My wife and I are sitting in a waiting room in a hospital while our son waits to go in for minor surgery. Sitting next to us is a family with a young boy about 8. This kids is out of control, yelling, winning, jumping up and down. Basically annoying the hell out of everyone here. Each time he does something, mom justifies it by loudly proclaiming how "spirited"he is. She then proceeds to talk to the other adult with her, their conversation is of course about the special snowflake. She is telling story after story about her son’s mia-adventures at home, the latest story about how her little angel destroyed her new NOOK e-reader, even though she asked him over and over not to play with it. And judging from the rolling eyes among ask the adults here, nobody has a problem believing this.
I can’t help thinking this entire time that what that boy needs is a good ass whipping. How in the world can this mother let this little terror run over her the way she does? I see BIG problems for this family as this kid grows up and his testosterone kicks in. he will be uncontrollable.
I really would love to say something to this mother, but won’t as it’s her kid and not really my business. Does anyone else get the urge to say something to the parental failures? I don’t don’t claim to be the best parent in the world, but my kids certainly don’t run over us and they behave in public. We have warned them of the consequences if they act up and they know we mean what we say. This mother threatens, but doesn’t back it up and the kid knows she isn’t going to do anything. It’s hard to watch.
I saw an amazing failure from a lady who was a parent, though it wasn’t her kid she was dealing with.
She a lab tech trying to take a cheek swab from a kid who was about four. She poised the little brush, but the kid, obviously getting ready to panic, wouldn’t open his mouth. The very first thing this brainiac said was, “Do you want me to draw your blood with a big needle?”
We suddenly had an airborne shrieking four year old to deal with. :smack:
As a baseball/hockey coach and a Boy Scout leader, I see it almost daily. The ones that think it’s funny when their kids act up are the worst. Luckily, most of the time, I am in a position to enforce a little discipline but if the parents don’t cooperate, it’s a tough battle.
I don’t get some of these parents. You just want to smack’em upside the head sometimes. They’re not doing their kids any favours and they are only paving the road to big problems in the future.
One of the worst I have ever seen is a boy in our troop. In fact, we refused to have him unless his mother volunteered as a leader to control him. Now he’s worse and she just laughs it off. On a recent camping trip, she rationalized his uncontrollable behaviour to the fact that they were going through withdrawal because this was the first time they had ever been away from the TV, X-Box, Internet, and their iPad.
Unbelievable… but now I know who’s doing the childraising at their house. And yes, they are obesely overweight.
Mini golf. We had just finished, and were enjoying some ice cream near the batting cages. A kid of maybe 8 was trying his best to hit the balls, and missing every one. His father was behind him, basically calling him a wuss and a loser, apparently in an effort to “encourage” him. It was a nonstop stream of future therapy. We suddenly thought of a much better use for that baseball bat.
When my niece was at tantrum age - what, two? Three? Anyway, she pitched a huge one on the floor, kicking and screaming and all, and my evil half-brother picked her up and asked “What did your mother do to you?”
The worst I see is parents issuing empty threats. They never follow through with their warnings, the kid knows that, repeat ad nauseum.
Squirming kid in line with mom for ice cream:
“Knock it off or you’re not getting ice cream.”…
“Settle down! If I have to tell you one more time no ice cream!”…
“Stop kicking! Apparently you don’t want any ice cream.”…
“Hey! Pay attention! Now tell the lady what kind of ice cream you want.”
As a former daycare teacher, when I think of bad parents, I think of unbathed kids, bruised kids, berated kids, and the kids without lunches. I don’t have kids yet, but I know how hard parenting is, so when I see a mom frustratedly issuing empty threats or not telling her kid to calm down, I try to cut them a little slack. At least they’re feeding their child.
Ha - didn’t think of it that way, but I’d say just another fine example of poor parenting that runs right up to the present day. Guess who brought home a 32 on her history interim grade report?
I have to bite my tongue every time my best friend and his fiancée bring their toddler over.
They bring no toys for her, never read to her, and when she starts curiously poking around my house, she gets yelled at (literally, “NO!” in the same tone someone uses with a dog who’s chewing the furniture). They park her in front of the TV with brain cell-killing shows in an effort to keep her preoccupied. They ask me if I have anything to drink for her, and I offer skim milk. They decline, saying, “She doesn’t like skim milk.” (No, motherfucker, YOU don’t like skim milk. You’ve never let HER try it!) Instead they opt for sugary 15% juice.
My GF and I have had several discussions about this. This child is going to turn into an over-sugared, either hyperactive or obese teenager with absolutely no curiosity about the world since she’s punished every time she displays curiosity. She’s going to end up pregnant at 16 and devoid of ambition and we’re helpless to do anything, since telling our friends they’re horrible parents will effectively end the friendship.
Similar to Agent Foxtrot’s story, mine involves a little girl who, often wondering what’s going on at the gaming table, will climb up on a chair and try to pick up one of the dice / cards / gaming books. She was not only screamed at, but her hand was hit / slapped away, because dad doesn’t want the possibility that one of his books / cards / minis -might- be damaged.
The first time it happened, I made a mental note never to game with that couple again, a thought I’ve stuck with since. Way to discourage your kid from being interested / inquisitive into your hobbies!
Every freaking day. My neighbor is a house with 10 kids, one mom who is rarely there and an tiny, old aunt who does everything. When the mom is there she is cussing at the kids for stupid, petty stuff. Storming out of the house after an 8 year old, yelling “get your fucking ass back here” for example. Then she makes them do something trivial, like pick up one piece of paper from their trash strun yard.
Oddly, the kids are generally polite but pepper their speech with cuss words. They call each other vile names but they are friendly to us and seem to be cared for so I haven’t called child services yet.
Our water heater decided to spew its final remains all over our garage the other day (which given the age of it, we expected it to go sooner or later anyway) and we ended up going to McDonald’s to grab a bite, since I didn’t want to cook dinner because I had no way to wash up afterwards (Stickman and his father were in the process of installing a new one).
As we usually do, we let Slim go play in the PlayPlace. There is a large, plastic sign ziptied to the climbing structure detailing the rules. At one point, maybe 5-10 min after Slim disappeared inside the tunnels, a kid in a karate uniform comes running up, screaming bloody murder, does a jump and kicks out at the sign. His parents were like “Aww…he’s using what he learned in class!”. Karate Kid stepped back a couple of feet, ran at the sign and kicked it again, like he was trying to use his foot to break it in half. Only Stickman’s hand on my arm and a whispered “Don’t you do it!” kept me from getting up to ask the kid to stop doing that.
It’s not really my place to coach them on their parenting skills. Besides, if there’s one thing you can tell anyone to anger them, it’s that they’re a bad parent. It seems to cut deeper than any other insult.
I have to bite my tongue every time my best friend talks about her son’s latest drama. She’s a nice person but she has enabled her ne’er do well layabout bum for 30 years now. I’m frankly surprised that he’s able to wipe his own ass.
Parents who think it’s a daycare and let their spawn run around like in a schoolyard. No thought that with my hands full of hot bowls of hot soup I’m really not watching for darting munchkins!
Worse still, bring your child into an upscale restaurant, wherein they are mostly well behaved throughout the meal, but now they’ve eaten, and are powered up and bored. The dutiful server heads over to offer the check, in a timely fashion, only to be told, that the adults intend to linger over coffee, etc. WTF? Are you blind? It’s enough, your children are done, how can you not see that?
Or high end catering, corporate events in places like art galleries, are no places for your children. Yes, I know your boss expects you there, and you had to pick your kid up from day care. But there is nothing there for your child to do but knock things over and get pinched in the door. I’ve seen this more times than I can count. Don’t do it!
Don’t have kids, but have two large dogs that I leash walk near the park. Hate, hate, hate hearing a parent threaten a misbehaving child with “Do what I tell you or the big dogs will bite you.”