A bit of a delicate situation and I’m curious how other dopers would handle it.
My four year old god-daughter and her parents live just down the street from us. She is a great kid in most respects, but my friend’s parenting style is a bit … relaxed. I suspect that she doesn’t often hear the word “no”.
When we go over to visit she’s great while we entertain her, but as four year olds do, she quickly loses interest in us and wants to watch TV. While she’s watching TV, she’s taken to shouting “IT"S TOO LOUD!” if she feels our conversation is interfering with her enjoyment of her program. Now, I expect this behaviour from a toddler. She’s four years old and needs to be trained up. But her parents’ reaction was to apologize to her, and speak more quietly. My wife and I were dumbfounded.
On our latest visit to see their new baby, she sat on the couch while we were having a conversation, sighing loudly at us (I assume we were being too loud again). I wasn’t really paying attention when she said something to her mother, but I caught her mother saying “…ask them like we showed you.” Four year old turned to her father and I and said “Could you please be quiet so I can hear my show?”.
My first and obviously wrong reaction was to say “The fuck I will!” (and that’s why we’re childless), but her father said “Of course sweetie!”.
My nieces tried to pull the same thing when they were that age, and my sister made it clear in no uncertain terms that that wasn’t going to happen. My nieces managed to live through it.
So now we’re going over on Sunday. I’m virtually certain this is going to happen again, and I’d like to tell her that no, we’re not going to pipe down, and we’d love to have her join our conversation, but if she’s opting out, too bad. However, since the parents have literally taught her to shush the adults, I’m not certain how to go about it.
It depends on the situation. The shouting you mentioned first isn’t right. But if the child was watching TV already and your conversation was interfering with that and she asks politely, then you should apologize and shut up. I kind of doubt that’s the situation. Sounds more like clueless parents to me. We did a thread on this recently. Polite children should be treated just as any polite adult would. This child doesn’t sound polite. And her parents need another child or some more interests in their life.
Suggest the adults retire to another room to converse.
If the parents don’t want to shoo her off to another room to watch TV elsewhere and don’t want to move everyone to another room to talk, then kindly apologize for coming over at a “bad time”, say you’ll have to reschedule for some other time, and leave.
Fuck that. The 4 year old can watch Sponge Bob anytime. I would have no tolerance for that from my kids or anyone elses. Tv does not take precedence over anything else and 4 year olds do not get to run the house or tell adults what to do.
First, this sounds like Progress, and as such should be encouraged.
Second, I’m no expert in child-rearing, nor do I know all the details of this particular situation, but my inclination would be to try to teach the kid politeness and thoughfulness by modeling it for her. That means not pulling rank on her, treating her as though her desires don’t count because you’re the adult or whatever, but neither automatically letting her have her own way in everything. Was there a way to accommodate her without seriously inconveniencing yourselves, such as by lowering your voices a bit or moving your conversation elsewhere? If you had to refuse her request, could you do so apologetically? At the very least, don’t become snotty and cop an attitude before the four-year-old does.
We let technology solve this problem.
“Honey, I want to talk to Aunt Mary here in the living room. Please take the IPad to your room and go watch Youtube clips of Tom and Jerry there, if you don’'t want to stay here and talk with us.”"
How long after she joins the conversation will you be telling her to be quiet and quit ruining your adult discussion?
If she has a reasonable complaint, and voices it in a polite manner, she is now doing the right thing, instead of being a whiny little shit. Doing the right thing needs to be encouraged.
What would you if it was an adult instead of a 4 year old? The adult’s TV show is still just a TV show, he’s not trying to disarm a bomb. If you would give the adult fair consideration and make an effort to ensure everyone in the household could enjoy the visit, then you should do something similar with a polite child.
Speaking as a permissive parent of a 4-year old: If one of her friends said “Could you please be quiet so I can hear my show?” to me, I’d reply “Wow, you asked so nicely! Great job, but no, honey, I’m talking to your mom and dad now, and you can watch your show when I’m not here.”
Just because her parents have decided that she doesn’t need to be polite and respectful around them does not mean that she gets a free pass from everyone else. I’m guessing she’ll be in school soon and she won’t be able to get away with that kind of thing there, so you’re breaking her in gently.
I’m not strict with my daughter at all and I’m aware many parents would think I’m way too indulgent with her, but being polite and thoughtful to those around her is something I won’t compromise on, and we often gets compliments on how well-mannered she is. I seldom use the word no, and I seldom need to. Something tells me that’s not going to last forever…
If an adult did this, I’m pretty sure everyone on this thread would be horrified. You go to visit someone, you’re trying to talk, and another person in the house tells you to keep it down because they’re watching TV? That’s when I’d apologize for inconveniencing them and leave and never visit again.
A 4-year-old is not going to get that level of subtlety. Personally, I like amijane’s solution.
Is there a reason you must have your conversation in the room with the TV? Is there another room where she can watch something?
She’s 4, she’s not interested in your conversation and other than short periods at the beginning and end of your visit I doubt you really want her to participate in it so providing her with a space in which to enjoy the activities that distract her is not unreasonable. She shouldn’t be allowed to rule the world, but she also deserves consideration. Without being in the situation its hard to see what the solution could be but it’s definitely not black and white.
A friend of mine has the best behaved kids I’ve ever seen (way better than mine were at that age) and her solution to socializing has been for the kids to greet us, we have kid conversation for a while and then they can then either play near us while we talk or go to their playroom if we’re too loud for them. They don’t get to be the rulers but they’re not the peasants underfoot either, they’re members of the family and treated as such.
For all I know, the parents may only have one tv in order to monitor what their child is viewing, in which case, that 4 yr old’s tv time is very valuable and the OP really should pipe down, or if the conversation is that important, take it elsewhere.
I’ve got a niece (in-law) whose parents rarely use the word “no” too. As a result I find her almost intolerable to be around, loud and interrupting, meltdowns, etc. Blows me away what some people think the role of a good parent does or does not include.
If your God daughter tries to shush a normal conversation I think I’d explain to her that that’s the reason why you all got together and that if it’s a problem for her she can go to another room to watch her show.
If her own parents don’t employ the tenets of basic decency I’d have no problem doing so. Sometimes it ain’t just the kid that needs a lesson.
Unless I have been asked over to someone’s house specifically to watch something on tv, I hate, hate, hate having it on in the background. So my question, is why is it even on while adults are socializing? If there is nowhere else to have an adult conversation, then why can’t the child be given something else to do, like play quietly with toys or colour or whatever it is four year olds like to do, instead of being parked in front of the tv?
It sounds to me like this is an only child, and that your nieces were part of a larger family. That makes a HUGE difference.
Humor me for a moment and look at it from her perspective. The people she shares a house with have invited houseguests without any real input from her. She may not even known they were invited. These houseguests are going to stay an inordinate amount of time (in kid hours) and engage the entire household in conversations she has zero interest in and probably is actually incapable of following, and they are going to have limited patience for her participation. Basically, after some cute introductions, the entire household is going to exclude her. She can’t bugger off and find her own thing to do. She can’t surf the internet quietly or read a book. She can’t decide to invite her own friends over or go out and meet with people who will engage with her.
If she had similar aged-siblings, she would have a playmate and be a part of things, rather than sitting there in this uncomfortable situation with no way out. But she doesn’t, so all she can really do is watch TV and wait it out.
An only child is certainly going to need to learn to manage boredom and entertain herself, but four year olds also have a naturally limited ability to do so. I would expect her to be present and active in the conversation for ten minutes, and then be there quietly entertaining herself for ten minutes or so after that. But after that, if I’m not going to make an effort to include her, I’d make sure she has some way to occupy herself- which may be a TV with headphones or in another room.
Yeah. If my kid did that I would very politely tell her, “Oh, I’m sorry, no. I won’t quiet my guests; you go on in the other room and play.”
And she would get a lecture after my guests were gone about how we defer to our guests when they are in our home.
If I were at someone else’s house and they let their child run the ship that way, I wouldn’t be able to chill with them over there anymore. They would have to come to me to chill. I can’t relax and enjoy a visit if a 4 year old is in control.
I mean, it’s great that they are teaching the kid to be polite, but a part of good manners is understanding that you don’t always get your way…sometimes a polite request is politely denied.
I wouldn’t be horrified. If you come to my house to visit with my wife, and the two of you park yourselves in the room with the good TV while I’m trying to watch something, damn straight I’m going to politely suggest you relocate your conversation to someplace where we won’t bother each other.
ETA: I see nothing wrong with the 4 year old being taught to make her requests in a polite manner, even if they’re requests that shouldn’t be made in the first place. Learning which requests shouldn’t be made is a MUCH harder thing for a 4 year old to grasp.
Yep. This is a learning opportunity in basic consideration for others, something critical in her socialization skills for the rest of her life. I for one would be loath to reinforce a selfish attitude, especially with an only child, and four is definately an age where that needs to be part of the process.
I have to admit that I hated it as a kid on those occasions where I was minding my own business watching TV and my mom came in and started having a loud conversation. (We only had one TV.) I plead guilty to having asked people to speak quietly on occasion, generally with little or no effect.
Nowadays I live in a house with a zillion TVs, all of which have the closed captioning turned on, so it doesn’t bother me nearly as much.