To expect some basic manners from children?

[vickidoodah]

Twice in the last 24 hours kids have been unfriendly and not corrected by their parents.

1. looked after DC (8) class mate all day. Parent arrives to collect them and child is rude to parent then refuses to thank us or return to say goodbye after walking out without saying anything. Parent rolls eyes and says child is tired.
2. meet up with friend and their 2 children. I say hi to them and her DC 9 looks at me and otherwise ignores me. I raise eyebrow to friend who says they need to warm up and will be fine in about 20mins.

AIBU to think the parents are not helping their children by excusing this rude behaviour? All children NT.

Yeah I do agree there. It was the moaning about a child not saying hello back I didn't agree with. I just can't understand even thinking twice about that let alone writing a post online to rant about it.

Flabbergasted at some of the parents on this thread who think it's ok for children to fail to respond to a hello from an acquaintance. Even worse to not thank their host when leaving "thanks for having me round" "thanks for lunch" is not hard - it's very basic.

The excuses like tiredness, grumpiness and being ND being trotted out are really crappy. As for the child being exempt if they didn't enjoy the experience or choose to be there - tough! Someone went to the trouble of feeding/hosting/babysitting and probably would've much rather spent their time doing something else - they deserve a basic thank you for their time and effort.

My daughter did sometimes have to be reminded about thank yous when very small, and was pretty shy and awkward with adults. She would have much preferred to ignore hellos from my friends and neighbours so had to be pushed out of her comfort zone a bit, but I couldn't bear the rudeness. We had conversations about how she would feel if someone clearly heard her but chose to ignore her.

I do genuinely believe instilling basic manners is a stepping stone to achieving essential social skills.

Is Selective Mutism a good enough reason:?

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We aren’t saying we think it’s ok/fine/great that our children don’t always say thank you etc when talking to other adults. We are saying it happens and we can’t force our children. We model, we talk it through with them, we thank on their behalf and we hope that one day they will confidently say it on their own.

Trust me, I would have loved for my 4 year old to say thank you when the random woman at the shops gave her a sweet at Halloween. But she didn’t. She looked awkwardly at the floor and at me. I thanked her on my daughter’s behalf and naively hoped that the woman wouldn’t judge me or my daughter for her not saying thank you. From yours and others’ responses I guess I was wrong to hope that despite her saying it at home readily and me actively teacher her/encouraging her (which you wouldn’t know). You don’t know what goes on out of earshot and what (most) parents are doing to develop this skill so consider not being flabbergasted and perhaps less judgmental.

I am quite flabbergasted at posts such as this, although I shouldn't be as we hear it quite often, it's unwarranted and its just plain rude and ignorant.

My son has selective mutism, this means he cannot speak in certain situations, school being one of these places. We have gone through hoops to get him the help he needs to try and overcome this. It's not a crappy excuse, it's who he is.

Of course, we will say, please or thank you on his behalf if the situation arises and it most definitely is not an excuse. I wish everyday that he had the confidence for his voice to be heard to others, the voice that we are privileged to hear at home.

YANBU. But in my experience when I'm sharp and hold important boundaries around manners etc with them in public I get "concerned" glances from other parents too.

Exactly this! 👍

Why do you need to be 'sharp'? What do you mean by 'sharp'?

Why do you think you get concerned glances?

I agree. It's bloody hypocritical to talk about manners when being so fucking rude and ignorant. I think it goes to show that generally, manners mean fuck all. Teaching children to be good and to be kind is way more important IMO but lazy parents will think the odd 'please' and 'thank you' is enough sadly.

@HalloweenYey Maybe "sharp" is the wrong word. I'm never aggressive and I rarely shout. But if I actively stop them in public, stop my conversation to pull them up on rudeness, ask them to be polite etc, repeat what they've said in a more polite matter with please and thank you, people always say "oh no that doesn't matter" etc or share awkward glances etc

I don't think anyone should a) be awkward by another parent disciplining their child or b) try to prevent them from doing so by saying it doesn't matter when it does

@HalloweenYey I do have particularly "spirited" children to be fair. Maybe the looks are other parents being glad it's me and not them! But because they have quite strong personality traits I think it's even more important that I don't let the basics slip. I want them to grow up understanding that must treat others with respect and kindness.

Excuse after excuse as to why children can’t have basic manners. It was drilled into me as a child and it was not negotiable - you said please and thank you. Unless a child is non verbal there is no reason why they cannot do this.

@Differentstarts I'm not very tech savvy on MN so I don't know why you're tagged here and I can't remove it. Please ignore the tag.

@LostittoBostik I'd hazard a guess that every person participating on this thread feels that basic manners, encouraging our children to be respectful and kind are incredibly important. I believe every poster probably tries to instil that in their children. I think it's really important to treat your kids with that same level of decency you expect of them.

Many parents will do their most important teaching behind the scenes. I don't see anyone making excuses. Who really wants a consistently rude child on their hands? No one really in all seriousness.

You have no idea. My 4 year old is verbal, perfectly polite with familiar people, happy, intelligent etc, but painfully shy with adults she doesn’t know. She said to me the other day after a situation with an unfamiliar adult, I was feeling shy wasn’t it? Why do I feel like that? Why didn’t I talk to them? Soon I won’t feel like that will I’. She wants to be able to be confident amongst people she doesn’t know well yet but can’t. Yet people like you still judge me (and her). It’s not always about crap parenting.

Ummm it might hurt your point just a tad when you are talking about teaching your children being good and kind and then in your post swearing three times, call someone hypocritical and then call someone rude.

My favourite was when you said “it’s bloody hypocritical’. The irony is delicious.

Why does it matter how my children are? I have two very different children and they are both very polite because they were raised to be so. When one wasn’t able to say thank you I did it for them and made sure the person knew we were grateful. Again we are talking about the original post of a child going over to the OPs house and spending the day there the leaving without saying goodbye or thank you.

By your same reasoning …. it’s clear you only see one way of thinking too. I assume then that you have very shy children who can’t engage with adults they don’t know and/or don’t say thank you. Is this true? How would I know as I don’t know you or your children. You are angry at the judgement and then did it here toward me. Oh the irony.

Sure. But the OP didn’t say that as that would have been a good reason. Since she spent the day with the child I think she would have known that. And since it’s determined in 1 in 140 children (NHS numbers) it isn’t overly common to maybe just assume that to be true after having spent the day and then selective mutism taking over at the end of the day.

Swearing does not make someone a bad person. I do not swear infront of my DC. Being ableist to make yourself feel superior does.

No and I didn’t say you were a bad person. Nor did I say you swear in front of your child. But it is rude to another person. And writing a point about being kind and then swearing, calling someone rude and hypocritical isn’t kind. That’s what I am saying.

Calling someone 'rude' or 'hypocritical' is a statement, not an insult. But at the same time, I haven't joined the thread claiming to have impeccable manners like the PP that is attacking ND DC.

Also another not perfect parent but genuinely shocked when out and about at what other parents let slide.

Definitely don’t condone smacking and never have but I was a 90s baby brought up with authoritarian parenting and my god I hated my dad but we had respect, manners and those things weren’t something we could decide to do. Regularly had it drilled into us that we were being brought up not dragged up.

Twice today I was genuinely shocked. A boy of about 6 on the bus playing a Christmas tree over and over again but learning over strangers, kneeling over the seats and I care for my 25 year old sister with LD and the amount of times she almost got twonked on the head and still the parents said nothing. Not to mention the safety risks of allowing a child to climb and stand all over bus seats being a nuisance to strangers. Even my 8 year old son was shocked.

Then in the cinema (which isn’t a cheap trip now and I consider a luxury) parents just allowing kids to run up and down the steps the whole film. Growing up we’d have been removed by our parents and would have never gone again. I don’t consider myself perfect and I’m not stuck up but it seems parents just don’t really care anymore and that children just don’t have discipline. I understand children with disabilities, especially since I care for my sister who is ND but there just seems to be such a lack of discipline when out and about that leads me to really dislike going out

Yanbu. “Please” and “thank you” should be second nature by that age, my niece can even differentiate “can” and “may I” (may I please have) and she is ten. Manners are so important.

Gosh people are miserable

I think you've summed up the entire feeling of this thread in 4 words. 💐