to expect mothers not to break off an adult conversation mid sentence because their dc has just toddled up...

[Fairynufff]

It usually happens in the middle of some really deep life crisis/personal revelation and then a child will toddle up (not an emergency) and the mother will just start cooing at the child about the toy/biscuit/whatever the child is waving around! Hello? We were in a conversation here...

Leo9 I get your point and I completely agree if you 'talk briefly'. I would never have a problem with that. I'll give you an example of what I mean (and I have loads). Once I was talking to a (close) friend - not a particularly heavy conversation but probably a catch up. She'd just dropped round my house with no notice. Her toddler came up to with a book and she broke off mid-sentence and started to read her the whole bloody book. I sat, in my own house, not quite knowing what to do - as I just sat watching her reading her child a book. No apology or 'I'll be with you in minute' just blatent 100% immersion with her child. Which is fine but don't come to my house to do it!

I haven't read the whole thread, but hey if you are being ignored in favour of a child why don't you just stamp your foot or throw yourself on the floor? Grow up love.

Am still completely with you fairynuff .

My best friend and I don't live particularly near to each other but my eldest and her only child are roughly the same age.

So when we did meet up when they were young it was always during the day and with the little ones in tow (sorry Capricia). Besides, she is my best friend, I wanted my children to play with her child - they still do.

We had endless, countless, hundreds of conversations which were cut short by one or other of our toddlers coming to grief, needing a "mummy hug" to quote Anna, needing a drink, a nappy change, a nose wiped, to be lifted out of the swing and onto the roundabout etc etc. We used to laugh at how impossible it was to properly catch up even if we'd been together for a whole morning or afternoon.

If either of us had also interrupted our conversation to bill and coo in a pfb way at our toddlers when they just happened to come over without actually wanting or needing anything from us ... then we might as well have given up!

Luckily, as SAHMs who spent every waking hour with our beloved children, we both held the view that it was not going to permanently damage our precious babies if every few days/weeks/months or so we spent some time speaking to another grown up for a few minutes in (relative) peace!

Her views in this regard were pretty much the same as my own and thus we are still best friends now yet another 8 years down the line ...

Maybe it depends on the toddler as well.

If the toddler is very independent and does not demand much attention, it seems churlish to refuse it on the odd occasion it asks.

If the toddler is constantly asking for attention then maybe a different approach is needed. Still not sure about telling them you're busy if they can't talk yet though.

see, I would rather my friend read a book to her child if that child had toddled up with it - you want to support that interest and encourage it and I would have thought it was lovely TBH. If you're in your own house you just go and make a coffee or do the washing up or something, if it bothers you to sit there for the duration of a toddler's book

I would have hated a good friend NOT to break off to read a toddler a book, if it was only to have a 'catch up' conversation with me

Why is that more important than responding to your toddler who has brought a book up to read?

YABU to expect a very young child not to interrupt.

YANBU to expect an older child to have a sense of what is polite social behaviour.

YANBU to expect an adult to at least break off with an 'excuse me' (and maybe a good humoured roll of the eyes!) in the middle of a conversation if a YOUNG child requires something. And then resume conversation from where it was left off.

YANBU to expect an adult to tell an OLDER child to wait until your conversation's over before they interrupt.

I suppose Leo9, that when my friend turned up unannounced I spent time welcoming her with a cup of tea and a listening ear and by doing so, put my own kids second. To then be blanked (for want of a better word) while she read her own child a book still feels very rude to me.

Mooseheart - I totally agree.

I'm with you OP, and Eekamoose.

However, it is bloody hard with young 'uns to hold an adult conversation. A very old friend and I hardly ever get together but one time it dissolved into complete carnage where dd2 and her ds1 kept falling off their chairs, banging their heads, crying over who had the bloody Elmer plate etc... we both literally dissolved into tears of compete and utter hopeless laughter... friend then turned on her ds's tape of Christmas carols really loudly (it was July) just to add to the utter hopelessness of our 'conversation.' We always have a giggle about it as in about four hours of seeing each other we probably only ever manage about half an hour's actual conversation. On the way home, I always think, 'Oh shit I forgot to tell X about this' and 'What exactly was she saying about her dh's leg' blah de blah.

I have another friend who I've only known since having children. I met up with for a drink once and I found it really hard because the silences were deafening!

Mybe the mother would prefer to deal with the toddler rather than another deep revalation / personal crisis.

Honestly, I have enough to deal with just manageing my own life without offering guidance to someone else, so (In all honesty) I'd probably welcome the distraction.

Unless it was a close friend, who I knew needed to talk, in which case I'd make sure it was done when the kids were at school / asleep or otherwise engaged in play, IYSWIM...

I certainly get that older children need to know to wait, and to be fair most gain this social skill no problem.

I simply do not get what is so bad about parents dealing with their kids while they're with you. As a grown adult it is just weird to find it rude that a parent is dealing with their child. I mean the child was a toddler, it was hardly going to be read a huge long book!

Have to agree to disagree, TBH - but I do feel strongly I would rather see my friends dealing nicely and attentively with their kids; that makes them nice people in my eyes; I'm a big girl, I can wait!

but does 'dealing nicely and attentively with their kids' at the expense of another adult really 'make them nice people'? In my experience, the children I have seen (and I have worked in many schools) who are given the impression that everything that comes out of their mouths is more important than anybody else's are the ones not liked very much by teachers/other parents.

Schoolchildren - fair enough fairynuff.

Too much to ask of toddlers I think.

And if the schoolchildren were waving around a toy/biscuit and expecting their parent to coo at them I would think there were deeper problems than too much parental attention!

Toddlers need dealing with; that is not to say that parents who respond to this need are going to create the type of child you talk about there Fairy. Of course they may, but equally they may not.

Just because you respond to a toddler does not mean you would never expect the child to learn social graces and skills

Maybe that's why you resent it so much? an assumption that the parent will do this always just because they happen to be at that moment?

I would say that toddlers who have always been listened and responded to, would learn good social skills that way. As soon as they are able they learn that interrupting other conversations is seen as socially not done and they pick that up no problems most of the time.

You are polarising my view. I have already said that I would expect a toddler to be responded to - no question. It is when - and I will repeat it again - an adult breaks off mid-sentence to do something (coo/play/read a book/tickle) with a toddler that didn't really require instant attention. I have three kids myself, I will regularly hold conversations where I am doing several things with children (getting drinks/looking at a picture/lifting them on and off play equipment) but I never leave an adult friend/family member hanging or feeling that what they are saying is less important than chopping a banana for goodness sake. I couldn't be that rude. As a child I was always taught to respect adults and even though a toddler is too young to understand that, a parent's actions will influence how they grow up.

How can I expect my toddler to learn to answer me and/or do what I ask when I ask, if I don't do the same for him? There are far too many double standards IMO.

Rip, exactly

As I said Fairy I think it's a case of agree to disagree; I think a toddlers need for attention is as pressing to the child, whether it's for comfort after a bump or a book to read. They don't prioritise in the same way adults do.

IME it is the children who have their needs prioritised as non important (eg it's only for a book it can wait)and who are expected to wait for interaction, who become the most annoying and disliked at school because they become very practiced at badgering for attention.

However, I fully accept you have a different view and basically, we're probably both bringing up well mannered kids! It's only a very tiny minority of people who manage to create a very socially inept, annoying child.

I have a SIL who is the polar opposite of me in all ways re parenting, but her kids and my ds are all lovely, charming, and well mannered. It's a different path to the same end, I think.

Well when you put it that way...

'nuff said I think!

Rip said (and some others said much the same, not picking on your post Rip)How can I expect my toddler to learn to answer me and/or do what I ask when I ask, if I don't do the same for him? There are far too many double standards IMO.

IMO there are two parts that need addressing to answer that fully.

The first part being that you teach them that you are the parent and they are the child. It is NOT an equal relationship and it needs to start when they are young or else how do you expect them to respect you and do as they are told when they are older? It may be considered 'old fashioned' but they answer you and do as they are told because YOU are the parent.

The second part being Interrupting conversation Once again you are teaching them life/social skills - 'you don't speak over someone else, you wait your turn'. It's something MOST adults do automatically, but something we all had to learn. You can start teaching this from a very young age.

When they are very small (up to around 15 months) smiling at them & immediately picking them up and sitting them on your lap while someone finishes their sentence then talking to them is my way. From around 15 months (depending on the child and their grasp of language) immediately saying wait a minute (while holding their hand or picking them up) is starting to teach them social skills, from around 20 months they can understand (depending once again on their comprehension level), a bit, to wait until someone has finished actually speaking (THAT sentence not a conversation), and you build on that - that way, by the time they are around 3 they understand you need to wait until someone else has finished speaking (several sentences, but not a FULL conversation). However, I fully expect to have to continually remind a 3 year old of this, but for them to have it sorted by the time they are around 4 at which point they get told quite firmly to mind their manners!

You don't need to 'bark' or send them away, you can hold their hand or have some form of contact with them and you can show some adult commonsense about what to say with small ears listening and for how long they are able to wait patiently. I am meaning for a minute or so - not a long time.

IMO anyone who completely indulges the childs every utterance teaches them that they are the centre of the entire universe and makes them very difficult children who then have to learn the lessons that could have been taught much earier and easier in life before they have developed the bad habit of speaking over people.

Once again IMO completely child centric parenting is, as a society, getting us into a lot of bother. They grow up believing they can do as they please and then when they do so as young teenagers (drink, fight, happy slap - whatever), parents are suprised?!

We need to parent children, not indulge them.

I tried to arrange a meet-up with a friend over the phone when her 2 year ols started screaming. End of conversation though she tried very hard to continue. If you need to have a heart to heart arrange a night out with a babysitter etc... Just the only way it will work

Chipping in, a good post.

This child centred parenting is sooo obvious with some of the children at school, who feel they can barge up and interrupt anyone, including adults as if what they have to say is of the utmost importance. Not a good social skill.

Teaching your child to wait (when age appropriate ) also teaches them the listening part of a conversation.