Okay, This is my first post so I am not sure if this fits this category.
Do You believe that kids deserve respect?
I’m in my 20s. I was out to eat with a group of my friends.
We were seated next to a family.
It was a mother, grandmother and son out to eat.
The son had to be about 11?
The mother in her 30s or 40s and grandmom in her 60s.
Anyhow, the two adults were talking and then were finished. The little boy then began to speak about how he loves subway trains.
Then,the grandmom began to chime over him and talk about a totally different subject.
The boy says " Grandmom, I was speaking"
Then his mom chimes in and says " She’s the adult and your the child, you wait"
The boy looked embarrassed and I felt bad for him
Do you believe that children deserve respect like adults?
In some circumstances. In this particular case, definitely yes. The kid has been taken to an adult setting, and is expected to behave like an adult, specifically by not acting like a child and pissing off the other customers. Both to help achieve that, and to reward it, the child should get respect.
There are circumstances where “be quiet, adults are talking” is appropriate, but this isn’t one.
ETA This thread might belong here, or possibly in IMHO. Either way it’s no big deal, and the mods will just move it if they feel the need.
in that case it was good because he needed to learn you can’t always say what you want when you want, lots of situations call for this, but beyond that i don’t like the idea the adutls were more important than him
Children deserve the same respect as adults. Children should be instructed not to interrupt or talk over others, that had nothing to do with this situation. Mother and grandmother were very rude in this case.
I think that the adults were wrong for disrespecting him, but the “Grandmom, I was speaking” comment is out of line. Kids shouldn’t correct adults. He should bring it up later.
Either nobody corrects anyone else, or the age doesn’t matter. He wasn’t incorrect, he may have been impolite, but so was his grandmother, and his mother followed it with more rudeness, and she was incorrect as well.
I absolutely agree. Allowing the kid to participate in conversation would have reinforced manners. Sure, the adults may have been bored by a lengthy discussion about trains, but we often listen politely to people discuss topics we aren’t interested in. My child is only four months, and the next several years will consist of enduring tasks which preclude dignity, constant corrections and instruction, and a non-stop barrage of No! I look forward to the day she is given some autonomy and a chance to share her thoughts. Manners and respect work both ways.
We don’t know how old the grandmother was or her mental condition. There are times when seniors need some leeway. Wether we like it or not a pecking order does exist to some degeree and when no other variables are present age usually wins out. It would be rude to stop the grandmother from talking. I would probably give the boy a wink and say let grandma finish and then it will be your turn. An 11 year old boy would usually know enough to let his grandma finish even though he knew she was wrong for interupting. My children would not have dreamed of cutting off grandma right or wrong.
We know she was in her 60s. If her mental ability was questionable then the child could have been asked politely to let grandma speak, not rudely told the incorrect instruction that adults may rudely interrupt children.
I agree the mother handled it rudely but so did the child, at 11 he should have known better. Learning that everything is not always exactly fair is part of growing up.
It’s possible the grandmother has a hearing problem and didn’t know her grandson was speaking. The mother may have been trying to gloss over this so as not to embarrass her. If so, her method wasn’t ideal, but was understandable.
I guess I don’t even really frame this in terms of “respect”. It’s more like…either the social expectation is you don’t interrupt people, or it isn’t. I tend to think it is* and so we try not to interrupt our kids, and we apologize when we do. I definitely believe that kids learn what they see us do more than what we tell them the ideal is, so I figure the best way to help them internalize how not to interrupt - and as a corollary how to change the subject when there’s a break in the conversation - is to show them.
*mostly, except for some social and many work cultures where the rule is most definitely that you do interrupt, and that it actually increases your standing to do so (I hate it, but it’s been studied and found true.)
The issue here is best investigated under the term “manners”. Interrupting someone
is usually impolite, and was impolite in the case of OP. The adults were, by their bad
manners, setting a poor example for the child.
It was a very minor situation in life where the child was faced with an unfair scenario. In this same situation my kids and I would have probably smiled at each other knowing it was unfair but allowed grandma to go ahead and speak. Teach the kids to accept life is not 100% fair.