My local train station is currently burning down

[thehardestpartis]

Reportedly due to children being on the station at 5:45 this morning and setting fire to an equipment cabinet.

AIBU to ask where the hell are the parents?! This will cause chaos in the town, reduce holiday maker visits and just generally worsen an already run down town.

The parents should be punished for arson with intent to endanger life, as should the children.

Totally agree with this. ‘Gentle parents’ are often a certain type (sorry) choosing to never raise their voices at their kids or whatever and yes those kids might turn into little shits but the type of child out setting fires early morning is most likely from a completely different type of family - lazy parenting probably isn’t even the right word for that one.

You won't find a single research article or piece of evidence to back this up. You are talking unfounded rubbish.

They were seen by multiple people running away from the station around 10 seconds before the smoke was visible, they were shouting to each other to run away quickly. They had also been seen earlier on in the morning, approx 2 hours before the fire was started, banging metal loudly from one end of the bus station to the other, shouting continually to each other with enthusiasm and destructive language, verbally and bodily. There is also full cctv coverage of them so it is definitely not just a rumour unfortunately. Without knowing who they are or who their parents are, it is not possible to have an informed opinion on the circumstances leading up to the incident. Any uninformed opinions stated can be based on speculation purely and take away from factual discussions that are productive and positive towards the progress of the investigation

Rude

There's more info here: https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/paignton-fire-what-means-gwr-11069269?

(I think it's one of those awful REACH websites with loads of cookies, sorry)

Still think you are confusing permissive and gentle parenting.

Examples of permissive parenting when I met some families at a meetup. Mum one laughing about neighbours coming to the door as her son had climbed out of an upstairs window and got onto the roof. She wasn't worried as he was a good climber and was working out his limits. I think he was seven or eight. Mum two laughing about her little darling being brought home by police for shoplifting. She wasn't worried as they couldn't arrest him during to his age. She said she wasn't going to limit him.

That's permissive parenting.

Of course there are also parents who neglect children.

Gentle parenting isn't for me but I don't think it's what you think it is.

OP how old are you? I am 30 and was born before sure start centres (I got a balloon at the opening due to my mums job!) My sister is turning 26 and was sure start age, and my teen mum friends took their babies from 2010 ish up until about 2013/2014 when ours closed. They started disbanding SS, after the budget following the 2010 election so if you were really unlucky and in the areas with the first closures, (which as far as I remember torbay was not) unless you’re 15 years old or younger, you had sure start centres. Also Torbay had heavy investment in keeping action for children family hubs, so the children’s centres didn’t even really close. Places like the beehive and zig zags have been open since the mid/early 2000’s

😂😂😂 that isnt gentle parenting. Read something before posting. Kids who do this are from chaotic troubled unpleasant family environments

Please can you read my post above? It seems from your post that you definitely didn’t & I would really appreciate it if you could please. Thanks

We used to know somebody who was full-on permissive parenting style. A group of us once helped her with a few jobs after she just moved into her new rural place and her 2yo DS was holding a pair of secateurs upstairs in the house whilst she was outside in the garden. We panicked and (gently!) told him that they were for grown-ups and not safe as we carefully took them off him. She came and told US off for taking them from him, as he was allegedly perfectly safe with them and we were being meanies!

He also had a small indoor slide, which he enjoyed pushing full paint pots from the top of, to crash on to the floor as they landed - which she smiled at when he did it.

Maybe we ourselves were lucky in having a mild-mannered, well-behaved DS, whom we 'gentle-parented' from the start. We're not shouty people ourselves, so it seemed crazy to try to switch to being an artificially shouty family to bring him up in. We spoke very clearly, firmly and authoritatively to him when he needed it, and left him in no doubt whatsoever that we were in charge of him and not the other way around; but we never became one of those families that only ever scream at each other, seemingly unable to ever speak at a normal, calm volume.

He's now 14 and extremely well-behaved and polite and respectful to everybody else. He would no more dream of going out to set fire to public amenities than he'd dream of trying to cross the Atlantic in a plastic sledge.

These kids won't have been gentle parented (that's the slightly annoying Jaspers and Prudences* of this world with Lucy & Yak mums).

These kids will be from nightmare families. No routines, too much alcohol, no support with schoolwork or phone controls etc. The local schools will have a very good idea who did it.

*they were on my potential name list. But I don't wear Lucy & Yak and was too stressed and busy to gentle parent.

You’ve never met a child who has benefited from strict boundaries, rules being enforced and being encouraged to respect others? That is quite unusual surely?

It's quite a shock when you see permissive parenting up close like that. I'm always surprised at how often people think permissive parenting is gentle parenting and they don't ever seem to listen when the difference is explained.

It has now been confirmed that three teens have been arrested in connection with the fire - aged 13, 15 and 16.

Three teens arrested after Paignton train station fire | Devon Live

The parents should be arrested too. What on EARTH are children that young doing out and about at that time of day?!

Maybe we ourselves were lucky in having a mild-mannered, well-behaved DS whom we 'gentle-parented' from the start. We're not shouty people ourselves so it seemed crazy to try to switch to being an artificially shouty family to bring him up in. We spoke very clearly, firmly and authoritatively to him when he needed it, and left him in no doubt whatsoever that we were in charge of him and not the other way around; but we never became one of those families that only ever scream at each other, seemingly unable to ever speak at a normal calm volume

Why are you describing normal, common sense parenting as 'gentle parenting'? This comes up on every single thread where gentle parenting is discussed. People seem to think the majority of people are going round shouting and screaming at their children so they must be superior because "we don't scream at our children".

It seemed crazy to switch to being an artificially shouty family 🙄

I hadn’t realised how old that wooden bridge was. It’s just so unfair, it’s so easy to destroy things, building and preserving is so much harder.

I do hope it’s restored.

I actually thought the bridge was on the other side of the level crossing. Shows how your memory can confuse you. I used to go to the Woolworths (and Presto when it existed, showing my age!)

This is what has been discussed back and forth in this thread.

I agree with you that what is usually derisively dismissed as 'gentle parenting' is in fact standard good parenting, like most people practise - usually by the kind of parents who do always scream at their kids and treat them like a problem to be got rid of; or indeed who just ignore and neglect them and let them freely do whatever they want, as long as they aren't bothering them.

I don't think I'm a superior parent to most other parents; but I do believe that I (along with the majority of parents) am a superior parent to those described above.

I make no apologies for my opinion that the parents who do only ever shout and scream at their children and never actually talk to them are abusive. Your (generic 'you') boss at work may well take you aside to tell you off for something that you've done that they are very unhappy with, but no reasonable person would accept them screaming at you about it. If you extend it further, and they just naturally shouted at you every single time they spoke, I don't think many people would choose to stay and put up with it. Children don't have that choice to leave.

If you/other parents are not the kind that only ever bawl at their children, then I am clearly not referring to or accusing you.

There are two bridges. One is in the station and goes between platforms one and two. There is another one the other side of Torbay Rd which is generally used by pedestrians when the level crossing barriers are down.

Only for the barriers to open when you’ve just reached the bottom step the other side 🤣

I think there’s a balance. Sometimes you need to shout at your kids, other times you need to talk to them. We have the bad fortune to live next to some gentle parents - each summer we spend months living with the consequences of that! Extraordinarily poorly behaved children

My DH has had to deal with the current groups of kids running riot round south Devon. Most of the time their parents have no idea about disciple, some seem to be in foster care, again gentle parenting seems to be encouraged. Many of the coastal schools don’t seem to have any disciple. My own son won’t go to Paignton as the kids have a reputation for being “rough” at his school (inland).

I agree. There's nothing wrong with shouting at children who are refusing to behave; but it should be unusual enough that it makes them notice and stop and think about it.

If you're one of these parents - and I see (well, hear) them with some frequency - who only ever scream at their kids, even when they haven't done anything remotely wrong... aside from it being abusive (imho), what impact is it ever going to have on them when you genuinely need to raise your voice to them?

It's very unlikely that kids that are in foster care have been taken from their parents because they were gentle parenting (I know that isn't want you said, I'm just making the point that something else was going on in those homes).

No one has yet provided any link to studies or any kind of information to suggest that gentle parenting is the problem that some posters think it is.

I would be much happier living next door to kids who were gentle parented (quiet voices, clear boundaries, etc) than someone who spent the day shouting at their kids.

Exactly, that’s not what I said at all, so not sure why you linked my post to it. But Hebrew parenting seems to not create disciple (or indeed resilience) it might work for some kids but chances are these kids would have worked out fine anyway. but most kids need a balance of different disciple styles my neighbours kids, for instance are just laughing in their parents faces as they do gentle count outs etc. they need a bloody good telling off trust me, they aren’t using quite voices)although their parents are) they’re walking all over them at 6