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.

Do you always make a mountain out if a molehill?

As pp have said

There's the issue. The parents

Could see it coming 20 /30 years ago

I’d like to think I could tell the difference between a shy child and a child who isn’t encouraged to have manners. There were lots on Halloween who were too shy to say Trick or Treat and their parents said thank you for them - modelling good manners. Then you had the ones grabbing lots of sweets with no modelling at all of good manners from their parents.

I agree but there are posters who just think being shy is an excuse and every child no matter what should be saying it everytime.

As a generation the Millenials are bad parents and poor at teaching respect, boundaries and discipline and engaging with their child, rather than throwing a screen at them. But then they weren't parented well by Boomers either in a lot of cases.

What? By saying nothing to either child / parent, pondering privately whether I’m being unreasonable and anonymously asking AIBU? I’d love to see your reaction to someone actually making a big deal of something!

Ignorant shy is the phrase needed.

Some parents are happy to raise ignorant children either because they are too soft, too stupid or too ignorant themselves.

Ignorant parents will have ignorant children.

Luckily, the lack of basic manners is a great, highly visible, societal marker which tells us the sort of people we're dealing with and warns us that we must remove ourselves and our children from their polluting presence as soon as possible,

Don't associate with them and certainly don't let your children associate with them because they are contagious.

You stated that parents who are themselves ignorant will raise children who lack manners and knowledge, suggesting this can have a negative influence on others.

The suggestion to avoid associating with "ignorant" individuals because they are "contagious" promotes division and social exclusion rather than understanding and improvement.

While you have a valid point about the influence of behavior and manners in social settings, the idea of categorically avoiding certain groups rather than engaging with them to foster mutual growth is counterproductive.

A more constructive response might advocate for educational support, open dialogue, and community-building efforts that address gaps in knowledge or manners without demeaning others.

No, I don't think you need any of that-you're over complicating it.

I will certainly be keeping my child away from unmannerly people because I don't want her to have the example of them before her and be wondering why she is made to be polite when others aren't.

Yes, that's right-she is made to be polite because I'm her mum-I;m in charge of her at this stage and I want her to have every advantage in life. Like it or lump it, no-one apart from the ignorant-thinks that being without manners is a good thing

.

How do you manage that at school/hobbies etc - do you homeschool?

It will be an advantage in life to know that everyone is different/has different ways of communicating/has been raised differently. You're not doing her any favours keeping her away from anyone who doesn't have the same manners as you!

What do you class as unmannerly? How about children with selective mutism, who cannot physically speak in certain situations?

How do you manage to keep your child away from people you deem unmannerly? Unless you homeschool?

I would just like to add as parent of a child with selective mutism, my son is brought up with manners and he confidently and politely uses them at home. Bring him to the outside world, his social anxiety kicks in and can be made worse by people verbally stating how rude he is. That in my opinion is ignorant and rude.

Of course manners cost nothing and we will always say please and thank you on his behalf if needed. If a child is not allowed to play with him because of this, then I suppose they haven't been taught that some children are just different and that's a shame. My boy is lovely and kind and I hope one day he finds his voice for the outside world to hear.

@Wheelz46 the good, decent people would never ever judge you or your little one for any of this. There are alot of inherently compassionate and understanding people out there who see children as individuals more than objects.

And in all my experience, they are wonderful human beings with great children who have good values. 💐

This is a parody, right?

In case it isn't and you are woefully ignorant of the realities of a neurodiverse diagnosis or sociological phenomena/family dynamics, your offspring cannot catch the dirty Autism from others.

Ableist attitudes, however, can be infectious.

How bizarre @NeverDropYourMooncup . Please point out where I have mentioned autism. I can't find it. Are you assuming that all autistic children have no manners ?

I'm not. I have never even mentioned the word. I think it's appalling that you have jumped to the conclusion that autistic children must be the unmannerly children-and parents-I am talking about.

Disgusting attitude.

You have taken a measure from your own sack and applied it to me-you have come on here to say, that autistic people don't have manners and why you have picked on me, when I don't even say the word is a little mystery going on in your own head.

You are bang out of order, applying your low standards to autistic people.

You can apologise but I imagine you are woefully ignorant about how to do that and will, instead, huff and puff away, foolishly convincing yourself you are right.

With friends like you, autistic people need no enemies.

Yep. A parody.

Good one, mind, really makes the poster sound like a pompous, ableist fool.

I do agree tleaching your child good manners is invaluable. By surrounding her with respectful influences, you're setting a strong example and giving her a solid foundation for life, regardless of what others might do.

Nothing like a bit of generalisation of entire generations

@vickidoodah and @Westofeasttoday you both just sound quite mean tbh, and not someone I'd really want my children to have to spend time with! Do you not care about these children? If you don't then why are you spending time with them/going out of your way to interact with them? And if you do then surely you care more about how they are feeling than whether they have met some arbitrary adult standard of "correct behaviour"?

My nephew, who has known me since he was born (now 8) didn't want to say hello to me when he came to my house last week. Did I care/get angry/annoyed? No of course not! I just wondered if he was OK, if we'd left it too long between visits, if he was knackered from half term activities etc. SIL was doing the whole performative parenting thing you seem to be such a fan of: "X, say hello to auntie Conker, don't be rude!" while he was hiding behind her. I was just thinking "leave the poor boy alone, he'll warm up in a minute!" And of course he did, after getting his bearings, settling in and me setting up a game which he could choose to join in with or not. He then didn't want to say goodbye or thank you for having me. Totally fine! I knew he'd had a good time just by watching him interact with us and DC, I didn't need his verbal validation of it as well! Would have been totally meaningless hearing him parrot it out after being forced to by mum or dad!

This way I'm actually building a relationship with him and taking his feelings into consideration rather than being annoyed that my "right" to be acknowledged as an adult has been defied. Sounds like a horrible transactional way to treat people. Who cares if a random kid at swimming club doesn't say hi to you?! I also feel very strongly that girls shouldn't be forced to say hi to people when they don't want to. Girls are socialised to ignore any bad feelings they might have about someone and instead act to "please" that adult. Cause for plenty of abuse and we'd be doing young girls a much bigger favour if we taught them to trust their gut and avoid/ignore anyone they don't want to interact with.

And no, I wasn't a feral child - I was one whose mum insisted on me always saying please and thank you. All it did was gain her the benefit of people telling her what wonderfully polite children she had. Didn't build any sort of relationship between me and her or me and these adults and doesn't seem to have benefitted me in any way - in fact it taught me to be a bit of a people pleaser and not feel like I could be "rude" to sleazy men.

You’ve said it perfectly. Wish everyone understood children like this.

@User135644 I appreciate we all use generalisations but that's an unfair one.

Children are listened to and treated more like humans than objects in general now compared to those good old days.

@ConkerGame that last paragraph resonates so much. My own mother even admitted she cared so much what others thought. That was obvious to me by adulthood. I try really hard to remember when I'm caring more about the performance than the teaching in my own approach.

Well you sound pretty mean for writing such a mean post and pointing us out so feel better? Even then?

Good news, we are agreed I wouldn’t want to spend time with you with an attitude like that which starts your post by attacking. You don’t apparently like it in me and call me mean but the. Turn around and do the same thing. Oh the irony. I didn’t read the rest of your diatribe. You lost me after ‘you sound quite mean’. Next time brevity may be your friend.

And because you are so concerned about me I thought you should know I am often told by my children that their friends love me because I am so friendly and make them feel so welcome. Just today on the school run a friend of my eldest in a group of friends who is now a teen went out of his way to say hello to me.

All good here. I’ll do me you do you.

You said yourself I do love are all the excuses as to why children can’t be polite. No, manners are manners and should be present no matter how tired, grumpy, shy, whatever the child is feeling.

You have been dismissive of replies throughout constantly replying ‘excuses, excuses’ . Children are not adults and are still developing social skills and learning how to conduct themselves in the world. Let them make mistakes and learn from them. Most will get there!

Oh that sounds tough, really tough.

But don’t ever feel guilty for jumping for joy and feeling proud for when little glimmers like this make you feel proud

I don’t think not saying hi back to an adult who isn’t close to you is to do with manners. Sure, you can try your best to teach your child that it is polite to say hi, bye, and thanks but ultimately you can’t force the child into saying it. For most kids it’s not about being rude it’s about them not feeling comfortable.You’re coming at it from an adult’s perspective not a child’s. When I was a kid I had undiagnosed selective mutism - I was literally unable to speak to adults other than my family. I would freeze and no words would come out. However I was outgoing and chatty with other kids and my family. That’s why no one understood it (and it was the early 90s). My mum used to get so embarrassed everytime I didn’t speak to her friends, was constantly rolling her eyes saying “she’s shy” then when we’d get home I’d get severely physically punished. It was actually kinda traumatic. Adults can be big scary figures to kids but most adults only see it from an adult’s perspective and believe it’s all about them. My experience has made me never push my DD into saying hi and bye. She’s only 4, and I have taught her that it is polite to say it, and in the moment I encourage her to say it but if she doesn’t I just say it for her, move on and don’t mention it to her. I never want her to feel pressured or uncomfortable. She’ll get there when she’s ready. I realise the kids you’re talking about are older, when my DD is that age my expectations would be a bit higher, but I still wouldn’t force her if she was uncomfortable. However if I thought she was doing it do deliberately be rude or couldn’t be bothered that’d be a totally different story. And yeah I’d be pissed off and we’d be having a big conversation.