While reading this thread, I started wondering what advice we parent Dopers might give non-parent Dopers about kids / parents /etc…?
I’ll start off and say that if you’re in a family type restaurant, grocery store, etc… sometimes toddlers and babies are going to cry and throw temper tantrums. Good parents try and calm their kids down, take them outside, etc… but it’s just not reasonable to expect that all small children will be well-behaved in public all the time. Bitching and whining about loud children is not appreciated, and often the only thing keeping some snarky jerk complaining about the teething toddler from getting a royal ass-chewing or worse is the desire not to provide a bad example to one’s children.
By family type restaurant, I mean Chili’s, Olive Garden, local burger joints, etc… where children are commonly taken. If you’re unfortunate enough to plan your special dinners-out at one of those places and get torqued that a unruly toddler wrecked your evening, that’s your problem, not mine.
Here is a question from a non-parent Doper. If I am standing behind you in line, and I see your kid gearing up for a temper tantrum, sometimes I can distract them out of it by asking them (the kid) a question, or chatting to them about something.
Sometimes this goes over well. Sometimes I get a scathing look from the parent. Can you tell me why? I thought I was helping! The kid has (usually) been distracted from whatever they were whining about, and everyone is peaceful. Did I miss something? is there something I don’t know?
Personally, I wouldn’t mind. Actually, I’ve done similar things, but to be honest, I get a really odd look from some parents. I am a (roughly) 30 year old male though. Although the same parents wouldn’t look at me oddly when I was at work (until recently, I was a children’s librarian) the fact that I work with kids all day isn’t known when I interact with their child in the store, etc. I assumed it was because I was a male, and (again, until recently) I worked with people who believed that every male must have a background check to be in a public place in which a child might go, and they needed a copy of it.
I think some parents can feel like it takes away from the point they are making. There are times when a child is getting ready to throw the tantrum, but the parent has said “No, and I’m standing my ground, put the toy back” or whatever, which is fine, but a distraction may mean that the child will just do it again in a little while. This is my guess, because I know I’ve thought that, but I’ve never been less than thankful for a distraction with a grumpy kid…
This sounds about right to me, but I’d appreciate the intervention and welcome the distraction. I’m nearly always grateful when someone initiates a polite conversation with my children.
That makes sense. But that’s not at the point where I intervene. When the conversation is still happening, I don’t get involved, only when the kid is already scrunching his eyes up to cry or is already crying and we make eye contact. Sometimes I’ll make a funny face, or just smile, or say something silly, like “Look at this sad face! What a sad face!”
Sometimes I have been able to confuse the kids into stopping crying!
^This bears repeating. Do not have kids unless you really want them. Having a child changes your entire world, in expected, and sometimes unexpected ways. Your relationship with your spouse/partner will be forever changed - sometimes in good ways, and sometimes not. Think long and hard about it, then discuss it long and hard with your spouse/partner, then think more. Be sure you want to do this. There is no going back.
Make sure you get the big things you dream of doing done when you are young and child-free.
If you’re behind us in a supermarket, or next to us in a restaurant, and the kid starts misbehaving and we cave and give them the stupid toy or bag of gummy bears or whatever it is they’re complaining about instead of doing some PERFECT ULTIMATE PARENTING!!!, don’t automatically assume that’s the way we parent all the time and that we’re raising horrible little monsters. Maybe the kid’s been having a bad day, maybe we really, really have to get the grocery shopping done in the next 20 minutes so we can pick up the other kids from school, maybe we’re out at dinner because we didn’t get the grocery shopping done and we just want the kid to shut up for 30 minutes instead of taking them out and not getting to eat a warm meal at all.
Small children don’t understand not to kick seats in an airplane.
My son (who was 2) was occasionally kicking the seat in front of him. I admonished him and told him not to, but a few minutes later, he was back at it. It wasn’t cool. It was annoying, but I was doing the best I could. Please try to be understanding. I could have yelled at him and made him cry, but that seemed like the wrong move on a full plane.
I’m not a parent, but MOL said something to me in a thread once that resonated with me. You think those parents over there have horrible kids? They scream, and yell, and kick everything? They are enormously energetic?
Well, you just have to deal with them for a little bit. They have to put up with that shit ALL THE TIME.
Every year I grow older I grow way more patient with parents, with the caveat of course, parents who actually care. But I even sympathize with the weary-looking chick whose kids are running around like maniacs. It may make me unhappy, but hell, I don’t have to go home with them, I made wiser choices (than this one woman!, not every parent), and I will soon never see the kids again.
That’s a comforting thought.
ETA: Oh, and kids have a memory/attention span about this big. If you hear a parent saying something over and over, and the kid listens, but starts back up in a few moments, be patient - they are trying. Usually you hear the parent’s firmness go up, though. “What did I just say?”
That sort of thing wouldn’t have bothered me all that much, but I know that some parents would feel that it’s a form of gratification for the child, and that doesn’t help them to learn that tantrums don’t get positive results.
I would try and resolve the problem by scaring the shit out of the kid. Presumably they already know their parents won’t slap them silly, but how about a strange adult with an enraged look on his face and maybe a clenched fist too?
I’m a parent, but my child is an adult. I snuck her in right before being an insane hypervigilant helicopter became the gold standard of parenting.
My advice to non-parents is this: today’s children rule the roost. While a non-parent may see a tot squealing and flinging food at the Olive Garden as a disturbance that should be quieted or removed, a parent only sees other people’s children this way. They believe that the fact that their child is disturbing others is not a call to action on their part and that they are entitled to be anywhere “family-friendly” they please with the angry mini-tyrant, as if no one under twelve can ever keep themselves under control and behave themselves in a manner that is not disruptive to others. Anyone that does not “understand” that their child simply must kick things, scream, cry, and carry on at the expense of others is a jerk, not their precious princeling and certainly not them.
When I was a child back in the dark ages, parents had all sorts of remedies for these behaviors. None of them involved appealing to the child’s sense of reason and decency, because back then, it was nearly universally recognized that we are not born with such things.
Once someone has been enslaved by a child, the person you used to know is gone, replaced by someone who thinks even a stranger scowling at their screaming brat is in the wrong. If they didn’t want to pick half-chewed fries out of their hair, what were they doing at Chili’s anyway?
Oh, no, I do not want to share this communication with the parents or other adults – just a private little look that says, “STFU, kid, or I’m gonna brain you!”
If you are watching some mom lugging a baby carrier with a sobbing baby in it, trying to empty her shopping cart while her toddler is grabbing gum off the bottom shelf next to the cashier and she snaps at her kid? Try saying, “hey, can I help you unload your groceries? You look like you could use another set of hands.” Do it with a sympathetic smile. If you have the chops, distract the toddler cheerfully.
When someone’s kid is being unpleasant, do not ever criticize the parent in any way no matter how subtle you think you are being. We already feel bad, okay? Nobody wants their kid to make a scene, and we know it is seen as a reflection on us.
Oh, also do not, in casual conversation, mention how your dogs are well behaved so if you can train a dog you are sure you can train a child. It marks you as pathetically ignorant. Raising children is not like training animals. At all, as far as I can tell.
Nonsense. My wife and I had several meals with our first daughter where only one of us got to eat at a time, because the other one was walking the fussy kid outside so other diners wouldn’t be disturbed, and even more meals where we walked the fussy kid outside until the food came, because until she had food in her she couldn’t behave. And even more meals eaten at home because we reserved restaurant meals for rare treats or road food. And no meals (except date nights) at restaurants where dogs weren’t allowed, because that was our rule-of-thumb about whether a baby could even be risked in the place.
These days we have two kids, and we don’t eat at restaurants that lack outside seating, plus we do the “walk the fussy kid away from the restaurant” thing as much as necessary. Diners don’t get to be disturbed by our kid, because we don’t let them be.
Parents still set high expectations for their children. And your kids probably weren’t as well-behaved as the gentle mists of memory make them appear. Things weren’t better in your day, and today’s kids/parents/whippersnappers don’t need to get off your lawn.
