Sometimes a badly behaved child is tolerable or understandable in public, when does it cross the line? Is it ever appropriate to ask the parent to take care of their child? I think the answer is yes.
One day I was reading a book a my local bookstore, and a man was doing his book shopping with a toddler girl following him. I would be fine with it if the girl weren't screaming every few seconds. He did absolutely nothing. I decided to be polite and not say anything, but that is absolutely inappropriate.
In my opinion, when a child is acting so awful that it is bothering everyone else in a public place and the parent is not going to do anything about it, saying something is appropriate. No child should be encouraged to act like that. It's not my business how they parent their children in their own home, but it becomes my business in public. Next time a child is behaving in this way, I will stand up for my sanity. I'm not talking about a child being annoying or impolite, I'm talking about children that run around and scream. I don't want parents or children (the future parents) to think that this is okay, because it most definitely is not.
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I agree on this. Working eight hours a day, every day, I get this all the time. Yesterday, a daycare was at our pool and the kids were acting terribly. They were running around, screaming, and doing about everything wrong that they could, and the caretakers weren't doing anything about it. We finally told them that they had to make sure their kids acted better or we would sit them all out. It is the place of the parent/caregiver to make sure their children are behaved or be told so by other people concerned.
I was at a bookstore also when a worse incident accured. I saw a young girl was aobut 10 or 12 years old, deffinatly old enough to know the differance between right and wrong. She and her mother were shopping for a book when they asked a clerk to help them find the book, the clerk looked it up in the computer and told them that the store was sold out but thenext shipment would be in two days later. The girl procedded to yell and scream, then she started running up and down the isles throwing entire selves off the bookcases. She got about 6 isles completely demolished before an elderly lady proceded to grab her and give her a good ol' fashioned spanking. The mother came running up not apologizing for her daughter's behavior but furious that the old lady had spanked her child. THe old lady said that the child should be for what she had done. Daughter was crying uncontrolably now and causing a real big scene. The old lady and the mother were arguing over if charges should be pressed for striking a child. While this was going on I decided to go look at just how many books the girl had gotten off the selves. Well she didn't just push the books off, she had actualy broken the selves out of the bookcases and some of the bookcases looked like they may be falling down soon. When I returned to watch the argument the old lady stormed out of the store. When the manager confronted the mother about the damage her girl had done asking if she knew the extent of the damage and if she intended to do anything about it. The mother mearly replied that the store got what it deserved for not having the certain book in stock. The mother took her little girl and walked out of the store. An employee got the license plat number and the police were called. When I talked to an employee a couple of weeks later I noticed that the bookselves had still not been repaired. The employee said that they had to be speacil made for the store, so that it would be a couple of months before they could get replacments. Which ment that all the books on thouse shelves had to be stored in the back where staff had to go get them and bring them out. I think that the store should make the mother pay for every cent of damage done and the old lady should get a $100 gift card, but that is just me.
It is not always easy to keep a child quiet especially in public. A child will act out if they want something that a parent cannot afford. It is either give it to me or I will cause trouble for you. Not all parents a willing to discipline their child in public. That is embarrassing. Plus some people tend to think that a parent is abusing their child if they try to discipline their child. A child who is 10 or 12 should already know the difference between right and wrong but what if the child was disable then it brings in another factor. Why not try to help instead of just criticizing how a parent is or isn't treating their child. You can't just say that you are going to speak your mind unless you have children of your own.
"trying to help" is often seen as abusing someone else's child.
I may not have children of my own, but that doesn't mean that I can have an opinion on this topic, because it frequently affects me in public situations.
When I have children, I will make sure that they don't bother anyone in public because that is a basic parental duty. If my children start acting like little hellions, we will leave. It's that simple.
How come we only ask ourselves the really big questions when something bad happens?
When I was little, a public acting-out was responded to by my mother threatening to take me to the bathroom and spank me, or just leaving. My sisters and I would all straighten up instantly, because just the idea of being spanked in public is embarrassing.
I don't need drugs - I have genetics.
In our society, however, there really isn't much a parent is allowed to do to control their children anymore. They can't spank them or it will be child abuse. Yelling at them in public sure doesn't send out a message that yelling in public is wrong. There isn't anywhere to put them for a time out because they are in a public place. If they send the kid to the car, that would be considered abuse as well. Unfortunately, parents don't really have a lot of options in public. Kids know this....they know they can act out as much as they want in public and if the parent tries to do any parenting, someone may interfere and say it's abuse. It's really a no-win situation anymore
While I agree to an extent, most parents that vocally discipline their children have little to no inflection in their voice, making them sound like they are going through the motions, "reprimanding" their children because they are getting looks. There's a big difference between saying "now, Jason, stop..." lightly and saying between clenched teeth "Stop it or we're leaving". No one is forceful anymore.
How come we only ask ourselves the really big questions when something bad happens?