to be annoyed by namby (ineffectual) middle class parents?

[ElenorRigby]

I have started to bring the kids to a play area not far away in quite a well to do part of the city.

I was quite shocked to find really bad brat behaviour from children of middle class parents.

Picture: Tarquin, Tasha or whoever being shitty to their parents, other children, other parents.

Then Tarquin/Tasha's parents limply say something like "Oh dear, that's not very nice" "Please don't be like that" or so on

Their kids of course carry on as usual

MillyR - I have just gone hot then cold as I had to ask my little boy to stop prodding a lady with a pitchfork in the Co-Op the other day - was the boy about 2 with blonde hair and the mum about 30 with brown wavy hair and the Co-op in question about 5 miles outside Birmingham?

Anotherfinemess, no! It cannot have been you as I am in Yorkshire. It must be a seasonal hazard with Co-op halloween accessories; it is probably happening across the country.

at all the pitchfork poking going on in Co-ops up and down the land!

(BTW MillyR, you sound like a very lovely Mum and your children sound very lovely too). I also have a 'sensitive soul' (not the one poking people with a pitchfork, obviously) and think that she has got this way not through our firm-ish parenting but largely by genetics - and to me it follows that more sensitive parents will bring their cildren up to be more mindful of other people.

That is kind of you AFM, but I am sometimes overly-argumentative over trivia on MN, so I cannot be that lovely. I am probably worrying far too much about this confidence and sensitivity thing because DS has only been at secondary school a month. Hopefully he will become more confident in the next few years.

Does your DS have a particular hobby or interest that might help him develop his confidence? I found that playing netball for a scary women's team who were all about 35 when I was 13 was the making of me! As was going to quite the oddest theatre group that I can imagine.

Good luck to him.