to drop this complaint letter off at the hair salon this afternoon?

[DragonLowFatSpread]

you have about 10 minutes to help me figure out whether i should complain or not.

I write to complain about the treatment received by my 4 year old son by one of the managers of the salon yesterday.

The manager took it upon himself to discipline my son for climbing on the sofa. On the first instance he was asked not to climb on the top of the sofa, a request which was reasonable and also obeyed. Had you specified that this also included kneeling on the sofa so that he could see his Mother then I?m sure this would have been adhered to also. As such, he positioned himself so he could see where I was. He was sat quietly and bothering no one as far as I can see.

At this point the manager chose to raise his voice to him, adopted an aggressive posture over the child and threatened to throw him out of the salon should he not sit properly on the sofa. A patronising wink and a smile were then offered to me, which only confirmed to me that this is a man who enjoys intimidating children.

Thankfully, my son has a resilient disposition and he chose to remain ?seen and not heard? for the remainder of my appointment before expressing his upset on leaving the salon. I personally didn?t need the aggravation and chose to ignore the manager?s behaviour in preference for an undisturbed and overdue hair cut. However, I feel that the appointment was a stressful experience for which I resent paying £20 for.

May I suggest in future, that if staff in your salon have issue with the behaviour of children in the salon, then a polite request to the accompanying adult would be a more appropriate course of action and would avoid the upset caused in this situation.

Sincerely,
Dragonlowfatspread.

K, whatever, Soup. Hope you're feeling better now.

manners and consideration and treating people in a pleasant manner, eh?

...you're missing the point expat...
DS did as the guy said.
Just as he would've done if i'd asked him to stop.
The guy was out of order to react the way he did without giving me the opportunity to deal with it.
I'm sorry but cheap fake leather sofa's are not worth getting your knickers in a twist about.
DS said nothing, but did as he was told, so it's not a question of manners thankyou.

Well why not bugger off to the golf club then? This is the place where people disagree with you when they think you are wrong remember.

'manners and consideration and treating people in a pleasant manner, eh?'

You reap what you sow.

I'm not missing the point.

The guy shouldn't have had to say anything at all.

That's your job.

I could see DS in the mirror while i was having my haircut, I was supervising him.
If the man had told me he found the way my son was sitting was making him angry, he should have dealt with me, not winked at me AFTER, shouting at my son.

OH FFS, I'M NOT SOUPDRAGON!

I think often mothers see their child's behaviour quite differently to non-parents.

I'm not saying your ds was badly behaved at all, and it's quite normal for little boys to clamber on sofas, but from the manager's point of view he doesn't want his sofa clambered on and had to tell your ds to sit properly twice - manager probably felt your ds should know not to have his shoes on a sofa. Him winking at you makes it sound more like he felt he was being jokey and trying to help you out by getting your son to behave while you were busy, rather than trying to intimidate him or patronise you!

yes, tankie he obviously thought he was helping me by playing the big man, but he proved that he has absolutely no experience or skills in dealing with children.
I think these people should let parents handle it, as only a parent can know the best way to deal with their own child's behaviour in order to avoid upset.

db, now i realy want to know which hairdressers it was.

( as I have someone in mind here where i live who's a total anus)

'cheap leather sofa..'
It is not about the sofa! It s about the next person who will sit there after your son. Its about learning to consider other people.

on fore street in ivybridge.

God, you are a complete loon (and thank God ou ar not Soupdragon who I thought had gone crackers.)

In a V good sitting on the fence kind of way, I think both you and manager were at fault here.
I took my DD to my hairdressers for the first time a few weeks ago, she's nearly 8 (wouldn't have dared before then! It's a poncy posh one)
I gave her big talk before we went about being good, staying on the chair, not making noise or fuss etc. so she knew the rules before we got there.
As it was the hairdressers loved having her there, and did her hair for her - for free
I think that you should have made more of an effort if you had to take 4yr old with you to ensure that he wasn't going to annoy others, but equally manager should have come to you to deal with your DS and not done it himself.
I doubt I'd have sent a letter though, I'd have just said at the time that he should have come to me. And left it there.
Oh and I wouldnt have interpreted his wink as a sign of him enjoying intimidating children, I'd have taken it to mean that he thought he was helping you out - children always listen to other people more than their parents.

But from his point of view, you weren't handling it.

i'm not sure he was that bothered about cleanliness as he brought his two big dogs right through the salon on his way out.

I actually don't see why people should defer to the parents and never "deal with" someone else's child - I would have no reservations in telling off someone else's child if I felt they were disrespecting my property.

It's positive for children to learn then when they are at someone else's home/business, their rules apply. Mummy isn't always going to be there to sort it out for them and avoid upset.

so why didn't he just use a normal tone of voice, why didn't he crouch down so as not to frighten him and asked him to put his feet down.

he would have done it.
i promise you.

"If your child misbehaves, or climbs on furniture or whatever, you don't always have to deal with it without making them feel upset".

but this is the point i'm trying to make!

oh hang on no!

you think the best way to discipline is to upset them??????????????

Really, in the grand scheme of things all that happened was he was a little bit upset by a man telling him off. I bet he won't put his shoes on anyone's sofa again!