to think I wasnt being precious about the shop assistant telling my ds off

[mrsleroyjethrogibbs]

Today MIL and me and the two children were in a pretty much deserted fabric shop looking at zips. DS was standing inches from MIL touching but not pulling at the display of cotton.He was literally pointing at the colours saying their names when one of the shop assitants who was standing nearby came over to him pushed/tapped his hand away from the display and told him quite roughly 'No thank you'.
I was quite shocked as ds scurried and tucked himself under MIL who looked at me as if to say 'OMG what is she on??'.

As we walked through the shop MIL said ' well that was a bit out of order. He wasnt pulling anything and since when is she allowed to touch someone elses children and tell them off'.
Now granted he was touching the cotton reels BUT he wasnt pulling he was simply just going through the colours as actully we were standing next to him and watching him.

I was really annoyed tbh and spoke to the manager and said that whilst I appreciate he was touching things (he is only 3) I think it would be more appropriate if the lady had asked me to tell him not to touch them rather than tapping his hand away and telling him off herself.
She was sympathetic and said yes she shouldnt have touched him at all and of course children touch things.

I came away thinking ...god am I being precious about him? I know he is not a model child. He cant keep his hands to himself at the best of times.. but still....
___

Whoops sorry for double post

Perhaps kitkatqueen should have said: 'And I expect my children to be treated with the same respect that the salesperson would want from my child.....' I would be very cross if a salesperson knocked my hand away from a display purely because they thought I shouldn't touch it (rather than because I was actually in some sort of danger, when it would be reasonable).

Equally I would not knock a shop assistant's hand away from something, nor would I let my child do it - so why is it only the child that has to put up with this?

Actually I value other adults reprimanding my DC. It often has much more impact.

However I prefer it if a. they have been doing something wrong in the first place, and b. it is done in a pleasant manner.

From the tone of it she is a child-hater and got off on feeling righteous about being so mean and unpleasant.

But touching things in shops IS doing something wrong! Or am I even more old fashioned tha I thought I was?

No. Adults do it. If he was pulling things down, damaging or dirtying things I would agree.

Seeker - I pick things up in shops and look at them - feel fabric to see if it's soft or rough or silky etc, look all around an ornament, check whether there are blemishes or rot on the fruit and veg I'm buying (I could go on for ever) - that is sensible shopping! How else are you going to ensure that the product is what you want, and you are getting value for money?

OK.

You pick things up to see whether you want to buy them or not. A three year old child is not touching things for that purpose.

It is not our, or the OP's, place to pronounce on whether the little boy was doing anything wrong or not, whatever our opinions (and mine are that of course he wasn't). The point is that our opinions don't matter as the goods involved do not belong to us. They belong to the owner of the shop. He/she was not present but their representative was and they told the child not to touch. It is a shopkeepers right to not allow small children to touch the goods, however unreasonable that may be to you or I.

I often see those "No more than 2 schoolchildren at a time" signs in shops. I would imagine that 99% of schoolchildren would be completely harmless in a group in a shop but it is the shopkeeper's right (I presume! maybe it's illegal) to deny them entry in a group. I would feel fed up on behalf of my child if they were told they couldn't enter a shop because there were too many in there already, but if you are not happy go elsewhere.

I do think the shop sounds incredibly unfriendly and frankly foolhardy in the current economic climate to fail to be welcoming to mothers with small children who must be - sexism alert - their main clientele.

But if someone tells your child off in a shop you ought surely to be mortified that they have obviously reached the conclusion that you are not going to bother to check your child yourself? I'd have apologised to the assistant and said to my child, yes the lady's right you shouldn't touch darling. (Perhaps I'd have added pointedly: Like she shouldn't have touched YOU). Then buggered off to hobbycraft and explained to DS when out of the shop that although he was doing nothing wrong they obviously had different rules there.

But: Complaining to the manager! Starting a thread on the internet to complain further! Then saying you are not precious!

Strewth

Adults do it because they are possibly going to buy whatever it is. Children aren't. And it is likely that an adult will check that their hands are clean before touching. Children won't.

I agree with you, BalloonSlayer, that the shop do have every right to ask that children do not touch goods but I don't think that this particular shop assistant handled the matter very well at all. She wouldn't knock an adult's hand away from the threads, so why is it ok to do it to a child?

It's not as though it was her only option - as I said earlier, she could have asked the child to stop touching in a way that included the supervising adult (with a look, or a 'please' to the adult) that would have been far more polite.

Complaining to the manager seems pretty reasonable to me, and if I were the manager, I would want to know if my staff were behaving like this. After all, if the shop gets a reputation of being un-child-friendly (is that a word??) then they will lose business - as you say, people will bugger off to Hobbycraft instead.

And starting a thread on the internet - well, that could be seen as being like starting a conversation about it with a group of friends, to find out if you were overreacting to the initial incident - most of us wouldn't think twice about that.

small independent shops are the WORST for having small children around - they are full of sharp things and ancient displays liable to be tipped over at a moment's notice. I keep my toddler in a buggy or on a very short rein in these sort of shops and don't let them touch A THING

Morningpaper - thats an excellent idea when dealing with small children and small shops. This shop is Massive! I actually once took a photo of it from the outside for a friend who thought I was exagerating. And if you have 3 kids under the age of 5 slightly tricky!

KKQ x

Balloon slayer - its not what you say its the way that you say it.

No Thankyou with a smile is very different from No thankyou and a knock / tap or whatever.

Ultimatley the little boy was frightened by the ladies behaviour. If someone went up to her during her weekly shop at and frightened her that much it would not be ok. In my view it therefore isn't ok for her to do it to anyone else especially a child.

And yes she may well have been having a bad day, but when you are at work you behave proffesionally. To take out your frustration over a separate issue on a customers little boy so as to frighten him would be pretty deplorable.

And Ballonslayer - this thread didn't start as a bitch about this particular shop. It started out as "this happened to me today am I being unreasonable"

Personally I don't think so in the slightest.

I would also bet that the little boy will probably not want to go there again. Which is a shame considering the amount of art and crafty stuff they stock specifically for children.

KKQ x

OP YANBU , where is this shop? i wanto take my 8 little monsters darlings round , that will teach that up herself assistant! would ask little darlings to each bring a partner in crime friend too. that would be soooo funny...

So to clarify, the general feeling of the people on this thread is that it's OK for children to touch things in shops and no one is allowed to reprimand a child except its parents. And if a shop assistant tries to stop a child touching stuff she should be reported to her manager. Am I right?

I think its acceptable for people in shops to ask you or your child to behave in a certain way.
and if she didnt want him touching the reels then it is fine to ask you to stop him doing it.

However i would NOT allow someone else to tap/push my ds in any manner at all, it is not acceptable, has happened to me, and I have no idea where the voice that came out my mouth was from but it didnt belong to me and the person concerned immediately stopped (as did everyone else in the room

KKQ - it wasn't me who said she might have been having a bad day. Personally I always think that's a lame excuse .

I suppose this thread has disturbed me a bit. At some point in everyone's life they are going to encounter someone who challenges them and tells them that their behaviour is bad, when they themselves didn't think they were doing anything wrong. And they are going to have to cope with that.

But a lot of the posters on here seem to think that a situation like that just shouldn't be allowed to happen to their child.

But it will. At some point, every child will be somewhere without its mother and will get told off - maybe for something that wasn't its fault. How will it cope if it has been brought up to think that NO ONE is allowed to correct it but its mother? Presumably either a) shrink in fear and bewilderment or b) say "You can't tell me off. You're not my Mum."

Surely the sooner our children learn that not everyone in the whole world thinks they are as wonderful as their parents do, and might challenge them - perhaps unjustly, and are able to cope with these mildly disturbing incidents, the better.

But yeah maybe 3 is too soon...

Really must retire from this thread

Why is it so awful mosschops?

If someone touched one of my DCs to hurt, or to humiliate them or for their own sexual gratification I would be appalled, not consider myself responsible for my own actions.

But to touch a child to move its hand away from something it shouldn't be touching? If what you do does not harm or even hurt in the slightest? I just don't get it.

I think that just about sums it up BalloonSlayer! It was a trivial incident-probably one of many that a child (or adult)has to learn to cope with. The world is full of difficult people!

ok calm down girlies, children like exploring touching strange/new stuff is part of being a child and how they learn about things.the shop assistant was out of order ,moving the childs hand because the child was doing no harm, was destroying anything.why could she have not asked the adult to tell the LO not to touch in a nice way?teh world IS full of difficult people, i agree.but if someone did that to my dd4 she would have went into meltdown(shes not a brat shes unable to comunicate and wouldnt understood).the assistant didnt know the child, what if she did that to a deaf child,an autistic or other SN child?the harm could be an upset child thats unable to calm or be calmed.distressing for everyone.

balloonslayer - its fine to tell a child not to touch something, or to smack their hand yourself or tap it away.
I dont agree that its fine for someone else to tap the hand of a child they dont know, I wouldnt dream of doing it to a child I didnt know, I wouldnt even do it to a child I did know.
You wouldnt do it to an adult, so you shouldnt do it to a child

should have been "wasnt destroying anything"lol

Seeker said: "So to clarify, the general feeling of the people on this thread is that it's OK for children to touch things in shops and no one is allowed to reprimand a child except its parents. And if a shop assistant tries to stop a child touching stuff she should be reported to her manager. Am I right?"

That's certainly not what I've said, seeker.

To clarify for you.

1. People do touch things in shops, however if the management of a shop do not want children touching certain items, then that is up to them.

1. If there is a supervising adult with a young child who is touching something they shouldn't, the assistant should either address the adult directly (as it is they who are supposed to be responsible for the child) or address the child and adult together, politely, asking that the child stops touching the item.

1. Knocking or smacking someone's hand away from an item is something no adult would accept a shop assistant doing to them, so why should we accept it being done to a child - especially when there is a less confrontational alternative!

1. If a shop assistant acts aggressively, unneccessarily confrontationally or rudely to a customer in a shop, or the child of a customer, the management should be told - because that kind of unneccessary unpleasantness is the sort of thing that will cost a shop custom - something that few, if any, shops can afford in these days when even major chains are going under!!

Does that make my views clearer, seeker?

sunny i hope you have complained in writing! its more offical, and then has to be delt with then.

Sorry for the confusion, dsrplus8 - I'm not the OP - I was replying to the sweeping generalisation that seeker made, which seemed (in part at least) to be in reply to a previous post of mine.

i assumed you too had a complaint similar to OP.YOUR spot on .