Christmas Day walk in Sandringham

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This is such a strange thing....so the royal family walk along a stretch of path every year and people gather to watch them. These people try to talk to the Wales children and give them presents. They are photographing the children, taking selfies, etc. I think the kids are far too young to do this. It is so odd.

How on earth do William & Catherine think this is okay?!

Happy new year!🥳

Where is the hypcrocrisy? Where did they say never post a picture of your child online? All I have had read or heard from their campaigns is them saying to exercise caution. That social media platforms is damaging to children because of way ads are targeted on these, then there is the trolling etc. Many of the platforms have age restrictions yet we know many parents still allow or are not aware that their children are using them.

I certainly when I have my child be very cautious of what they have access to. Be highlighting all the risks about sharing content, particularly images, selfie etc and potential long term impacts on jobs in certain fields and so on. Won't be allowing them to play games that are not appropriate for their age and so on.

My sister doesnt want pictures of her kids online so we respect that, I dont post any pictures of my nephews not even on a private Instagram account.

Conversely a friend only shares pictures of her children on a private istagram account and even then only to close friends and family.

This conversation has been had before - you are perfectly entitled to think they are not hypocrites. I think they are but worse - they are using it as a meal ticket.

The ‘concern about the poor children’ is such a mountain out of a molehill, the kids looked happy, enjoying themselves, their parents did not push them into selfies with others, they were dignified and showed a lot of maturity and were extremely polite. If there were any security concerns, none of that would have happened. You can be sure the superfan has been well vetted over the years and posed no danger to anyone.

Is it any worse than visiting a grandma in a nursing home and all the other ‘strangers’ interested in chatting with the kids and offering them a cookie, or sending your kids off trick & treating, knocking on strangers doors, or sending your kids off on an overnight camp or summer programme.

It was about a 5 minute interaction with a few people in a very safe controlled environment.

If the strangers in the nursing home were shouting their names to get their attention, asking them for hugs and photos, it would be ill advised for parents to allow that. Same with trick or treating. Do you ask to hug children that come to your door, I sincerely hope not because it would be very weird. Good parents usually step in if strangers overstep. The children can’t possibly understand so saying they look happy is really naive. If the staff at summer camps are asking for hugs with the children, something is very wrong.

When my niece was about 7, she wanted to post YouTube videos of herself playing with toys because one of the children in her class was allowed to. At 13, she was very glad that her parents said no because they realised it wasn’t a good thing for her to be exposed to.

The children don’t need to do this and I hope it doesn’t continue.

Its very strange and potentially a risk to the safety of the royal children. No other parent would tolerate strangers hugging their children and giving them gifts. Those children probably find this to be deeply uncomfortable.

I agree. I can’t understand anyone trying to justify it.

Not sure the children are put a risk by this, although they may very well have been made uncomfortable. However, it does seem very out of character for the Wales parents to expect particularly the two younger ones to interact with the public like this. Particularly the selfies. And I can’t understand why anyone is completely happy with it. Unless it’s a case of it must be OK because W&C are doing it?

I think it’s because it’s been happening for the last six years - it was a little bit more this year but not much different from the previous two-three years.

I make the assumption that their parents, their advisors and the security personnel are happy with the security issues.

And that bearing in mind we’ve only seen William and Kate act in the best interests of their kids in the face of great criticism sometimes that they’ve talked to their kids about the situation many times over the years and they all feel okay with the appropriateness of it.

We don’t know how it felt from the inside this year and if it felt significantly different to previous years - maybe it did and we will see changes next year.

I can’t remember them being criticised for their parenting before-what did they do?

No I meant criticized for things like prioritizing the kids school drop offs and holidays. And waiting out the crazy ‘where’s Kate’ situation so they could tell the kids about the cancer before the rest of the world.

Seems to me that they put their kids’ welfare ahead of everything else most of the time so it’s weird that they’d neglect their welfare on this particular bit of royal life.

Had any of the children hugged a stranger in the crowd before? I hadn’t seen it before. Had they been introduced to an obsessed fan by name who went on to talk about Diana and how she’d feel about them? I hadn’t seen anything like that to Williams children before. I don’t think these 2 things are just a ‘little bit more’. If it has happened before and William and Kate haven’t changed things, that’s even worse. Hopefully these were the first time these things had been allowed and will be last.

I bet quite a few parents would offer up their children to be hugged by weirdos in return for luxury homes, private schools and multiple foreign holidays.
If the kids want the lifestyle they've got to give the fans what they want.

Charlotte hugged one of the people who gave her a gift in 2019 so six years ago.

It made the news because the gift was a very striking pink blow up flamingo so the pictures were appealing to the media.

I don’t know what they’ve done in the intervening years so presumably nothing major enough to make the news.

But I’d be amazed if they don’t all discuss the different issues before and after. The kids will know that the chocolates are not to be kept and eaten but to take them out of politeness towards the giver, for example.

Just like all the flowers they get are given to local hospices/nursing homes etc - Kate isn’t spending Christmas unwrappping 25 small plastic wrapped bouquets and making one big arrangement.

Bad parents might, not good ones.

Charlotte hugged one of the people who gave her a gift in 2019 so six years ago.

Six years ago?
My god. I wonder if the giver hugged her or she hugged them.
Either way it's too much.

Bad parents would probably be ok with this but no responsible decent parent would willingly allow their children to be exposed to this kind of weirdness. Regardless of who their parents and family are those children still need to be safeguarded. Those innocent children shouldnt be expected to put up with exposure to this kind of strange behaviour just because they were born into a high profile family.

What a dreadful attitude. The Queen never encouraged members of the public to hug or touch her children or herself for that matter. It’s creepy and very inappropriate .

The more I think about this, the more I feel Kate and William are totally irresponsible.

Next time, they should just let the children walk along the path to be gawped at, and the adults can speak to the people there.

The more I think about it, the more I think the worst bit is people thinking-and belong allowed to go on thinking that they are actually giving the children chocolate that they will eat and enjoy. When it will obviously be thrown away. It seems to me such a cynical exploitation of the parasocial relationship.

Yes and the Wales children to think mindless waste like this is normal

So much for the environment!

Why not simply state before anything like this that they can't accept foodstuff.

At least the toys etc can go to good causes.

They'd probably be more likely to give chocolate to a food bank than bin it wouldn't they?

These are the sort of people who think Sunday Strictly is live.

They need to let the crowds know that there will be no hugging, selfies or gifts. Anyone with a weird "Nanny Diana" comment should be thrown out and banned.

They can't eat it because it might have been tampered with.

So giving it away could have some major consequences!