To think that some parents are shit at parenting and that's why their children are little shits

[Itwasthe90s]

There, I said it. 😂
I'm sick of parents excusing appalling behaviour with everything but they actual problem - they're doing a shit job and need to do something differently, read a parenting book or go to parenting classes.
Hitting other children, being rude to adults and throwing a tantrum every time they hear NO shouldn't be brushed off like it so often is these days.
And don't get me started on parents who blame the teacher, the other child, or literally anyone except their own precious offspring.
Yes, children have additional needs. Yes, they have difficult days. But sometimes a badly behaved child is simply a badly behaved child whose parents refuse to set boundaries.
When did gentle parenting become synonymous with refusing to tell your child they're behaving like a little shit?
Go on, tell me I'm wrong.

I think parents are at more stuff now too so we notice. All my activities as a kid were drop and go but now you're expected to stay for swimming/rugby/football/soft play parties for younger ones so I certainly see more of the parents of DS's friends than my parents ever did when they were doing this.

YANBU but since I’ve had DD (24 months) I am a lot more understanding about baby/toddler behaviour.

Not kids who are old enough to know better, of course.

But feral babies who are walking but don’t have full motor control, won’t sit still, throw food, don’t understand social norms etc… then toddlers throwing themselves on the floor screaming at the most illogical thing… I used to think “oh goodness!” and now I just feel bad for the parents because some of them are just like that for a bit!!!

DD is so much more civilised now she’s 24 months but for a while I really thought she would never get there!!! Silly I know.

I don’t agree people should be able to clip other people’s kids round the ear BUT I do agree with your broader sentiment. It takes a village. I have lived in other countries where it would be totally normal to tell off a stranger’s kid if you see them behaving badly. Or accost parents if their kids misbehave. Subsequently, kids behave better. In this country we have gone too far down the road of ‘none of my business’ ‘don’t talk to other people’s children’ ‘don’t comment on others’ parenting’.

I agree with this and have seen similar. I've been (quietly) telling my son off in public and been interrupted by older ladies telling me his behaviour was fine and making excuses. We just can't win! You get glared when disciplining and glared and judged when you don't.

I saw a kid acting absolutely horribly at sports day back in the summer. They were all queuing up to take a shot into the basketball hoop. When it was this kids turn, he missed, threw a huge tantrum about missing and then said "IM HAVING ANOTHER SHOT!" snatched the ball from the kid behind him and took his next shot, missed again, starting shouting and swearing (he was 8 years old) and tried to take another shot when the class teacher intervened and told him it was the next child's turn and to pass the ball on so the kid booted the ball the length of the field.
At this point, mum, who has been standing there with dad and grandma saying nothing, asked him to go and retrieve the ball . The kid shouted NO YOU DO IT!! and ran off to a patch of long grass and started rigging up handfuls of it. Mum simply sighed and went to retrieve the ball while dad and grandma stood there like this was all perfectly normal.

Haha - are you me?

Earlier, I bellowed to DS “LOOK before you cross the road or we’re going HOME and I will NEVER take you on another TRAIN!” (His special interest is trains). Another mum looked askance at me in a sort of “bit harsh, love” way, but I knew DS would take bugger all notice otherwise. Ironic that on another day, he might be having a meltdown over something like his drink being too wet, and the same parenting police would tut at me for trying to calm the situation rather than dragging him away by an ear lobe with a stout bollocking.

We can’t win! 🤷‍♀️

Worked in a school for years, I can confirm the shit parents had the badly behaved kids.
The End.

The badly behaved kids usually go on to be shit parents too.

Well yeah obviously.

But there is roughly a thread a day on this topic and invariably they descend into:

• Lots of people piling on about “gentle parenting”, missing the fact that gentle parenting is not the same as permissive parenting
• Lots of people making thinly veiled comments about how many children are over diagnosed with ND
• Lots of comments about screen time
• Lots of people wanging on about “resilience” as if it were something that could be administered like cod liver oil

A lot of the commentary is thinly veiled parenting brags or none too subtle digs about friends’ kids.

All in all its usually a lot of heat and very little light.

The reasons for poor behaviour in children are complex and multi factorial and they can never be reduced to these two dimensional caricatures.

Some parents are terrible. Some have children who are more challenging for a huge number of reasons. Its simply not possible to reduce it to these highly simplistic claims that “all parenting has deteriorated”.

In fairness. I’m not managing my kid while the school are responsible for doing so.

Firstly, I’ve been a teacher and would not appreciate the intervention or potential undermining.

Secondly, I need him to learn to follow school’s instructions whether I’m there or not.

I’d have left the teacher to it.

Whataboutery. Every single time any of these issues come up it’s “what about children with additional needs?’”.

Well what about all the children with additional needs who aren’t getting the attention they need because children without special needs are taking up so much time and attention.

I used to work as a 1:1 with kids with additional needs and a huge requirement of those kids being able to participate in activities with other children is that those other children have to bloody behave properly.

Thank you for calling this out

Two of my three children have SEN. Sometimes their behaviour is because of their additional needs. And some of their behaviour is because they've woken up and decided to be a bit of a bugger that day. Just like any other child.

They should, and do have boundaries.

Posts like the one you quoted do an absolute disservice to how SEN parents are often perceived.

Gentle parenting is a middle-class luxury. I wonder whether some of the people most vocal about never imposing consequences have the luxury of time, money and support that other parents simply don't have. Previous generations were too strict and we have we overcorrected.

good one. little shits. really?

You're not describing gentle parenting. Gentle parenting has boundaries.

WTF

I know I'm not describing gentle parenting. I'm describing bad parenting.
That's why I said "when did gentle parenting become synonymous with refusing to tell your child they're behaving like a little shit"?

Obviously there are shit parents around, it has ever been thus. However, let's not pretend there isn't also a massive dose of 'luck' in how easy our kids are to parent. My eldest is a really conscientious child, he has always been good at following instructions and just generally wants to conform. He's not perfect but people often comment on how well behaved he is and what a pleasure he is to have around. Great! Yay! Aren't we great parents?

Enter DS2.... He's not the devil by any means but he is TOTALLY the opposite and probably paints (on the face of it) a very different impression of our parenting. In reality - we have tried our best with both of them and whilst I am sure there are things we could do better, I am 100% sure that the different outcomes are down to them being different people.

Had we only had DS1 it would be very easy to sit in judgement of people with unruly kids. Had we only had DS2 we'd have been condemned to the parenting naughty step.

But surely if he'd been taught to behave appropriately in the first place, the teacher wouldn't have had quite so much behaviour to manage?
And the idea that you shouldn't intervene because you might undermine the teacher, while simultaneously leaving them to deal with behaviour that could have been addressed by the parent, is an interesting one.
Teachers are there to teach, not spend sports day firefighting the behaviour of children whose parents have decided they're off duty. Imagine if every parent took that approach. The teacher would spend the entire day managing other people's children instead of actually teaching them because their parents haven't taught them how to behave.
As for needing him to follow school instructions when you're not there, surely that's precisely why you should reinforce those expectations when you are there?

Apparently the lesson in responsibility is for everyone except the person who actually brought the child into the world. 🤷‍♀️

Totally agree. I just don’t think people realise how awful some parents are. Lazy and selfish.

My own theory is that social boundaries have changed massively over the last 40 years, parents nowadays remember when their own parents used to tell them off/wouldn’t let them do what they wanted when they were children, and they remember not liking that, so think they won’t do the same with their kids, except actually parents telling children ‘no’ and correcting behaviour provides the boundaries that children need to feel safe and grow up into pleasant adults.

DS has attended a specialist school since Y1. If you have SEND children, you’ll probably appreciate how much of a problem DS was in 2 different mainstream primary before the LA accepted he needed a different education. All of his peers have autism and many have ADHD too. A common presentation of autism - the PDA kind I suppose - is that the children are “naughty” because as I wrote earlier in the thread, they have low impulse control, are hyperactive, impulsive and don’t understand social norms. A random passer by may well infer that they are “just” being parented badly - and statistically some of them will be - when in fact this is the way a neurodevelopmental condition can present.

I get that we are not comfortable as a society calling that a disability, and nobody at all (certainly not me!) is suggesting that SEND kids don’t need discipline. What I am saying is that jumping to wild conclusions about behaviour being infallible evidence of crap parenting is a bit daft, and sometimes, it’s better not to hoik one’s judgy pants.

I took my DD8 to a free taster circus skill session in the summer holidays which was for 4-8yo.
The only kid that would not listen or wait in turn was the only kid whose parents felt it was acceptable to dump and run from this one off session.
They just expected everyone else to parent their little sh*t because they are too lazy or incapable of doing it themselves.

ETA
It's not a gentle parenting problem, I went all out with gentle parenting. I read the books cover to cover, including the gentle discipline book, as I had an emotionally abusive childhood and had to learn somewhere. I read the evidence base and put in the hard work, and it is hard work if you do it properly. My DD isn't perfect but she is polite, popular, gets fantastic school reports both behaviourially and academically and was described by the school welfare TA as 'exceptionally emotionally mature for her age', DD arranged her own appointments with her when me and her dad divorced - obviously i had informed school myself beforehand.

I completely agree op. There are badly behaved little shits everywhere these days, ruining things for everyone else. There is no discipline. There are no consequences. And yes, in many cases the parents are to blame.

Tough one OP. My own DD (3.5 yr old) is so strong willed at times. Everything is a tantrum. I would like to think myself and DH are not shit parents but when she melts down we can only hold the boundary. We've left restaurants etc when her behaviour has been unacceptable. She is sweet 90% of the time but then 10% she melts down out of nowhere. Would hate to think people thought we were lazy parents when in fact we try our best and are exhausted by it