How to deal with this/the lost art of "sitting nicely"

melanzana

I'd have left and gone home.

Open a bottle, sit somewhere nice, listen to a bit of music and breathe.... a sigh of relief that I am not surrounded by all that noise and mayhem. And that's just the adults. LOL

Carfal

Why is it that children cannot sit nicely any more?

SupergaryMonk wrote: »

His parents thought this was hilarious, and also seemed to assume that everybody else would find the childs behaviour as beguiling as they obviously did.

I think you've answered your own question.

itsanne

There has definitely been a change in what is considered normal / acceptable. When we used to go to Center Parcs with our children the children there were generally well behaved. We went again more recently. Although the children were still well behaved, numerous small children ran into other people or caused them to move to avoid the child. The parents were generally apologetic but it did not seem to have occurred to them to pre-empt the nuisance as we would have done.

Hedgehog99

When I was little, if necessary, I was gently steered out of other people's way.

Now, parents let their toddlers wobble on ten metres ahead, expecting everyone else on a busy pavement to make way.

No wonder they grow up thinking the world revolves around them.

SupergaryMonk

such fab replies here, we all know that these awful people exist

zarf2007

Personally I find other people's kids really annoying and wish people would realise we don't give a toss about little tommys ability to do owl noises.

I would love to open a chain of restaurant/bars with a no children policy so we could escape the little sh*ts. Of course I would no doubt be accused by Liberty of violating parents human rights but it annoys me why everything is geared around families at the expense of people who don't have or want kids.

FreddieFrugal

I remember when we were coming back from cyprus this Easter, flight was delayed by about an hour due to the French air traffic controller strike.

There were a couple of children there running around all over, in amongst the other, already fed up, passengers. Charging around a display thing and screaming all the while.

People were commenting rather loudly about how they'd be embarrassed if they were the parents.

The parents were just sat watching...of rather staring into space. Never said a thing to their children until after 20 minutes of it, they'd worn themselves out and brought themselves back. The fact is those kids had only got to that stage of unacceptable behaviour because no one had actually tried to manage them. In that situation they just needed their parents to do something with them, chat, play a quieter game with them.

Fact is some children's characters are such that they would never run around like that because that's just not what they're like, sitting nicely, is their most comfortable state. But most will only manage it for prolonged periods of time if they're receiving support in it from their adults, engaging them in the activity in a fun, stimulating but socially appropriate way.

Some parents just don't possess the skills or inclination to do that.

Oh! Just remembered couple weeks ago we visited a national trust working water mill. Had been down in the room with the milling stones and seen the flour coming out, NT worker talking about it to us as she bagged it up. Then we went upstairs and there was a Mum in charge of a group of 4 kids. She and 2 of the children were looking at a model of the millstones while the NT volunteer was talking to them in the corner of room. Meanwhile the other two children were looking at something on the other side of the visitor barrier. Suddenly realised that they were pulling on a section of rope that was part of the mill machinery and had been yanking on it the whole time we'd been up there.

Suddenly there's a shout of "no no no" from downstairs. The lady runs up and quickly stops the children and is clearly very concerned about what's happened. But she managed to stay calm and explain to them without sounding like a telling off, bless her. What they'd done was release too much extra grain into the mill. Meaning she had to stop the whole thing and would need to remove the excess somehow.

They were actually using the flour for baking the same day. It meant the visitors expecting to see a working mill now didn't, caused all sorts of problems.

I couldn't believe it. The worst thing was that the children didn't even seem to realise they'd done anything wrong, due largely to the amazing restraint shown by the NT worker in charge. But nor did the Mum. She was silent the whole time. I wouldn't be surprised if they completely got away with their behaviour and learned nothing from it.

SupergaryMonk

well said Ian

Mayflower10cat

Sitting in a cafe/coffee bar within a shopping centre recently, I watched two types of parenting at adjacent tables. Two mums sat together, each with strapped-in toddlers in expensive looking buggies. Both Mums have their iPhones out and are staring at them fixedly. Their food arrives; chips, some cakes, soft drinks & coffees. The Mums carry on texting and browsing, sipping their lattes. The children, meanwhile, content themselves with eating a few chips, chucking handfuls on the floor, kicking away in their restraints, yelling at each other, crushing muffins into crumbs and dropping them wherever. I was incredulous that after almost half an hour, barely two words had passed between the two Mums or their children. Still on their phones, they got up and left. Leaving complete devastation behind, food debris everywhere and a spilled soft drink.

At another table, a Mum with a young child in a buggy is sitting down. Their food arrives, she takes the child out of the buggy onto her lap. The junior pizza is cut up neatly and the child helps itself as Mum is chatting away to the child whilst eating a sandwich. A story is told about the pizza with much giggling from the child. They finish eating, child is put back in the buggy with a soft picture book to read. Off they go, plates stacked up on the table after a quick wipe round with a paper napkin and Mum looking back to check they haven't made a mess/left anything behind.


Hmmm!!!!!

Jagraf

All kids run about. It's just that some parents are better than others.