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.

did your hair look nice after all this btw ?

What a bizarre thread! DragonLFS - I think you maybe over-reacted a teeny bit, but well done to you for having a DS who is even remotely able to behave in a salon! I'm coming out in a cold sweat thinking of my DCs in that situation.

I have no idea why so many people have pounced on you so aggressively. It's not like you've been threatening to march into the salon with an Uzi. There really is too much aggro on here nowadays.

I can't believe that anyone thinks it is OK for a strange man to be aggressive towards and scare a 4 year old boy by threatening to throw him out of where his mother is.

Whilst I think the letter was unnecessary and the man should have been dealt with at the time, nothing the OPs DS was doing warranted that man's behaviour.

ahhh

he was climbing

manager asked him not to, politely

he obeyed

all fine

he then knelt on the sofa - this wasn't included in last order

now, GIVEN his success with polite requests, why did manager not go back to that? Why did he then have to behave in an aggressive manner? Can someone please tell me WHY that is OK?

Please?

dlfs, sorry i didn't respond to you before, might resurrect the waffle thread

think it is unreasonable of people to think you shouldn't take ds with you. How mad. I have no-one I can leave the small dcs with - no family, friends who work, dh works weekends. Shall I let my hair grow down my back til the littlest starts school and then run to a salon? No, I'll take the baby, breastfed unchecked, let the small one eat the biscuits fed to him by the receptionist and thank the girl who wheels the baby round in his buggy. Shame you're in Devon or I'd recommend my salon dragon.

If salons didn't permit children I wouldn't have had a haircut for the last 20 years!!!
In all that time I've only had one bad experience where the receptionist made it blantantly obvious that my baby dd was not welcome even though she was asleep for my entire apointment. I mentioned as I paid for my haircut that if they had a no children policy they should make it clear when a new client booked and then found myself a new hairdresser.
I honestly don't believe that kneeling on a sofa is the crime of the century and when mine were small even sitting would have meant their shoes were on the seat...short legs and all!! As far as disciplining someone else's child is concerned unless a child was in immediate danger I would always ask a parent to intervene rather than do it myself especially if I was a stranger. I might say something if the parent didn't do anything when asked if what the child was doing was damaging my property. I think most sofas can withstand being knelt on by a 4 yr old and the fact that it was imitation leather would be a good thing as any dirt could be wiped off far easier than on a fabric one.

I check if it's ok before I take DD along to appts.

"I check if it's ok before I take DD along to appts."

Why wouldn't it be ok to take any child to the hairdressers? Children have hair too. Children also can't learn what is expected of them in any situation if they don't experience those situations.

I wouldn't allow my child to kneel on someone else's sofa with shoes on especially not in a hairdressers/doctors/dentists etc but that's because I worry about them putting dirt on the sofa for someone else to sit on.

I check if it's ok to take DD with me to the beautician/the chiropractor etc. Haven't taken her to the hairdressers but she's unlikely to learn much from the experience, being only 5 months old.

I'd check if I was going to be taking DH along to appointment too, it's just common courtesy in my opinion.

Back to add...

But a polite "Could you sit down please" should've been the first reaction, not an "If you don't stop I'll put you out on the street"

YABVU.

I think YABU.

1. you shouldn't have taken your ds in the first place

1. You should have been the one to supervise him and tell him not to behave badly before the manager had to intervene.

1. You just look foolish and show bad judgement by taking a letter after the event.

well it looks to me like opinion is split between me being a incompetent parent with a feral child and those who would have been just as upset and reacted similarly.
Like i said, there's no runaway majority here so i'm not going to be made to feel bad for how i feel about it as clearly plenty others would feel just the same.

as for the onslaught from the victorian mumsnetters (not including those who just disagree with me, that's not a problem), well i'd only expect as much as you are from the 'seen and not heard' end of the spectrum, and appear to have very short fuses and don't take much poking with a virtual stick to get wound up. Good luck to you.

Way to take the moral highground with your weirdy insults and name calling

let's just say i've come to realise that taking the moral high ground on mumsnet is futile, and a lot less fun.

"I check if it's ok before I take DD along to appts."

Maybe she did?

Please can someone explain why it is unreasonable to take a child with you to the hairdressers at all? Are people with no childcare available not permitted to get their hair cut?

And no one has explained why, having had success with the "reasonable" approach the first time, they think it's OK for the man to be aggressive the next time. Strange that.

Yes of course you are kiddiz. Just lock em in a cupboard with bread and water.

For:i completely agree with not having the bottle to deal with it at the time - soe of us haven't got that bottle - but it doesn't mean that your complaint is invalid, becuase you don't have the confidence to deal with it at the time.

Against: you remarked about the cheap leather sofa not worth getting upset about, and i think especially in this climate, small businesses have to run on tight margins, and a cheap leather sofa to you could be an overhead to far for the business owner

On the fence: we all have different expectations from children, we all parent differently and whilst you may have thought that in your experience in comparing your childs behaviour, that in that situation he was being very good.

the salon owner, mayhave thought that your son was ill mannered and was a possible disruption to his salon and customers.

lol MrsBD, that is a very reasoned argument Throw a few insults, shout a little!

eh?

Just impressed by your well put post

thanks