a restaurant. Toddlers are going to toddler, but they can have their developmentally appropriate responses somewhere that doesn't cause a physical obstruction for other people. It's just being civil.

Honestly I despair more re the behaviour of some older children. Toddlers can be absolutely feral even with parents having the best of intentions (okay okay I have a toddler…) but what’s worse is going to a soft play and watching a 6 year old deliberately knock my 2 year old down and then refuse to apologise when I asked her to say sorry. Mum was oblivious and on her phone. When she did look up she couldn’t have cared less. Ugh.

It does sound like in most of the instances you describe, the parents did intervene though and didn't just let them continue doing what they're doing. Yes they should have stopped it before it became an issue, but sometimes they're just so quick.

I've also been to parks etc where older children were the issue. Climbing up slides so no one else could get down.

It's not just toddlers, it's just children in general that can be a bit vivacious and fail to listen sometimes. They're not little soldiers. As long as the parents are making efforts to sort it out, I don't see such an issue.

Great to teach your child that things don't always go the way we want and people don't always behave appropriately. A fact of life at any age really.

Six year olds shouldn’t be in the toddler section.

Two year olds shouldn’t be in the older section

@Purpleturtle46 Completely agree with you! I have a 3 year old so we’re still at the tail end of that stage. Of course he acts out and does things he shouldn’t etc - he’s a young child. But I have my eyes on him at all times and am ready to intervene.

It’s also a big problem with older children in our area too unfortunately. DS was hit in the face (full on smack in the face, not an accident!) by an older child (around 5 maybe) at the park one day because DS was playing on the toy the other child wanted. Parents didn’t bat an eyelid and then started on me for giving their child a row when they didn’t 🙃

Soft play places seem to be the worst in my experience - There were a group of older kids (7/8yo ish) who kept thinking it was funny to trap my child in sections of the soft play a couple of weeks ago. Parents stayed sitting on their phones at the tables giving a half arsed “X, Y - leave the wee boy alone” 🙄

I literally have a degree and a post graduate qualification in child development and have worked with children for 20 years, and also have my own.

You still move your child away from situations in which they are obstructing others from using communal equipment. It is particularly important for parents to intervene when their children, due to their lack of safety awareness, are at risk of getting harmed (standing beside a swing or at the bottom of a slide).

In soft play people need to keep their kids in the correct area for their age. Older kids in the baby area. But most often than not it's toddlers and younger kids in the area for older kids. The purpose of soft play for older kids is so they can run around, play in a way for their age group, they carnt be held responsible for accidently knocking over a toddler who shouldn't have been there in the first place

I have a 2yo and other parents/toddlers drive me wild. Another child came up to my DD and smacked her across the face and the only thing the mother could say was "He just wants to play with her". My poor DD had a scratch mark and the grandmother came rushing over to apologise and that she's been trying to teach her GS not to hit others, I could see she was fed up with the mothers attitude and lack of parenting. This was just one example. The amount of times my DD gets shoved out of the way when we go to the farm when stroking the animals is insane. She waits patiently for her turn and then gets shoved, she looks at me so confused. Parenting isn't easy and I think some parents are just lazy and don't want to even try. DD is far from perfect, so when she throws a tantrum, like a PP said, we leave.

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.

My parents are back in the day parents and you're right I don't think they cared. We were like some kind of accessory and little care and affection for us. I personally don't think this kind of parenting is great for some children and effects them into adulthood.

The behaviour is definitely not on, but I don’t see this “trend”.

I tend to see older children in areas they shouldn’t be in areas meant for younger children but it still not often enough to be a trend.

I often wonder where some people live where they see so much unbecoming behaviour that they think it may be widespread.

I see more poor behaviour from adults than children out tbh.

My point is though that the older children that misbehave will likely be the ones that were allowed to behave as they liked as toddlers.

@WonderingWanda I used to intervene too - until a dimwitted Mother, after I explained that the large window her feral child was hurling itself against wasn’t safety glass, told her offspring that “The lady says you mustn’t hit the glass”.
I was speechless! This was in a very minor league football club hut, that had been built in the early 1950’s, so it was purely a safety remark.
After that I decided that Darwin’s law was the best way to go in future!

If I'd seen a child of that age behave like that, I would assume there was more to it than bad behaviour and maybe have a sympathetic glance. Because I've been that mother when my dd has screamed fuck off at the top of her lungs (dd is nd). Judgement from strangers is really, really unhelpful.

Op, I agree with your post. I suppose at least the mother in the slide incident intervened and removed their child. Some toddlers take longer to learn the lesson than others! If I'd been her, after the second or third occasion I think I'd have tried to encourage my child to play on something else though.

I don't think its a trend, i think its never been any different

Toddlers can be bloody hard work and quite frankly at times complete menaces. That is why parents have to actually parent them. There are some things you need to pick your battles with but when they are unsafe or being a pain in the arse to others then they just need to be removed from that situation.

I hate when parents do that thing of passing the buck. "The lady says this", "the man says that"

🙄

'The lady will tell you off'.
Eh, no, I'll expect you to parent your child and not make me the scapegoat.

Nope, leaving them to do what they want is called shit parenting.

Toddlers don’t magically figure out social skills by themselves, they need to be taught how to behave properly when out and about, especially in busy eateries.

Mine rarely had a tantrum as they were firmly dealt with by physically removing them from the situation and it was made clear that that sort of behaviour is not acceptable. Consistency is key and children learn very quickly if you step up and actively parent them, not leaving them to annoy other people.

Maybe watch a few episodes of Supernanny if you don’t know how to parent them properly?

Mum removed toddler from the bottom of the slide, Dad removed child from the game area, why are you moaning about them? Give parents a chance before you moan.
You should have said something to the toddler or her parents about the trampoline. You could have stood up for your DD rather then complaining later.
Some parents don't parent well at any age but I think you are being OTT to say so many toddlers are badly behaved when in half the examples parents intervened.