Is this a thing?

[ThisOldThang]

I dropped my kids off at school and was walking past the nursery entrance when I encountered a toddler having a tantrum. The child was sat on the floor bawling and the mother was saying 'stop it or I'll keep taking things away'. The child was shoeless and I think the mother had removed them (they were on the floor next to the mother).

Is this something parents do?

I've never encountered it before and it seemed borderline abusive.

AIBU:
No - It's a weird thing to do.
Yes - What's your problem?

That’s weird.
Sure the kid wasn’t tantrumming about wearing shoes and had thrown them off?
Mum taking them is very odd.

You sound nosy. You don't know whether the parent has removed the shoes and if so why she had done this. Either stop to help out someone who is struggling or stay out of it.

Is what something parents do? You don't know what was going on?

Child having tantrum
Mum says I'll keep taking things away
Child wearing no shoes

Those three things could have happened in any order. It doesn't matter how you put them together, it still doesn't make a story. I'd say casting aspersions about things you can't possibly know is borderline abusive.

So maybe she was disciplining him in a crap and ineffective way. Still nothing to do with you,unless you witness abuse, which you didn't.

You've put 2+2 together and come up with 7

lol she will be talking about treats and screen time, not the shoes. In fact the kid was probably refusing to put them on and walk.

You’ve way too much time on your hands OP

This was my first thought (and probably the first thought of most rational people).

The child was a toddler and I can't how they'd understand the abstract concept of having screen time taken away at some point later that day.

Maybe it was nothing, but it just seemed like a very odd thing to say to a bawling child.

This I would think

Mind your own business. Probably a stressed mum trying to get her toddler to nursery and make it to work on time. Not really worthy of a post to lots of internet strangers

I remember my mum dropping me off at nursery when I was 3, (mid 80’s, parenting methods have changed). I was having a tantrum in the back of the car and thought that if took all my clothes off, including underwear, she wouldn’t make me go in. She did. She had me under one arm, my clothes under the other, took me in, put me down, gave the clothes to the nursery worker, and walked out. That taught me 😂, and as she likes to remind me, I didn’t do it again.

Sounds completely normal. How would you know they didn't understand?

This is how I would interpret the situation too.

I've taken one of my kids shoes off when they were tantruming. They were kicking me, it hurt less with no shoes. They're now 16 no harm was done

2 of my dc preferred no shoes. They still do.

Come to that, so do I.

It sounds like you need to mind your business! Not everything is abusive.. gosh people just throw that word around.