To let my 3yo run around shouting in a church...

[alardi]

Obviously not during a service(!).

Here's the scene:
Fine medieval church in a small market town. Sign on church door that says "The church is open to all visitors". It's market day so many people popping in and out to see the architexture, buy a card, light a candle..

I go in with my 3yo DS who likes to run to the back the church, stopping to talk shout about things on the way, then run back to the front area (near the door), where the children's door is so that he can look at books, play with Noah's Ark toys there, etc. He tends to shout when he speaks at all, so from a stranger's perspective, you could say he's running and shouting...

As he runs back, a sour faced old bat old lady sitting in the pews, stands up and shrieks speaks sternly "Excuse me, this is not a playground!"

So I apologised and left...DS kept asking why we had to leave and I said it was because the miserable old hag old lady didn't like children.

But I haven't set foot in the church since, don't want to cause offense, can't get over the feeling that churches are really only for the old and solemn and miserable, not for lively young children.

Or was I outrageous to ever take my unruly DS in, especially as we are contented, resolute unbelievers? I just felt the church was part of DS's heritage and even if we are slack secularists humanists, I didn't want churches/religion to seem like a foreign culture to DC (hence why we used to visit the church fairly frequently).

The poor old lady is really getting it in the neck! No one seems to take into consideration that she may have found out she has terminal cancer,she may have had to put her husband into care because of alzeimer's, her cat might have died. She may have been in need of spiritual solace and just snapped at that point. I really don't think we should be so quick to judge other people!
(I am quick to judge OP because it is such an easy thing to tell a DC to be quiet for 5 mins and she could have taken him out if he couldn't manage it.)

LOL MrsMattie I go to mass at Christmas or when I am with the family lucky for me they all live far away.

I am Catholic and found Church as a child very boring.

I don't think it matters whether you go to church, believe in God or not. If you visit a church you show respect. If you went to a mosque you would take your shoes off. If you were in a deeply Catholic country you wouldn't go into a church in shorts etc etc.OP went because it is his heritage and culture, she then ignored a significant part of the culture.

What's wrong with using the kneelers as building blocks? At least child is quiet (and kneelers don't get used for anything else in our church).

Think OP, not being religious, probably didn't think about what was appropriate behaviour. But agree she should have.

And we don't know for sure the old lady was there for prayer, she might not even be religious. She might have been there cos the playground was wet.

Are we still talking abotu this?

Nothing is wrong with using kneelers as building blocks! The objection is to running and shouting. A church is not just the building. Ours is the local school hall, dinners are served during the week, PE takes place-however on a Sunday it is treated differently and it feels different.

There is a thread about small children in cinemas-it is exactly the same-you explain the purpose of the visit and appropriate behaviour-if they can't do it you take them out.
I have argued fiercely that weddings should include DCs-I am beginning to change my mind if people think that it is acceptable to inflict badly behaved DCs on everyone! I had just assumed that any parent would take a DC out if they were making a noise.
Some people think their small DC can do what they like regardless of other people, it accounts for why they go to a school play and let their bored toddler cry throughout!

I don't know why this thread has got so long! If you take a small DC somewhere that needs a certain type of behaviour explain it to them and if they can't manage it REMOVE them.

Jesus would not have chastised the child, but would probably have had a few choice words for the parent.

SP how do you know what Jesus would of done or said

AbbeyA the funny thing about this thread is OP is most likely a troll and sitting back laughing at us all

Do you really have to ask?

Yes I do?

Well...knowing Jesus and the will of God through many, many years of worship, study, bible reading, prayer, fellowship etc. Pretty standard Christian stuff really.

If she is a troll then it is an excellent one! She should get a prize!

Nobody could have predicted this thread would get so long! I agree AbbeyA that people do not think they need to get their kids to behave appropriately eg at weddings/school plays (would never let my DCs be noisy like that, and don't let them do it in church even though everyone always tells us they love to hear the babies in church).

I agree AbbeyA OP should.

"I was assuming that Jesus would be like a good parent!!! "

Well you would hope so. He did say that anyone who had seen him had seen the Father, after all.

Coming in very late here, and agree that the OP is BVU, but don't understand what's so rude about "excuse me, but this isn't a playground". It's not as though the woman said "control your revolting child" or anything truly offensive, she simply stated a fact.

Hmm. This is a tricky one. I'm guessing the church in question is a large town church? We spend a lot of time in churches, both in and out of services, and in a small village church the issue doesn't arise - if someone is in there praying I ask my DC to be quiet, if there's no-one else there (which there usually isn't) or just people doing flowers etc then they can run around as much as they want, in the way that small children do when faced with a large space! In Cathedrals the issue doesn't really arise either as there is usually a quiet place for prayer and the main part of the building is full of tourists and people making much more noise than my DC.

FWIW Churches are used for lots of different events - concerts, coffee mornings etc as well as services, and I don't think it's confusing to my DC that sometimes I ask them to be quiet, but often they don't have to.

I haven't read this whole thread. I can't be bothered as I'm a bit grouchy today. But this is exactly the kind of thing that ticks me off.

I have taken my dd into several churches from being very young. I've always told her to be quiet whilst we're there, as some people like to pray during the day. It's nothing to do with anyone being miserable. It's whether or not you believe children should behave with respect towards others.

I think that children should learn how to behave appropriately in different places. In a playground, they can run and scream. In the pictures they should be quiet and respect the needs of others who want to watch their movie. In churches, they should be quiet and allow for the fact that some people may want to pray in church.

I think you are being Very, very unreasonable. But there are lots of parents who think their offspring should be able to do whatever they want wherever they want and others should just tolerate it or even welcome it! This is unrealistic.

If people are grumpy with kids in the street, I don't see what their problem is. Where else are the kids supposed to go?? In a church, however, I'd say that regular churchgoers have the right to make comment if your child is behaving wildly. I'd have been tempted to say something, but then would have just whined about it on Mumsnet...

I have not read this thread all the way through, our thoughts on it are this>

We returned to church recently and really struggled to keep our children under control, between us we have a 7YO who comes with us fortnightly, a recently 4YO and a recently 2YO, also very recently a newborn. We vowed (parden to pun) on our first service back to leave it until we could control them, as it isn't easy, and anyone who suggests you are lazy because you can't instantaniously control a child is wrong. Both of us were threatened when we were children and in church if we so much as contemplated misbehaving, that including from the clergy, bearing in mind we come from different denominations and different geographical areas that sums up christianity for that period, we would both say that this fear we lived in put church going in a negative light and ultimately we both gave up going before we met each other.
After the service the Vicar comented how nice it was to have children in church and told us tales of children who ran about in church and shouted and all sorts of schenanigans, this put us at ease. Recently the bishop took the service and was comenting on a church near Newcastle he visited recently where the sound of children running and giggling in the church majestically filled the aisles, just at that point our 2 and 4 year old got up and ran laps of the church much to the ammusement of the congregation, some even suggested that it was the lords work in order to prove a point. We do keep the children in check and out and out misbehaving is corrected immediately, but like we were told, if there's nothing there for them then children will rebel against going. Just about every member of our church has commented how lovely our children are and how much pleasure they have in seeing them playing in church. The majority of the church are elderly so I wouldn't say it was a generation thing. Some of the conregation are retired clergy.

That being said, if they became a nusisence or a disruption then we would remove them, no doubt the vicar would be upset at us doing this. We actually use not going to church as a threat in order to gain good bahaviour, they see it as a treat. A church is a place to meet as a part of a family and join in and celebrate in worship. It's a tough one, some people will obviously not agree and thats fine, we've struck lucky with our church. I don't think I would be upset if someone made a remark, everyone is entitled to their opinion but I believe the church needs to be more accommodating to families to get them back into church.

Looking on the other side of the coin, pehaps the woman wanted quiet time to reflect and pray. She may have been at a difficult time in life, and had an outburst. Perhaps she may regret it, who knows.

It would be interesting to know for research purposes, those people that condemned to OP as to whether they are regular church goers and what denomination they are.

Difficult to control children but I can see why she would be upset.

YAB slightly U - we go to church regularly with our three lively DCs aged between 18 months and 8 yrs.

Acknowledging that it is a place of worship, parents generally tell their children to walk not run and to speak quietly, not shout.

Its just a question of respect and courtesy really and consideration for other people, who may be in deep prayer.

Children are always welcome in any church but it is disrespectful to allow them to run around and shout inside any place of worship

The thread isn't about church services, that is an entirely different thing and most churches have ways of making children welcome. The thread is about taking a DC into a church for a short look around on a week day-OP thinks he should be free to run and shout, regardless of other people's needs.

It is lovely that you visited the church with your son.

As an adult I would only whisper if visiting a church and others were there praying. However, most 3 yr olds are unable to whisper...I think I would try not to let my 3 yr run around too wildly and maybe take him out if he was overexcited and others were there trying to pray.