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

lollyb84

Slinky wrote: »

On a train a couple of weeks back, a boy, probably about 10 with his mum asked for something, his mother said do you want the Notebook, yes please he said. I was expecting some electronic gadget to be produced, but no, out came a paper notebook and pens, he proceeded to draw for a while with some input from her, then they had a game of hangman. Very refreshing to see the interaction between parent and child. Shockingly rare though.

It worries me how rare this is. My LO is 2, and whilst he does use an iPad for some games occasionally, we limit this. I think computer skills are important, but not at the expense of social skills and human interaction.

Whilst out once when he was small (still in a pram, so under 6 months!), I was sat in a coffee shop and we were 'chatting'. An older gentleman asked if I was his babysitter. He was surprised when I said I was his mother and told me how unusual to see interaction like that between a mother and child these days. How sad.

We are trying to teach him the right way to behave in public places, and give him experience of a mixture of environments. Don't get me wrong, occasionally he is noisy and boisterous in a public place (- he's 2, they can't be good all the time :rotfl:), but if he behaves inappropriately, he is warned and then removed from the situation.

caprikid1

I remember when we had too many crazy children around I made up a game. "Sitting down Silent Boys".


Everyone had to sit on the floor not move and be totally silent. The person that moved or spoke lost. I recall many times ignoring minor failings to keep the game going. They never seemed to realise it was a CON !. It did prove that they were all capable of doing it though !.

ValOrient

Some children exhibit this behaviour because they do not learn the basics at home. I know of some children who were given their dinner on a coffee table in front of the sofa and from an early age would cruise the room eating and not being requested to sit down. It also seems to me that the art of using a knife and fork correctly has gone out of the window.

How are they expected to behave nicely in public if they do not learn the basics at home?

Pixie5740

I was at an event for young, engineering professionals last night and I ended up sitting next to a very irritating fidget. He chewed gum loudly the whole way through the presentation, kept biting his fingernails, and kept bouncing his legs up and down as though he was bursting for the loo. To top it off he kept taking his phone out his pocket to check it when really it should have been turned off during the event. I could happily have throttled the wee git. I hate fidgeting.

I wonder if he was allowed to run riot as a child.

pollypenny

ValOrient wrote: »

Some children exhibit this behaviour because they do not learn the basics at home. I know of some children who were given their dinner on a coffee table in front of the sofa and from an early age would cruise the room eating and not being requested to sit down. It also seems to me that the art of using a knife and fork correctly has gone out of the window.

How are they expected to behave nicely in public if they do not learn the basics at home?

I was surprised to find out from one tutor group of mine, that so few even had a dining table in the house.

GracieP

ValOrient wrote: »

Some children exhibit this behaviour because they do not learn the basics at home. I know of some children who were given their dinner on a coffee table in front of the sofa and from an early age would cruise the room eating and not being requested to sit down. It also seems to me that the art of using a knife and fork correctly has gone out of the window.

And from a biological perspective young children being allowed to cruise the room and graze from their plates is far healthier and leads to better eating habits in later life. Allowing my child the opportunity to learn to listen to his body when it comes to sating his hunger and allowing his stomach to grow and expand in an evolutionary normal way is a hell of a lot more important than a falsely imposed social standard that has only existed in recent history. Biology trumps culture every time.

And yet, he likes to sit at the table with adults. He likes to use a fork and goes to get one even when he is eating berries or slices of fruit. Children emulate adults. Following a child's lead where it's safe and not having developmentally inappropriate expectations of a him/her while modelling the behaviour that you want them to follow is mentally and physically a much better way to guide your children. Children are young people not domestic animals they don't need training just gentle guidance and respect. Because if adults don't respect children then they are on a hiding to nothing if they expect respect from them. Respect is a two way street.

GracieP

Pixie5740 wrote: »

I wonder if he was allowed to run riot as a child.

Or alternatively maybe he was forced to sit when he needed to move and as a consequence has never found a way to be comfortable when sitting still. Or maybe he's usually perfectly normal but his wife is 41.5wks pregnant and was feeling twinges in her back when he left home and he was barely containing his excitement about the challenge that's about to come and was afraid to switch off his phone in case he was needed urgently. Maybe he was recovering from a recent injury and sitting still caused him severe pain which he was trying to distract himself from. Maybe the talk so inspired him that he suddenly came up with a solution to a problem he was having at work and was making notes in his phone.

But yup, he's young engineering professional. It's far more likely that he just had bad parenting, I mean it's not like qualifying in a STEM field takes any of the self control his awful parents never taught him.

Newly_retired

Today DH and I were having lunch in a cafe which was pretty full, including some well behaved children. Then two young women arrived with a little girl needing a high chair. For the next 20 mins she kept yelling. Each time she was given something to eat or to play with, but there was no interaction, as the two women were talking to each other. The girl kept on yelling, as it got a positive response, whilst the rest of us couldn't wait for them to leave, and normal noise levels to be resumed.
It struck me that without more conversation with her, that child would continue to expect her yells to be rewarded, so I felt she would be a nightmare when she starts nursery.
One positive thing though, the mother did clear up all the food which had been thrown on the floor by the child.

CRANKY40

Some of this depends on the parents choosing age appropriate venues surely? My ten year old son sits nicely when it's appropriate because he is now old enough to know that is the correct way to behave in certain places. We went to London last week and as we got off the train coming home a lady told him how impressed she was by how well behaved he had been. He was very pleased with himself.

He sat nicely in pizza express (with his ds console) while my sister and I chatted with an old friend over our meal. He sat nicely in the choccywoccydoodah cafe while we had our treat of cake and milkshake. We chatted with him then obviously as it was just the three of us. He sat nicely everywhere we went to eat actually. He knows that is what you do in such places.

We did plenty of things that he enjoyed in between mealtimes and he had a few treats for behaving so well. If we go to a restaurant/pub that has a children's play area he knows he can run around and play in there. I don't see anything wrong with teaching children appropriate behaviour but expecting very young children to behave in a boring (for them) pub while parents have a few drinks with their mates is being unrealistic. When he was very small I didn't expect to leave him to roam free somewhere where he would be annoying other customers.

CRANKY40

GracieP wrote: »

I do developmentally appropriate things with my child. We mostly only go to family cafes with play areas or if we are in a standard cafe/restaurant we make sure it is one where we will eat quickly and with variety, so we leave long before he gets bored.

This was known as "gobble and go" when ds was younger, :rotfl: