AIBU to be disgusted by parents and children at holiday parks?

[ToffeePennie]

I am so disgusted by Utterly gross behaviour of young children and their parents on holiday parks.
We’ve been at our favourite campsite since Friday night and so far I’ve been punched and smacked by numerous little kids, this is clearly kids trying to push past in queues or when waiting for entertainment etc to start and it’s not eagerness, it’s a massive case of “I’m entitled to be first!”
We were sat towards some stairs at a table and chairs, clearly the “space” is designated for the table. Sadly, dozens of kids have climbed the stairs, stuffed themselves in a tiny gap and literally kicked/punched my kids to try and get up/down the stairs. I ended up moving my seat to cover the gap and got kicked repeatedly by small children trying to squeeze into a gap that wasn’t there.
A man then saw his daughter pick up a lolly off the floor and put it in her mouth. Instead of throwing it in the bin 2 paces behind him, he threw it back onto the floor. When I told him, he said “well you throw it away then” how vile and disgusting this man is I cannot tell you. I literally wanted to punch him. (I did put the gross lolly in the bin, because the staff shouldn’t have to clean that up)
why can parents not keep an eye on their kids, apologise when they hurt someone, check they know where their kids are and ensure they aren’t engaging in gross behaviours? I have noticed it’s gotten so much worse since Covid, it seems people are stuck in their own bubble and don’t care about anyone or anything else.
It’s so vile the amount of selfish and entitled behaviour I have seen makes me so sad.

We have always had great experiences in caravan parks staying in a cabin.
You certainly had a horrid time of it.

It’s definitely not restricted to poor families. It crosses all divides. We are now knocking on and prosperous and encounter terrible parenting and feral children regularly in restaurants, hotels, cafes and coffee shops. It’s so nice when you see the reverse as of course you still do.

I think a lot of parents, regardless of background not only practice a half-arsed approximation of gentle parenting but are very selfish themselves and never accept the compromises inherent in having young children. They feel entitled to their long lazy Sunday coffee stops with friends like they did for years before kids, without the bore of entertaining their children and keeping them from getting in the way of staff and clambering on furniture. Similarly on holidays and particularly camping they must have their fun, drinking and chatting uninterrupted whilst there children make their own fun. If anyone complains they are outraged because they are camping/ on holiday - it’s all about kinda having fun! - But they don’t want to truly engage with that fun or supervise it because they want to have their own fun with other adults.

I never saw my parents drunk all my childhood. We were taken to adult spaces we we had to behave or we left in high dudgeon.

That's shocking. I knew it wouldn't be a good uplift but that's terrible.

Somewhere along the line, we have raised a generation that are intolerant of others, entitled and put themselves first. They have expectations that people will do things for them, so they don’t have to bother. Before I get jumped on, I recognise that it’s a proportion of people, not everyone by any means, but they are more disruptive to the general public than their numbers might suggest.

There is a greater awareness of neuro diversity and difference, but I do believe we are in danger of using that to avoid correcting children (and adults) when they do things that are behaving in a way that upsets and inconveniences others.

Both of my children are neuro divergent! One has autism and the other has ADD, as far as I’m concerned it’s not an excuse.

I might get flamed for this but when booking holidays, I always check the Tripadvisor comments for complaints about “Too many Germans”. If my fellow Brits are moaning about the European people around the pool, I know it’s the place for me.

Give me a hotel full of Germans, Dutch, Swiss or Scandinavians any day of the week.

Tbf not All neurodivergent individuals are created with equal traits and behaviour so this is an incredibly ill informed and moot take

Actually, I think your first sentence is a key difference. Because that didn't used to be the case. Parents were the ultimate authority. They knew you better than anyone else, had heard all the excuses before, and you had to live with them.
Because they had to live with the consequences of poor behaviour, parents were more vigilant about it. I definitely knew I could get away with less if at home rather than, say, at grandparents.

Friends were the same. There was a sense of freedom about being away from the all-seeing eye of the parent. School was a bit different, because you knew your parents would be told about it. I know if I wasn't at home or at school, and thought there was a chance I'd get away with it, I'd behave differently away from my parents. I am always surprised to hear about children behaving better away from parents. When we were kids, the minute we were out of parental earshot, we tested boundaries.

Most of us over a certain age have probably got stories about getting in trouble at school or in the neighbourhood and being told off by a teacher/other adult and the last thing we'd do was tell our parents about it if we knew we'd done wrong, because our parents weren't going to go marching round the neighbours or into school, they'd be giving us another telling off.

Adults stuck together more. Wasn't always a good thing if we weren't listened to in a genuine miscarriage of justice (although my parents, again because they knew me, were pretty good at hearing my side).

I do think I was expected to take more responsibility for my own behaviour. There was a wonderful meme that went round ages ago that I thought summed up a difference between now and 30 + years ago. In the 'old days' frame, the child was being quizzed about poor school grades. In the 'nowadays' frame, the parents were haranguing the teachers over it.

Not that people didn't still used to blame the parents or the teachers, of course they did, but I do think children were held to account more than they are now for their own actions.

Parents glued to their phones, shoving screens in front of their infant kids, abdicating all parenting. Those kids don't stand a chance. Can't use a knife and fork, can't string a sentence together, can't read or write, get to school age and still not toilet trained and can't even write their own name.

My neighbour left teaching (primary) because it had become a hellscape.

15 years ago my Health Visitor friend told me that one of their biggest concerns at that time was the way that parents were obsessed with their phones at the cost of paying attention to their babies and toddlers.

She would often have to say to young mothers particularly, "Please put your phone down, make eye contact with your baby and talk/interact with them". But getting them to peel their eyes off the phone was very difficult.

I think we're reaping the effects of this kind of neglectful, self-centred parenting now. It's only one cause, but I think it's an important one.

Sounds awful OP.

IME most kids these days are v well-behaved. Much more so than when I was young (70s) when kids were so boisterous and naughty, endless fights at secondary school etc.

I raised my kids in a way that might today be described as ‘gentle parenting’. But they had firm boundaries and were taught to be considerate of other people. If they were doing anything likely to bother other people, it was explained to them straight away and I made them come to sit with me.

Also took responsibility for keeping them entertained. Always had books (reading and activity) with me and would read to them in cafes, restaurants, pubs or trains. Or we played cards. If they were getting restless, one of us would take them for a little walk or find somewhere to kick a ball. Like you, I always cleared up any mess on the table or floor, as I would in my own home.

I have no problem politely telling other people’s kids to take care if I’ve looked around and can see no one taking responsibility. Things like: ‘Be careful, your feet are hitting my head’ or ‘Be careful, the waiter has hot drinks on the tray’. Takes a village to raise a child IMHO.

Really, I feel like the opposite is true! I had a 90s childhood (so thirty odd years ago) and I feel like ‘kids being left to make their own fun’ and parents unwilling to stop doing their adult-focussed activities was way more prevalent then- eg sitting in pubs, adults being more open to drinking around kids etc. I feel like it’s actually seen as less acceptable nowadays. IME children in the past were expected to adapt and go along with their parents activities whilst it’s the other way round now.

A couple of years ago I watched an 8 year old hover his face under a big bottle of Nutella in an all inclusive and use the tap pump to pour it directly into their mouth, not once but three times. Dad only asked them to stop when he saw my horrified face standing behind them waiting for our turn. The same duo also thought it was funny to hit complete strangers walking by the pool with a water gun until they hit the wrong person and security had to be called.

This made me laugh out loud. I could just see it. Counting my blessings that my DC are grown up and I no longer have to go to theme parks.
I have been camping/caravaning for many years and for reasons mentioned so far, and others, now try to go to ‘adults only’ sites or stay in ‘adults only’ sections of sites + totally avoid those with on-site bars.

A perfect example. Just bloody awful.

Fully agree, permissive lazy parenting and what the offspring are exposed to online and on TV is responsible imo. Also parents are reluctant to upset any of the little darlings by putting consequences in for negative behaviours.

It's these type of people and their feral kids that go to these places. Let's hope they don't spread to decent holiday spots.

And they say teaching is easy…….

I wanted to punch the twat who rode his bike into me while I was heavily pregnant (wide path, middle of the day and I was wearing a bright red fleece, and he was behind me, so I know it was deliberate.) He had his son on the back of the bike, and I needed to catch a bus, so he was lucky, because otherwise I'd have made a scene.
It seems to be a thing, it happened to my friend when she was pregnant years ago and there was the poor woman who was knocked down a few months ago and her baby was born seriously ill.
I also wanted to punch the twat who nearly hit newborn DS in his pram after running a red light and getting stuck behind traffic a few metres down the road. I was steaming mad.
Pregnancy hormones are one hell of a drug, I really noticed the extra testosterone in my system as well. I got really 'fighty' and had to hold myself back a few times.

👏

Hmm, I think it's a bit different. You were put at risk whilst pregnant, as you say hormones are strong to protect. This op was just having her holiday disrupted and had an argument about a lollypop, can you see the difference?

I become nervous only thinking about those large holiday resorts, we never go there. think a nice quiet holiday B&B would be more for you - as it is for me.

You're a bit late with your comment, another troll has already said the same thing.

On the plus side, a much better Easter Sunday evening was had.
The Venue as a whole was less busy and security were doing checks at the door, I saw several groups get turned away.
A child did attempt to climb the stair/barrier bit but was dragged away by mum very quickly who was apologetic as he had kicked me a few times whilst trying to climb up. Another mother dragged her son away when he was aiming/firing bubbles directly at us/our drinks, and again, she apologised. Luckily my DH spotted it and covered the drinks so no soapy burps here!
Security came over a few times to check that children weren’t climbing on the bars and suggested we shift the table slightly (and helped us to do it) to “close the gap off”.
All in all a much better Sunday evening, and I think I will chalk it up to some feral children of feral parents who are very entitled and just not let it get to me and spoil my holiday in future.

I get this at least once a shift,if not more

Parents sat,eyes glued to their phones,kids running feral and if they can peel their eyes away from their phones for a few seconds to clock what their offspring is doing,I often hear 'behave or that lady will tell you off'

That doesn't work so I've heard 'behave or that lady will give you a smack'

As much as im tempted (im joking) if I did,the same parents would be up in arms that I'd laid a finger on their child

I had one set of parents (they are my colleagues-dad and stepmum) come in once and their kids where running around like the taz devil

It was busy and I was rushing round (I think it was during the eat out to help out,so it was rammed)

Kids where running around,parents glued to their phones and ignoring them

Dad-girl name!sit down!
Girl ignores him
Dad-girl name!boy name!sit down!
Both ignore him
Dad sighs and carries on looking at his phone

I turned round with 4 hot drinks in my hand (on a cardboard cup holder) and the girl ran out in front of me,I fell over her and spilt all 4 drinks over a gent who was just in front of me

He was badly burnt,I was very shaken and both parents took a full minute to notice and walk the 5 seconds to their kids

Gent was sent off to a&e and both parents started screaming at me for not watching where I was going and that I could have really hurt the child

Same idiots finally went back to their table,back to their phones and the kids went back to running about

I reported this to the managers who checked the cctv and found id done nothing wrong-shed ran out in front of me,I couldn't have stopped in time

Same colleagues went mental at being told it was their fault for not keeping an eye on their own kids/allowing them to run about and tried to have me sacked for hurting their dd

When that failed,they both went on sick leave

Next visit they where running around,had a go at the manager for telling them parent and the youngest (then aged 4) ran up to me,slapped me on my knee and told me to 'fuck off'

Both parents heard and ignored her so she ran around telling other customers to 'fuck off' and trying to steal food (leading to a lot of complaints) and the lazy parents tried to blame us as 'its a family restaurant'

I wish the bosses would man up and get rid or at least ban the kids but they won't as these two know their rights inside out

They've just had another baby so this one will become as feral as her half siblings

This is not unusual at all-we get the same thing all the time-one family where just as bad so mum sits in her car and orders from there and we take the food out

The kids (aged from 2-15) sit swearing and spitting at you (we dont get within arms reach or you'll get hit)

Mum just sits there ignoring them or calling them 'little bastards'

(The gent was fine in the end and came in to see me and told me it wasnt my fault)